Strategic Competences of Local Tourist Guides

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Richard A. Giye Jhordan T. Cuilan

Abstract

This study explored the patterns of strategic communicative competences of local tour guides and foreign english speakers. Participants were 22 tour guides and 87 tourists observed at different tourist spots in Central, Sagada, Mountain Province. Their conversations were recorded and went under rigorous discourse analysis. Data were transcribed, organized, clustered, thematized, and validated by the participants. Results suggested that the local tour guides experienced four major communication breakdowns: resource deficit, processing time pressure, perceived deficiency in one’s own language, and perceived deficiency in the interlocutor’s performance. In light of the communication problems, verbal and non-verbal strategies were used to address communication breakdowns, namely: avoidance and reduction, achievement or compensatory, stalling/time-gaining, self-monitoring, and interactional. Further, the tour guides are creative in using non-verbal strategies, which function either as: replacing or accompanying verbal output. Results are discussed in terms of implications of the local tour guides' communicative engagement despite inherent communication breakdowns. Given the significant variety of strategic competences of the local tourist guides, these competences are expected to be reinforced through educational material, a brochure that emphasizes the communication gambits ready to be used in their workplace.

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