Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use

Abstract

Reviews Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use by Ellen Bialystok. Applied Linguistics Series, D. Crystal and K. Johnson, Eds., Cambridge, MA.: Basil Blackwell, 1990. vi pp. Reviewed by James E. Purpura University of California, Los Angeles Over interest in the cognitive processes the past fifteen years, there has been an increased which account for how the learner of a second language (L2) handles conceptual and linguistic input, how this learner processes this information to allow for intake, and how the newly-acquired knowledge is used to produce messages in the L2. Second-language learning strategy research focuses on the processes and strategies used to perceive, internalize and automatize new linguistic input, with emphasis on language learning. Bialystok's work. Communication Strategies, however, differs from other books on strategy research (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Wenden, 1991) in that it takes a much narrower focus, concentrating on the processes and strategies a learner invokes when declarative and procedural knowledge are utilized to communicate a message. The emphasis of this book is on language use and the linguistic and cognitive processes involved in communication. Thus, in providing an in depth analysis of the processes and strategies used in language production. Communication Strategies provides a unique contribution to learning strategy research. Bialystok's overall goal in Communication Strategies is to find a means of explaining how strategies function in the speech of L2 learners (p. 13). The book contains a preface, eight chapters, notes, references and an index. In Chapter 1 Bialystok finds all the definitions of communication strategies commonly used in strategy research to be ambiguous. explicitly, the undue emphasis Bialystok also criticizes, although not in strategy research on definitions and proposes an approach to investigating communication strategies fully incorporates the identification, explanation, and instruction of communication strategies. The remaining chapters of which the book are organized around these three points. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 address the question of how to identify and categorize strategic behavior in the communication of L2 learners. Chapters 5,