Survey article Formulaic language in learners and native speakers Alison Wray Centre for Language & Communication Research, Cardiff University, UK 1. Introduction because prefabricated word sequences feature in the Formulaic language is of interest to researchers of very first output of learners, they must be easy to both native and second language because it appears learn (see section 5). This also turns out not to be to be the key to idiomatidty. As will become clear, true. Pawley & Syder (1983) point out that formulaic language is also the final, and most difficult, stum- native-like idiomaticity, where a speech community bling block for otherwise advanced non-native has a 'preferred way' of saying something, seems to speakers, and research indicates that some formulaic indicate that certain word-strings are prioritised dur- language is not appropriately processed in the first ing processing, and hence are likely to be selected as language until late teenage (see section 4). the default expression of a given idea, even though other grammatically acceptable ways are also possi- ble. For example, Pawley & Syder (1983) contrast the 1.1 Orientation idiomatic I want to marry you with the less idiomatic Making sense of the bigger picture requires an but equally grammatical I wish to be wedded to you, I understanding of what motivates us to use formulaic desire you to become married to me, My becoming yourlanguage and, to this end, I shall review accounts of it spouse is what I want, and so on (p. 196). in the literature on adult native speakers (section 2), Formulaic language is a puzzling phenomenon - aphasics (section 3), child first language (LI) learners much more puzzling than might be assumed at first (section 4) and both child and adult second language glance. Anyone working within a single field of ref- (L2) learners (section 5). Because approaches and erence, whether the language of children, adult expectations vary in these different fields, some native speakers, second language learners, or the lin- measure of interpretation is necessary, if one is to guistically disabled, sees only a part of the wider pic- make valid comparisons. I have anchored this survey, ture. Not until one makes detailed comparisons therefore, on two basic and generally accepted obser- across the fields is it possible to see how the parts fit vations about formulaic language. The first originates together. This survey reveals that several common with Saussure (1916/1966): "when a compound assumptions about formulaic language are incorrect. concept is expressed by a succession of very com- One is that you can identify the formulaic language mon significant units, the mind gives up analysis - it used by a learner as a subset of that used by the adult takes a short cut - and applies the concept to the native speaker. In actual fact, language learners, both whole cluster of signs, which then becomes a simple first and second, use their own sets, and in their own unit" (p. 177). Fighting the tide of Chomskian way. There is some overlap with that of adult natives, linguistics, the same idea was expressed by Becker certainly, but it is not possible to characterise them (1975), who spoke of "ready-made frameworks on only in terms of an augmenting system. Similarly, which to hang the expression of our ideas, so that we aphasics (people who lose linguistic ability after a do not have to go through the labor of generating an stroke or other brain damage) do not simply end up utterance all the way out from'S' every time we want with a reduced version of what they had before. to say something" (p.17), and Bolinger (1976): "our They develop new forms to supplement what they language does not expect us to build everything have retained from before, and put both to new uses starting with lumber, nails, and blueprint, but pro- when required. Another assumption, one commonly vides us with an incredibly large number of prefabs" made in the second language literature, is that (p. 1).Thus, the proposal that we shall carry through as our first theme is that formulaic language offers Dr. Alison Wray is a Senior Research Fellow in the processing benefits to speakers and hearers, by pro- Centre for Language and Communication Research at viding a short cut to production and comprehension. Cardiff University. She was previously Assistant This is achieved by storing the word-string like a Director of the Wales Applied Language Research Unit single "big word" (Ellis, N., 1996: 111) with an asso- at the University of Wales Swansea. Her research and ciated holistic meaning. This does not have to mean publications on formulaic language focus on finding an that it cannot be broken down into its constituent explanatory account which can inform areas such as sec- parts, only that, customarily, it is not (Wray, 1998; ond language acquisition, the origin of language, speechWray & Perkins, forthcoming). pathology, and communication aids for the disabled. The second observation that will anchor our Lang.Teach. 32,213-231. Printed in the United Kingdom © 1999 Cambridge University Press 213 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 20 Apr 2010 IP address: 131.251.0.111 Formulaic language in learners and native speakers exploration is the strong, though not exclusive, associ- 1990; Buder, 1997; DeCock et al., 1998; Fernando, ation of formulaic language with socio-interactional 1996; Granger, 1998; Howarth, 1998a,b; Moon functions. In Hymes' (1968) view, "a vast portion of 1998a,b; Sinclair, 1991; Stubbs, 1995, 1997) have verbal behavior ... consists of recurrent patterns, of made it possible to search extremely large bodies of linguistic routines...[including] the full range of text for recurrent word sequences. Altenberg (1998: utterances that acquire conventional significance for 102) estimates that as much as 80% of the language an individual, group or whole culture" (p. 126-7). used by an adult native speaker may be formulaic. In This convention seems to be enhanced by consisten- stark contrast, Moon (1998a) claims that only around cy of form, and a wide range of socio-interactional 4% to 5% of the words in the 18 million word Oxford functions are customarily achieved using sequences Hector Pilot Corpus are parts of a formulaic sequence of words that are at least idiomatic if not actually of a (p.57).The main reason why corpus studies can vary so prescribed form, from ritual speech acts (e.g. / name much in the amount of formulaicity they find is this ship...), through greetings, threats, bargains and because the results entirely depend on what you count. expressions of thanks and condolence, to signals of Altenberg counted combinations at least three words group membership (e.g. football chants, in phrases, long and occurring at least ten times in the London- etc.) and place in the hierarchy (e.g. your majesty; you Lund Corpus (500,000 words of running text). lot). It is rarely the case that these functions must be Although Moon's count was actually more inclusive, achieved using agreed and/or prefabricated sequences, allowing sequences of two or more words, which had but it does appear that they tend to be. Within the con- to occur only five times to count as formulaic, die dif- text of these two themes we shall also consider what ference is that she was counting types, whereas role, if any, formulaic language appears to play in Altenberg counted tokens. Token counts tells us that we facilitating the acquisition process. say you know and I mean a great deal, while the richness of the different types we use is rather obscured. Type counts are useful for looking at the range of strings that 1.2 Terminology occur above a given certain frequency but do not dif- ferentiate between the common and the rare. In surveying a range of fields which have operated largely independently of each other, it is inevitable Although automated frequency counts are a great that a substantial number of terms, covering smaller boon, formulaic sequences cannot be defined in terms or larger parts of the general phenomenon, will be of frequency alone, for many strings which we would want to identify as formulaic for other reasons are not encountered. Indeed, Wray & Perkins (forthcoming) at all frequent in general usage (Hickey, 1993; identify more than forty, including automatic language, Howarth, 1998a; Wray & Perkins, forthcoming). These chunks, collocations, conventionalised forms, F[ixed] include culturally-based quotes like That's one small step Expressions including] I[dioms], formulae, gambits, for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind and England expects holophrases, idioms, lexicalised sentence stems, multiwordthat every man will do his duty, and those restricted to units, preassembled speech, prefabricated routines and pat-particular usages, such as My Lords, Ladies and terns, ready-made utterances, and sentence builders. In Gentlemen and Abandon ship. Frequency counts also order to avoid unintentionally associating different reveal that two and three word chunks are much more sub-types that happen to be labelled with the same common than longer ones. Williams (1998) found that term by different people, or unnecessarily separating the most frequent six-word chunk, at the end of the day, the same sub-type if it is labelled differently, in this occurred only 16 times in her 117,000 word corpus paper I shall adopt a single, blanket term, formulaic from business negotiations, while at the moment sequence, which may be defined as follows: occurred 129 times, in terms of 112 times and going to be a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other103 times (p.42). Nevertheless, longer chunks, all be meaning elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated:they less frequent, also play an important role in what that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time makes a language idiomatic.