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

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The effects of proficiency on Spanish L2 learners’ strategic communication

 | Universidad Andres Bello
Published online: 23 November 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.30.1.02ros
Abstract
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.
Resumen
El objetivo de este estudio fue investigar cómo los distintos niveles de competencia de aprendices de español como L2 afectan su uso de estrategias de comunicación en interacciones cara a cara. Mediante una metodología basada en tareas, se recolectó un corpus oral producido por aprendices con distintos niveles de competencia al interactuar con otros aprendices y hablantes nativos del español. Los datos fueron analizados cuantitativa y cualitativamente para investigar una posible asociación entre los diferentes niveles de competencia de estos aprendices y su uso de las estrategias de comunicación. Para dicho análisis se utilizó la taxonomía de Dӧrnyei y Kӧrmos (1998). Los resultados indican diferencias en las estrategias utilizadas por los aprendices de acuerdo a su nivel. El nivel elemental hizo un mayor uso de las estrategias y mostró una tendencia por resolver problemas del tipo léxico, así como problemas del tipo gramatical pero de menor complejidad. En cambio, los aprendices de niveles superiores se enfocaron en problemas de tipo gramatical y en aspectos más complejos de la L2.
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
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