COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES USED BY ENGLISH NON-NATIVE SPEAKER HOSTS OF INTERACTIVE PROGRAM IN SEA TODAY TV

Communication strategies are deliberate techniques that speakers employ to
overcome linguistic constraints and sustain intelligible interaction. This study
analyses the communication strategies used by English non-native speaker hosts on
SEA Today TV across two interactive programme formats talk shows and on-location
interviews. Adopting a quantitative content-analysis design, the research examined 20
broadcast episodes aired between 2021 and 2025. Data were collected using a
structured observation checklist adapted from Farrahi’s (2011) taxonomy, and
independently coded by a co-rater for 20% of the corpus. The inter-rater reliability
results were high: Cohen’s Kappa was 0.875 for the talk show programs, indicating
almost perfect agreement, while the on-location interviews yielded a perfect
agreement (κ = 1.00), confirming the reliability and validity of the coding process for
both formats. Analysis identified one overarching type of communication strategy
compensatory strategies comprising two groups (linguistic and non-linguistic) and
sixteen subcategories. Of these, 13 subcategories were observed across the programs,
with 8 strategies (approximation, circumlocution, explicitation/elaboration,
exemplification, appeal for help, use of all-purpose words, use of opposites/negatives,
and body gestures) occurring in both formats, forming a shared “core repertoire.”
However, distinct patterns emerged: talk shows featured higher use of appeal for help
and circumlocution, due to the collaborative studio environment, while on-location
interviews favored elaboration and environment-referenced gestures to cope with
live, unpredictable settings. These results demonstrate that hosts dynamically adapt a
stable set of communicative strategies based on context and production constraints.
Pedagogically, the results contribute insights for broadcaster training and English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF) instruction by identifying strategic behaviors both verbal and
non-verbal that enhance clarity and engagement in media communication by non-
native English speakers.
Keywords: Communication Strategies, English Non-Native Speakers, SEA Today
TV, Talk Shows, On-Location Interviews