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

Weimann and Daly (1994) had a similar theory as Gass and Selinker’s (1994) belief.
Weimann and Daly (1994) asserted that some communication strategies “are
overlearned and seem to drop from consciousness” (p. ix). That is to say, the
application of an original or an intentional strategy finally may become highly
automated or fossilized because the individual who applies the communication
strategy has established fully the concepts of the strategy application in mind.
Accordingly, Gass and Selinker (1994) judged that the strategy application should
not be completely a conscious device, after the communication strategies were
practiced or totally absorbed by the language learners.
Whether the communication strategies should be applied consciously,
subconsciously, or automatically by the language learners, Dornyei and Scott (1997)
provided their perception on this issue. They added that the language learners used
communication strategies with their intentional attempt to cope with any
language-related problems of which they were aware during the course of
communication. They believed that all different types of communication problem
management mechanisms could be developed through consciousness. Dornyei and
Scott (1997) commented that “One can be conscious of a language problem, the
intent/attempt to solve this problem, the repertoire of potentially applicable
communication strategies, the way to a communication strategy, the use of a
less-than-perfect stopgap device” (p. 184).
Thereafter, Cohen (1998) acknowledged that strategy application was a
conscious process. He addressed the issue of consciousness in his definition of
communication strategy as “those processes which are consciously selected by
learners and which may result in action taken to enhance the learning or use of a
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