the students need to employ speaking strategies (SS) which are commonly referred to communication strategies (CSs).
Communication strategies are defined as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared”.25 Tarone’s perspective of communication strategies may be seen as attempts to bridge the gap between the linguistic knowledge of the speaker and the listener to the target language in real communication situation.
Achievement/compensatory strategies may be used to bridge this gap, while avoidance/reduction strategies may be used where the gap is perceived as unbridgeable. Similar to Tarone, Bialystok also defined communication strategies as “all attempts to manipulate a limited linguistic system in order to promote communication.”26 Bialystok’s perspective about communication strategies may be seen as demeanors for those cases in which communication is disrupted because of an inadequate linguistic knowledge and an impasse in the minds of what they are talking in the target language of both speakers and listeners.
In line with Tarone and Bialystok, Faerch and Kasper defined communication strategies as “the potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal.”27 According to them, when speakers cannot find a way to communicate without problems, they turn to strategies to
25 Tarone, Elaine.1983. Some thoughts on the notion of communication strategy. In Claus Faerch & Gabriele Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication (p. 61-74). New York: Longman Inc.
26 Bialystok, Ellen. 1983. Some factors in the selection and implementation of communication strategies. In Claus Faerch & Gabriele Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication (p. 100-118). New York: Longman Inc.
27 Faerch, Clause & Kasper, Gabriele. 1983. On identifying communication strategies in interlanguage production. In Claus Faerch & Gabriele Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication (p. 210-238). New York: Longman Inc.
deal with the problems they encounter while communicating.
This coincides with Corder who defined communication strategies as “a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced with some difficulty”. 28
Those definitions of communication strategies show that there are two key concepts into discussion of com munication strategies: problem orientedness and consciousness. In the case of the former, communication strategies are “employed by the learner because he/she lacks or cannot gain access to the linguistic resources required to express an intended meaning”.29 Mei and Nathalang argued that problem orientedness included “strategies are adopted when problems in either learning or production are perceived problems that may interrupt communication”.30 It may be a strategy employed by a learner to express the meaning of messages when encountered with a problem which is unique to the learner’s inadequate command of the language used in communication. Furthermore, in the case of the latter,
“they are the result of communication strategies that are consciously employed by the learner in order to reduce or replace some elements of meaning or form in the initial plan”.31 This coincides with Mei and Nathalang (2010) who put forward that consciousness “refers to either the learner’s awareness that a strategy is being employed for particular purpose, or the awareness of how that strategy may lead to an intended effect”. These concepts underlie the notion
28 Corder, S. P. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29 Ellis, R.1986. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30 Mei, An & Nathalang, Sanooch. 2010. Use of Communication Strategies by Chinese EFL Learners. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics (Biomontly), (Online), 33 (3): 110-125.Retrieved from http://www.docjax.com).
that communication strategies are employed when a learner perceivesa problem which interrupts communication.
The notion of communication strategies (CSs) in second and foreign language acquisition is still a topic of different perspective that makes it appears in various theoretical perspectives. Concerning the various perspectives of communication strategies (CSs), Tarone (1983) viewed communication strategies from a discourse of analytical perspective and pursued an interactional approach. Faerch and Kasper (1983) considered communication strategies as verbal plans within a speech production framework by adopting psycholinguistic approach. This coincides with Bialystok (1983) who regarded communication strategies as primary mental events and adopts a psycholinguistic approach to his analysis.
In spite of diversity, to arrive at a better understanding of why communication strategies (CSs) have appeared such diverse approaches, this study looks closer and works at two major perspectives, namely the interactional and psycholinguistic perspectives. The interactional perspective pays attention to the way which students use communication strategies during speaking acts which help them to improve negotiation of meaning. This perspective of communication strategies focuses on the interaction process between speakers and their interlocutors, and in particular the way in which meaning is negotiated by one or both parties (Nakatani and Goh, 2010). Meanwhile, the psycholinguistic perspective points out on mental processes underlying the students’ language behavior when dealing with problems of lexical and discourse in speaking acts.This perspective “examines students’ problem-solving behaviors arising from gaps in their lexical knowledge” (Nakatani and Goh, 2010). It regards the students’ problem-solving
behavior during communication of the TL as involving communication strategies, and students have a tendency to use communication strategies to compensate for their lack of target language (TL) knowledge.
For all that diversity of perspectives on communication strategies, the main useful insight about communication strategies is one set of verbal and nonverbal tactics or strategies in which the students can employ to surmount the communication problems in order communication transpires in a proper manner to make communication more effective. Communication strategies are considered as the matter that can facilitate the students when TL linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge are limited in conveying and comprehending the message with interlocutors in taking turns speaking. This implies that both the problem and its solution must somehow surface in the performance, which enables the writer to identify communication strategies that the students employed and the problems leading to the use of specific strategies directly in taking turns speaking performance.