Overview on Referential Communication

Referential communication occurs when two speakers exchange information, making acts of reference.  A speaker refers to entities (things and people) and their location or movement, by naming or describing them clearly that a listener can identify them (which one exactly?), their locations (where exactly?) and movements (what did they do exactly?).

Acts of reference are evaluated in terms of their communicative effectiveness, not their grammatical accuracy: is the speaker successful in referring the listener to the intended entity or action?  Certain linguistic forms in every language are useful as tools that enable speakers to refer to entities more clearly.

In English for example, if you want to look more closely at one of the cars to the left, and the salesman asks ‘which one?’  you can refer precisely to the one you want by using:

·         names (the Corvette)

·         noun modifiers, like adjectives (the light green car)

·         prepositional phrases (the car in the upper right-hand corner)

·         relative clauses (the car that you just put on the shelf ).

Different languages have different linguistic devices that help make acts of reference effective.  

Old and New Information

In effective referential communication in all languages, the speaker indicates to the listener whether what is being referred to is given (or old) information, which the speaker assumes the listener already knows about or can identify from what’s already been said, or new information, something the speaker assumes the listener does not already know about.

Communication Strategies

It is common for learners of a language to have difficulty with referential communication.  For example, they may not know the names for a great many things they want to refer to.  In such cases, they may get around such gaps in their learner language by using a communication strategy (Tarone & Yule 1989). Examples of communication strategies include gestures, paraphrases or literal translations from their native language, or descriptions of the characteristics or functions of the entity they want to refer to.  There are names for many of these communication strategies:

Circumlocution: describing a referent in terms of its elements, function or purpose (e.g., a ‘crutch’ is ‘something you lean on when your leg is broken’)
Word coinage: making up a word (e.g., ‘airball’ when you don’t know the word ‘balloon’)
Approximation: using a word that shares semantic space with the desired word (e.g., ‘stick’ instead of ‘crutch’)
Literal translation: translating word for word from the native language
Appeal for assistance: asking someone for the word or phrase you need

If we can give learners opportunities to use such communication strategies, we can support their creativity and improvisational skill in using the language forms they know, engaging others in conversations that provide them with additional input and, possibly, corrective feedback to fuel the acquisition process.

http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/index.html