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"Formulaic language"
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The prosody of formulaic sequences : corpus and discourse
\"To apply the same approaches to analysing spoken and written formulaic language is problematic; to do so masks the fact that the contextual meaning of spoken formulaic language is encoded, to a large extent, in its prosody. In The Prosody of Formulaic Sequences, Phoebe Lin offers a new perspective on formulaic language, arguing that while past research often treats formulaic language as a lexical phenomenon, the phonological aspect of it is a more fundamental facet. This book draws its conclusions from three original, empirical studies of spoken formulaic language, assessing intonation unit boundaries as well as features such as tempo and stress placement. Across all studies, Lin considers questions of methodology and conceptual framework. The corpus-based descriptions of prosody outlined in this book not only deepen our understanding of the nature of formulaic language but have important implications for English Language Teaching and automatic speech synthesis\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Formulaic Language and Second Language Acquisition: Zipf and the Phrasal Teddy Bear
This article revisits earlier proposals that language learning is, in essence, the learning of formulaic sequences and their interpretations; that this occurs at all levels of granularity from large to small; and that the language system emerges from the statistical abstraction of patterns latent within and across form and function in language usage. It considers recent research in individual differences, the psycholinguistics of language processing, and longitudinal studies of first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition. The first section reviews studies of individual differences in phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and working memory (WM) and their correlations with vocabulary and grammar acquisition in L2. The second section summarizes evidence that language processing is sensitive to the statistical properties of formulaic language in terms of frequency and transitional probability. The third section examines the definition of formulas and formulaicity using different statistical metrics. The fourth section evaluates longitudinal research in L1 and L2 into the putative developmental sequence commonly proposed in usage-based approaches, from formula to low-scope pattern to creative construction. The final section weighs the implications of the statistical distributions of formulaicity in usage for developmental sequences of language acquisition. Zipf's law and the “phrasal teddy bear” explain the paradox whereby formulas seed language acquisition and yet learner language is formula-light in comparison to native norms.
Journal Article
The Processing of Formulaic Language
It is generally accepted that we store representations of individual words in our mental lexicon. There is growing agreement that the lexicon also contains formulaic language (How are you? kick the bucket). In fact, there are compelling reasons to think that the brain represents formulaic sequences in long-term memory, bypassing the need to compose them online through word selection and grammatical sequencing in capacity-limited working memory. The research surveyed in this chapter strongly supports the position that there is an advantage in the way that native speakers process formulaic language compared to nonformulaic language. This advantage extends to the access and use of different types of formulaic language, including idioms, binomials, collocations, and lexical bundles. However, the evidence is mixed for nonnative speakers. While very proficient nonnatives sometimes exhibit processing advantages similar to natives, less proficient learners often have been shown to process formulaic language in a word-by-word manner similar to nonformulaic language. Furthermore, if the formulaic language is idiomatic (where the meaning cannot be understood from the component words), the figurative meanings can be much more difficult to process for nonnatives than nonidiomatic, nonformulaic language.
Journal Article
Formulaic Language in Learner Corpora
Formulaic language is at the heart of corpus linguistic research, and learner corpus research (LCR) is no exception. As multiword units of all kinds (e.g., collocations, phrasal verbs, speech formulae) are notoriously difficult for learners, and corpus linguistic techniques are an extremely powerful way of exploring them, they were an obvious area for investigation by researchers from the very early days of LCR. In the first part of this article, the focus is on the types of learner corpus data investigated and the most popular method used to analyze them. The second section describes the types of word sequences analyzed in learner corpora and the methodologies used to extract them. In the rest of the article, we summarize some of the main findings of LCR studies of the learner phrasicon, distinguishing between co-occurrence and recurrence. Particular emphasis is also placed on the relationship between learners’ use of formulaic sequences and transfer from the learner's first language. The article concludes with some proposals for future research in the field.
Journal Article
Bundles in Academic Discourse
Automated, frequency-driven approaches to identifying commonly used word combinations have become an important aspect of academic discourse analysis and English for academic purposes (EAP) teaching during the last 10 years. Referred to as clusters, chunks, or bundles, these sequences are certainly formulaic, but in the sense that they are simply extended collocations that appear more frequently than expected by chance, helping to shape meanings in specific contexts and contributing to our sense of coherence in a text. More recently, work has extended to “concgrams,” or noncontiguous word groupings where there is lexical and positional variation. Together, these lexical patterns are pervasive in academic language use and a key component of fluent linguistic production, marking out novice and expert use in a range of genres. This article discusses the emerging research which demonstrates the importance of formulaic language in both academic speech and writing and the extent to which it varies in frequency, form, and function by mode, discipline, and genre.
Journal Article
Experimental and Intervention Studies on Formulaic Sequences in a Second Language
In this article we review experimental and intervention studies published since 2004 on formulaic sequences in a second language (L2). There is plenty of evidence that learners have a lot to gain from building a sizable repertoire of L2 formulaic sequences language, but formulaicity is an area where learners are known to be slow to close the gap on native speakers. Pedagogical treatments proposed to help close that gap can be divided into three groups: (a) drawing learners’ attention to formulaic sequences as they are encountered, (b) stimulating lookups in dictionaries and the use of corpus tools, and (c) helping learners commit particular formulaic sequences to memory. We gauge the efficacy of treatments in these three categories by reviewing the (quasi-) experimental studies that put them to the test, and we refer to Laufer and Hulstijn's involvement load hypothesis to frame the discernible trends. The article concludes by suggesting avenues for much needed further research.
Journal Article
Formulaic Language and Language Teaching
This article reviews the concrete effects that the theoretical findings on the formulaic nature of language have had in instructed second language acquisition (SLA). The introductory section includes some terminological comments and a general discussion on the validity of adopting a formulaic approach in second or foreign language teaching. The second section discusses various points in time when instructional intervention is possible and presents the rationale adopted in the article to trace elements of formulaicity in instructed SLA. The next three sections each center on one aspect of foreign language teaching, namely, input, classroom activities, and feedback. The discussion broaches pedagogical choices, teaching materials, types of activities, and tools currently available to teachers and learners. The results show that the increasingly refined understanding of the formulaic nature of language has clearly impacted second language teaching but that a number of questions still remain unanswered. These questions pertain to the types of formulas that deserve teaching time and to the assessment of the actual learning outcomes of using a formulaic approach.
Journal Article
A Constructionist and Corpus-Based Approach to Formulas in Old English Poetry
This paper explores a constructionist and corpus-based approach to Old English formulaic language through an analysis of the “maþelode system” of speech introductions. The analysis is performed on a section of the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry, comprising the poems Beowulf, Battle of Brunanburh, and Exodus. The results show that most instances of the maþelode system belong to a well-attested construction continuum, structured by the widespread Old English (and ultimately Germanic) poetic devices of variation and kenning. This continuum ranges from more fixed repetitions that exclusively involve the verb maþelian to more schematic patterns that are also attested by other speech verbs, by verbs of giving, as well as by a number of further verbs of various semantic types. The particularly high frequency of this pattern with speech verbs and verbs of giving matches the prominent role, highlighted by previous studies, of both word-exchange and gift-exchange within Old English heroic ideology, and suggests that these formulaic patterns served the purpose to characterize the protagonists of speech or giving events as heroic and/or lordly figures.
Journal Article
Formulas, Routines, and Conventional Expressions in Pragmatics Research
This article reviews the recent research on formulaic language in pragmatics from three perspectives: foundational issues, recurrent research questions, and the populations studied. Examination of foundational issues, including definitions and operationalization of the concept of formula in pragmatics, shows the way in which pragmatics understands formulaic language and what it contributes to the study of formulaic language, namely, a strong sense of social contract. Recurrent themes in contemporary investigations include how formulas are used in general and in specific contexts, determining how extensive the use of formulas is, attitudes toward formulas, acquisition of formulas in second language (L2) pragmatics, and formulas in pragmatics pedagogy. The third section reviews pragmatic research according to language community, defined for the purposes of this review as first language (L1; native-speaker communities), L2, cross-cultural comparisons, indigenized varieties, and lingua franca communities. The investigation of formula use by different communities addresses questions of the particular and the universal in formula use and the importance of community and community membership.
Journal Article