The use of communication strategies by students of English and German philology in the course of communicative task performance: Results of a study Cover Image

Użycie strategii komunikacyjnych przez studentów filologii angielskiej i germańskiej w trakcie wykonywania zadań komunikacyjnych – wyniki projektu badawczego
The use of communication strategies by students of English and German philology in the course of communicative task performance: Results of a study

Author(s): Mirosław Pawlak, Joanna Chojnacka-Gärtner
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Education, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Akademia Nauk Stosowanych w Koninie
Keywords: communication strategies; interactional approach; communicative task performance; English and German philology

Summary/Abstract: Research into communication strategies (CS), understood as actions which enable learners to attain their intended communicative goals despite lacking target language resources, are currently conducted much less frequently than used to be the case in the last decade of the previous century. Such a situation is disconcerting since not all strategies of this kind are equally effective, not only with respect to getting the message across but also to contributing to the development of communicative competence. For this reason, it is necessary to undertake further research projects that would lead to the identification of CS that are the most useful, in particular those deployed in the course of communicative task performance. Therefore, the aim of the study reported in the present paper was to explore the communication strategies employed by advanced foreign language learners, students of English and German philology Mirosław Pawlak, Joanna Chojnacka-Gärtner 384 enrolled in the first year of an MA program, during two communication tasks, a discussion and a spot-the-difference task. Data were collected by means of two questionnaires, one including open ended questions and the other Likertscale items, completed right after task completion. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis demonstrated that although there were no differences concerning overall application of CS, discrepancies could be detected in the case of some of the categories of CS as well as the tasks performed.

  • Issue Year: 3/2015
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 383-399
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish