LESSON

COMMUNICATION
10 STRATEGIES IN
DIFFERENT SITUATIONS
GRADE 11, Second Semester, Q2- Wk 2

What I Need to Know?

This lesson contains varied activities to help you as a Senior High School
student not only be effective in communication skills, but also a creative and critical
thinker as well as responsible and adaptive to changes.
The following are the lessons contained in this Module:
❖ Communication strategies
❖ Employs various communicative strategies in different situations

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. distinguish various types of Communication strategy;

2. use acceptable, polite, and meaningful communicative strategies; and
3. reflect on your learning on the type of speech acts.

What I Know?

Multiple Choice. Select the letter of your choice from the given choices.

1. Cohen (1990) states that strategies must be used to start and maintain a ______.
A. Application B. Conversation C. Strategy D. Communication
2. A strategy when you try to open a topic with the people you are talking to.
A. Nomination B. Restriction C. Turn-taking D. Termination
3. It refers to the conversation participants’ close-initiating expressions that end a topic
in a conversation.
A. Nomination B. Restriction C. Turn-taking D. Termination
4. in communication it refers to any limitation you may have as a speaker.
A. Nomination B. Restriction C. Turn-taking D. Termination
5. It pertains to the process by which people decide who takes the conversational floor.
A. Nomination B. Restriction C. Turn-taking D. Termination

What’s In

A speech act is an utterance that a speaker makes to achieve an intended

effect. Some of the functions which are carried out using speech acts are offering an
apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal. A speech act
might contain just one word or several words or sentences. For example, “Thanks”
and “Thank you for always being there for me. I really appreciate it” both show
appreciation regardless of the length of the statement.

There are three Types of Speech Act according to J. L. Austin (1962). These
include:
1. Locutionary act is the actual act of uttering.
“Please do the dishes.”
2. Illocutionary act is the social function of what is said.
By uttering the locution “Please do the dishes,” the speaker requests the
addressee to wash the dishes.
3. Perlocutionary act is the resulting act of what is said. This effect is based
on the particular context in which the speech act was mentioned.
“Please do the dishes” would lead to the addressee washing the dishes.
Searle’s Classifications of Speech Act

There are five (5) distinct categories of Speech Acts(Searle, ): Assertive,

Directive, Commissive, Expressive and Declaration.

What’s New

Engaging in conversation is bound by implicit rules, Cohen (1990) stressed. As

such, students should use communication strategies to start and maintain a
conversation. Knowing and applying grammar appropriately is one of the most basic
strategies to maintain a conversation. The following are some strategies that people
use when communicating.
1. Nomination
A speaker carries out nomination to collaboratively and productively establish a
topic. Basically, when you employ this strategy, you try to open a topic with the people
you are talking to.
When beginning a topic in a conversation, especially if it does not arise from a
previous topic, you may start off with news inquiries and news announcements as they
promise extended talk. Most importantly, keep the conversational environment open
for opinions until the prior topic shuts down easily and initiates a smooth end. This
could efficiently signal the beginning of a new topic in the conversation.

2. Restriction
Restriction in communication refers to any limitation you may have as a speaker.
When communicating in the classroom, in a meeting, or while hanging out with your
friends, you are typically given specific instructions that you must follow. These
instructions confine you as a speaker and limit what you can say.
For example, in your class, you might be asked by your teacher to brainstorm on
peer pressure or deliver a speech on digital natives. In these cases, you cannot decide
to talk about something else. On the other hand, conversing with your friends during
ordinary days can be far more casual than these examples. Just the same, remember
to always be on point and avoid sideswiping from the topic during the conversation to
avoid communication breakdown.

3. Turn-taking
Sometimes people are given unequal opportunities to talk because others take
much time during the conversation. Turn-taking pertains to the process by which
people decide who takes the conversational floor. There is a code of behavior behind
establishing and sustaining a productive conversation, but the primary idea is to give
all communicators a chance to speak.
Remember to keep your words relevant and reasonably short enough to express
your views or feelings. Try to be polite even if you are trying to take the floor from
another speaker. Do not hog the conversation and talk incessantly without letting the
other party air out their own ideas. To acknowledge others, you may employ visual
signals like a nod, a look, or a step back, and you could accompany these signals with
spoken cues such as “What do you think?” or “You wanted to say something?”

4. Topic Control
Topic control covers how procedural formality or informality affects the
development of topic in conversations. For example, in meetings, you may only have
a turn to speak after the chairperson directs you to do so. Contrast this with a casual
conversation with friends over lunch or coffee where you may take the conversational
floor anytime.
Remember that regardless of the formality of the context, topic control is achieved
cooperatively. This only means that when a topic is initiated, it should be collectively
developed by avoiding unnecessary interruptions and topic shifts. You can make
yourself actively involved in the conversation without overly dominating it by using
minimal responses like “Yes,” “Okay,” “Go on”; asking tag questions to clarify
information briefly like “You are excited, aren’t you?”, “It was unexpected, wasn’t it?”;
and even by laughing!

5. Topic Shifting
Topic shifting, as the name suggests, involves moving from one topic to another.
In other words, it is where one part of a conversation ends and where another begins.
When shifting from one topic to another, you have to be very intuitive. Make sure that
the previous topic was nurtured enough to generate adequate views. You may also
use effective conversational transitions to indicate a shift like “By the way,” “In addition
to what you said,” “Which reminds me of,” and the like.

6. Repair
Repair refers to how speakers address the problems in speaking, listening, and
comprehending that they may encounter in a conversation. For example, if everybody
in the conversation seems to talk at the same time, give way and appreciate other’s
initiative to set the conversation back to its topic. Repair is the self-righting mechanism
in any social interaction (Schegloff et al, 1977). If there is a problem in understanding
the conversation, speakers will always try to address and correct it. Although this is
the case, always seek to initiate the repair.

7. Termination
Termination refers to the conversation participants’ close-initiating expressions
that end a topic in a conversation. Most of the time, the topic initiator takes
responsibility to signal the end of the discussion as well. Although not all topics may
have clear ends, try to signal the end of the topic through concluding cues. You can
do this by sharing what you learned from the conversation. Aside from this, soliciting
agreement from the other participants usually completes the discussion of the topic
meaningfully.

What Is It

TASK: Identify the type of communication strategy used in each statement.

__________1. “Do you have anything to say?”

__________2. “One of the essential lessons I gained from the
discussion is the importance of sports and wellness to a
healthy lifestyle.”
__________3. “Excuse me? I think we should speak one at a time, so
we can clearly understand what we want to say about the
issue.”
__________4. “Go on with your ideas. I’ll let you finish first before I say
 something.”
__________5. “Have you heard the news about the latest achievement
of our government?”
__________6. “Hey, how are you? I missed you!”
__________7. “Best regards to your parents! See you around!”
__________8. “Good to see you. Anyway, I came to visit you because I want to
personally offer apologies for what I did yesterday.”
__________9. “Sorry, I can’t decide on that now. I am still focused on
my writing assignment. Let’s talk next time, okay?”
__________10. “Now, it’s your turn to ask questions.”

What’s More

Task: Think of three scenes from a movie or a TV show where various

communicative strategies were employed in a conversation. Watch the
scenes and evaluate the effect of the strategy applied to the conversation
and to the characters. List your evaluations in the table below.
Movie (scene and Communicative Effect on the Effect on the
context;characters) strategy applied conversation characters
 What I Have Learned

Directions: Create a three-minute tourism commercial. When writing your

script for the commercial, answer these 10 questions.
•Why do tourists visit this place?
•What do many visitors like to do here?
•What would be best for a day trip?
•What should one do for a good night out?
•Where can visitors get the best food?
•Where can visitors buy their souvenirs?
•What outdoor activities are famous?
•What is amazing about the weather?
•What is the best thing to do here during summer?
•What do tourists say about this vacation spot?

t
What I Can Do

Activity.

Think of a time when you had to explain one message in two different
instances with varying contexts. For example, you might have told your parents
over dinner how badly you want to study in your dream university and in another
instance, you talked about the same thing with your friends while having coffee.

Write an essay with a minimum of 500 words. Discuss why your

communicative strategies change as there are adjustments in every speech
context, speech style, and speech act. In addition, discuss your language, duration
of interaction, your relationship to the listener, your roles and responsibilities as a
speaker, your message, and your delivery and how these differ in the two varying
instances and contexts.
 REFERENCES
https://www.slideshare.net/englishIT/communication-strategies-
70782108#:~:text=Restriction%20Communicative%20Strategy%20is%20a,is%20made%
20by%20the%20Speaker.
https://oralcom.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/types-of-communicative-strategy/
https://quizlet.com/252348869/oral-communication-communicative-strategies-
and-types-of-speeches-flash-cards/
https://www.scribd.com/document/390245737/7-Types-of-Communicative-
Strategies
https://prezi.com/xo34yinywnlf/communicative-strategies/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-communication-strategies-
definition-types-examples.html
https://www.academia.edu/34107770/Types_of_Communicative_Strategy

Notes to the Teacher

Supply the correct answer while checking the returned module; so that students can
confirm the correct and wrong answers.

Make sure to jot down comments and remarks in checking the returned modules
inorder to reassure your students that you (his/her teacher), still facilitates her / his
learning.