Communication Strategies in L1 and L2: Same or Different?1

This paper sets out to explore similarities and differences in L1 and L2 referential communication. Some inadequacies in existing taxonomies of L2 communication strategies are pointed out and an alternative taxonomy is presented in which similar distinctions are proposed to the ones made in studies of L1 referential communication. An account of an experiment is given in which native speakers of Dutch had to describe, first in Dutch and then in English, a set of unconventional abstract shapes which have been used in a long series of studies of L1 referential communication initiated by Krauss and Weinheimer (1964). It is demonstrated that the referential behaviour of the subjects in both task versions can be described in terms of choices between two main strategies: subjects set out to describe the shapes from a holistic or a segmental perspective. In both task versions subjects exhibited a strong preference for holistic perspectives. Differences between the two task versions were mainly quantitative in nature. In particular, subjects needed much more time for the English version than for the Dutch version.