Communication Strategies in the Written Medium The Effect of Language Proficiency.docVIP

Communication Strategies in the Written Medium: The Effect of Language Proficiency* Mohammad Aliakbari (Ilam)/Nabi Karimi Allvar (Tehran) Abstract Although much has been written on communication strategies (CS), in the sense of potential- ly conscious plans for solving problems encountered in reaching particular communicative goals, there still remain large gaps in our knowledge in this respect. One area worthy of atten- tion, and not totally clarified, is whether these strategies are applied and workable in writing as frequently as they are in speaking tasks. Accordingly, the present study aimed at pitting the use of CS against language proficiency level in argumentative writing of Iranian university students. The results of the Chi-Square tests run for the purpose of investigating the hypo- theses showed that language proficiency was highly related with the use of more Reconceptu- alization Strategies which are thought to be psycho linguistically more demanding compared with Substitution Strategies. 1 Introduction It is a solid fact that no second language learners, or even no native speakers linguistic reper- toire or control of language is perfect. Native as well as non-native speakers of a particular language sometimes struggle to find the appropriate expression or grammatical structure when they intend to get their meaning across. The ways in which an individual speaker attempts to compensate for this gap between what he intends to communicate and his imme- diately available linguistic resources are known as communication strategies CS (Faucette 2001). They are in fact conceptualized as problem-solving devices whose conscious imple- mentation is directed towards counteracting the imbalance between ends and means typical of L2 learners productive uses of language (Manchon 2000: 14f.). The term CS was first coined and introduced by Selinker (1972) in his seminal article t