Tarone, Cohen, and Dumas (1976) were the
first to recognize learners’ problem-solving behavior
during TL communication as “communication
strategy.” They discussed that learners tend
to use CSs to compensate for their lack of appropriate
TL knowledge when expressing or decoding
the meaning of their intended utterances.
Tarone (1980) regarded CSs as the “mutual attempts
of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning
in a situation where the requisite meaning structures
do not seem to be shared” (p. 420). She
emphasized interactional aspects of CSs that contain
any attempts to avoid communication disruptions.
Much attention has been paid to CSs since
Canale and Swain (1980) presented their influential
model of communicative competence. As one
of the subcompetencies in the model, they defined
CSs as strategic competence involving the
ability to use verbal and nonverbal strategies to
avoid communication breakdowns that might be
caused by learners’ lack of appropriate knowledge