This study examined the conditions for the selection of certain communication strategies in terms of the inferencing ability of the learner, the formal proficiency level attained, and the features of the communicative situation (task requirements). Two groups of 17-year-olds--one studying advanced French and the other French as part of a "core" program--and 14 adults in a civil service French program were the subjects. All were administered a cloze test, a Danish sentence translation task, and picture reconstruction and description tasks. Based on test results, a typology of oral communication strategies was constructed, to which the distinction between first- and second-language-based strategies was fundamental. Strategies were found to be categorizable according to their relationship to two factors: attention to the linguistic aspects of the target item, which exists along a continuum of usefulness to learning objectives; and learner characteristics, which help determine predominance of first- or second-language-based strategies. Specifically, it was found that inferencing ability determines strategy selection and use, once proficiency has achieved a sufficient level of expertise. Finally, strategy choice was found to be highly contextual. (JB)