Receptive and Productive Communication Strategies

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This paper will describe the results of a month-long investigation of the communication strategies of a 13 year-old English-Japanese passive bilingual girl, Ayumi, whose stronger language is English. The primary aim of this research is to investigate her receptive and productive communication strategies, particularly in terms of the types of strategies she uses in her weaker language, Japanese.

The study made use of a primarily qualitative framework, in which two 20 minute conversations were videotaped once a week for one month. One of these weekly conversations was with her Grandmother with whom she was well acquainted, and the other one with an adult native speaker of Japanese with whom she was not acquainted.

Findings indicated that while Ayumi used a variety of strategies to communicate effectively in Japanese, she was much less able to use the same strategies when she spoke with the speaker with whom she was not familiar. This was simply not due to her shyness. The use of honorific was problematic for her. Findings will be described in detail and possible implications for the role of parents and educators in helping passive bilingual children to use effective communication strategies in their second language will be discussed.

Stream: Literacy, Language, Multiliteracies; Languages Education and Second Language Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Dr. Andrea Carlson is interested in primarily in issues related to identity in multilingual children and adults, as well as in the roles computer networks can play in helping to develop reading and writing skills in young multilingual learners. Her background is in Computer Assisted Language Learning.

Dr. Reiko Furuya is interested in issues related to bi/multilingual language acquisition and and bi/multilingual identity. She has carried out research on the roles of the family and educational environment in developing balanced bilingualism in children and young adults. Reiko Furuya's background is in Linguistics.