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Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 30:1 (2017) ► pp.23–51

The effects of proficiency on Spanish L2 learners’ strategic communication

| Universidad Andres Bello

This study investigates the effects of Spanish L2 learners’ proficiency levels on their use of communication strategies in face-to-face interactions. Spoken data was elicited by means of a task-based methodology from different level learners in interaction with other learners and Spanish NSs. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to investigate a possible association between the learners’ proficiency levels and their communication strategy use. The analysis drew on Dӧrnyei & Kӧrmos’ (1998) taxonomy. Findings indicate a higher strategy use in beginner levels, and their tendency to tackle lexis-related problems, as well as less complex grammatical features of the language. Higher level learners, however, focused more on grammar-related problems, as well as on more complex aspects of the target language.

Keywords: communication strategies, proficiency, L2 communication, lexis-related problems, grammar-related problems
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Communication strategies
    • 2.1Empirical considerations
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data elicitation tasks
    • 3.3Procedures
    • 3.4Data analysis
      • 3.4.1Analytical framework used for the identification of the CSs
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Distribution of CS usage
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Lexical PSM-L2 resource deficit
      • 5.1.1Message abandonment
      • 5.1.2Restructure
      • 5.1.3Code-switching
    • 5.2Grammatical PSM-L2 RD
      • 5.2.1Grammatical reduction
      • 5.2.2Grammatical substitution
    • 5.3Phonological-articulatory PSM-L2 RD
      • 5.3.1Lexical tip of the tongue
      • 5.3.2Morphological tip of the tongue
    • 5.4PSM related to own output problems
      • 5.4.1Error-repair
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.30.1.02ros
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