A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

In Ling Mei’s second interview, she perceived that the message abandonment
strategy was useful. She talked about how she made her decision to abandon certain
words:
Message abandonment strategy was helpful. For some professional terms that
I had not learned yet, I would decide very quickly to skip it and keep talking.
I would not abandon some words I learned before, which I could not think
how to say it immediately. For the learned words that I could not think of, I
would explain it and my partners would remind me how to say that word. I
would use some similar words or a sentence to replace this learned word that
I could not think of in a short time. For example, I would use this phrase,
“Doctor who takes care of teeth” instead of “dentist.” And, I would say “A
kind of bear that lives on eucalyptus” to replace “Koala.” I could abandon
difficult words, but not the common words.
Ling Mei believed that she would delete some professional terms and high level
words:
Message abandonment strategy was really helpful. For some professional
terms, I very quickly could abandon it and keep talking. It was impossible
that I was able to figure out how to explain the professional terms, in fields
with which I was not familiar. Besides, I also could abandon some high-level
words that I had not learned yet because they prevented me from articulating
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