Formulaic Language and Second Language Acquisition: Zipf and the Phrasal Teddy Bear

Abstract

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.

Formulaic Sequence(fs) Cannot Be an Umbrella Term in Sla

“…Importantly, however, this does not mean that L2 learners do not use chunking processes (both top-down and bottom-up) in their development of the L2 (Ellis, 1996(Ellis, , 2003(Ellis, , 2012, as the next section will demonstrate. It is not because many externally defined FSs do not seem to have psycholinguistic reality in L2 learners that they do not use FSs: Their store of FSs needs to be investigated in its own right, that is by investigating which sequences present a processing advantage for L2 learners.…”

“…Moreover, the construct of an FS as a processing (rather than lexical) unit fits better with the notion of formulaicity as a graded phenomenon, with linguistic knowledge viewed as a formulaic-creative continuum (Ellis, 2012).…”

“…If even NSs have been shown to vary in their repertoires of FSs and how holistically they process them, L2 learners whose exposure to the target language is much more limited are bound to show much less evidence of the automatization processes leading to formulaicity. As underlined by Ellis (2012), many idiomatic expressions are infrequent or even rare, and many are nontransparent in their interpretation. Learners require considerable language experience before they encounter these sequences once, never mind often enough to commit them to memory.…”

EFL Learners’ Grammatical Awareness through Accumulating Formulaic Sequences of Morphological Structure (-ing)

“…In this sense, FS plays a dual role of cognitive dimension and rapid means of access to whole chunks. In the recent study, the importance of learning formulaic sequences was acknowledged (Ellis, 2008(Ellis, , 2012Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2009;Myles & Cordier, 2017). Eskildsen (2012) reported that the frequency of FS English negation patterns among Spanish adult learners demonstrated an effect on English learning.…”

EFL Learners Use of Formulaic Language in Oral Assessments: A Study on Fluency and Proficiency

“…In this sense, it is also effective in second language acquisition (Ellis, Simpson-Vilach & Maynard, 2008;Ellis, 2012;Wood, 2002;Wray, 2000).…”