Research on Communication Barriers and Communication Strategy Utilization among International Students in China

Employing a combined approach of oral task interviews and immediate follow-up visits, this study investigates the communication barriers encountered by international students in spoken Chinese interactions and examines the communication strategies they employ. It focuses on exploring whether differences in Chinese language proficiency influence the utilization of communication strategies among international students in China. The research identifies ten categories of communication barriers, including misinterpretation, perceived rapid speech by interlocutors, and incorrect usage of Chinese vocabulary among others. Moreover, the study identifies twenty-two categories of communication strategies predominantly used by international students, such as direct requests for clarification, syntactic simplification, non-verbal strategies, gap-filling words, and inference. Language proficiency differences in Chinese have been observed to influence the selection of communication strategies among international students in China.