Types of

Communicative
Strategies
People communicate every day to establish and
maintain relationships, know and understand
themselves, and find meaning in the daily grind.
Moreover, since humans are social beings who survive
more effectively through sensible discourses, they are
always driven to learn the skills of creating and
sustaining meaningful conversations. Successful
communication requires understanding of the
relationship between words and sentences and the
speech acts they represent. However, a conversation
may be complex at times; that is why some people get
lost along the way and misunderstand each other. It is
only when we willingly cooperate and speak in
sociallyapproved ways that we can make a conversation
meaningfu
Since engaging in conversation is also bound by
implicit rules, Cohen (1990) states that strategies
must be used 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.
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.
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.
 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?”
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!
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.
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.
 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.