Formulaic performance in conventionalised varieties of speech

Kuiper, Koenraad

doi:10.1075/lllt.9.04kui

Cited by 71 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…To date there is no direct evidence of this advantage for auditory processing, although speakers' preference for formulaic sequences when under heavy time constraints seems to provide convincing indirect evidence (e.g. Kuiper 2004). Interestingly, the processing advantage for formulaic sequences seems to extend to proficient L2 speakers as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, Bolander (1989) found that her learners of Swedish commonly relied on formulaic sequences in their speech. In addition, there are a number of studies on 'smooth talkers', such as auctioneers and sports announcers, who use formulaic sequences a great deal in order to fluently convey large amounts of information under severe time constraints (see Kuiper 2004).…”

Section: The Processing Of Formulaic Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I think, you know, of course); Sorhus calculated that the nineteen most frequent ones accounted for 41 per cent of the total number of fixed expression occurrences she found. Moreover, formulaic sequences are particularly essential in spoken discourse that occurs under heavy time constraints, such as auctioneering and sports announcing (Kuiper 2004). Biber et al (1999), as part of their descriptive grammar, show the wide extent of contiguous formulaic strings (lexical bundles in their terminology) in speech, where they made up 28 per cent of the conversation corpus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Formulaic Sequences: Are They Processed More Quickly than Nonformulaic Language by Native and Nonnative Speakers?

Conklin

Schmitt

2008

Applied Linguistics

492

277

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It is generally accepted that formulaic sequences like take the bull by the horns serve an important function in discourse and are widespread in language. It is also generally believed that these sequences are processed more efficiently because single memorized units, even though they are composed of a sequence of individual words, can be processed more quickly and easily than the same sequences of words which are generated creatively (Pawley and Syder 1983). We investigated the hypothesized processing advantage for formulaic sequences by comparing reading times for formulaic sequences versus matched nonformulaic phrases for native and nonnative speakers. It was found that the formulaic sequences were read more quickly than the nonformulaic phrases by both groups of participants. This result supports the assertion that formulaic sequences have a processing advantage over creatively generated language. Interestingly, this processing advantage was in place regardless of whether the formulaic sequences were used idiomatically or literally (e.g. take the bull by the horns ¼ 'attack a problem' vs. 'wrestle an animal'). The fact that the results also held for nonnatives indicates that it is possible for learners to enjoy the same type of processing advantage as natives.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Processing Of Formulaic Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Formulaic Sequences: Are They Processed More Quickly than Nonformulaic Language by Native and Nonnative Speakers?

Conklin

Schmitt

2008

Applied Linguistics

492

277

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“…The professionals from within all of these occupations are required to memorize large stocks of highly detailed information and engage in a kind of non-stop on-line processing to maintain a flow of fluent speech (be it a commentary, a forecast or a sales talk) in the face of additional pressures such as unexpected events, temporal constraints, the response of the audience etc. Kuiper's (2004) analysis of the speech of such live performers reveals that they avoid using novel formulations and tend to rely on formulaic speech which allows them to convey the maximum of information in the minimum of time, at the same time enabling them to maintain pause-free, non-hesitant speech.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formulaic Sequences as Fluency Devices in the Oral Production of Native Speakers of Polish

Guz

2014

RiL

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In this paper we attempt to determine the nature and strength of the relationship between the use of formulaic sequences and productive fluency of native speakers of Polish. In particular, we seek to validate the claim that speech characterized by a higher incidence of formulaic sequences is produced more rapidly and with fewer hesitation phenomena. The analysis is based on monologic speeches delivered by 45 speakers of L1 Polish. The data include both the recordings and their transcriptions annotated for a number of objective fluency measures. In the first part of the study the total of formulaic sequences is established for each sample. This is followed by determining a set of temporal measures of the speakers' output (speech rate, articulation rate, mean length of runs, mean length of pauses, phonation time ratio). The study provides some preliminary evidence of the fluency-enhancing role of formulaic language. Our results show that the use of formulaic sequences is positively and significantly correlated with speech rate, mean length of runs and phonation time ratio. This suggests that a higher concentration of formulaic material in output is associated with faster speed of speech, longer stretches of speech between pauses and an increased amount of time filled with speech.

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“…Since MWEs are stored in a holistic way, they can be retrieved more quickly than other word sequences and by providing a form of scaffolding, they promote speech fluency (Schmitt and Carter 2004). Research indicates that MWEs are abundant in speech that is typically produced under pressure (Kuiper 1996(Kuiper , 2004Pluymaeckers 2003), such as sports commentaries and auctioneering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing and identifying multiword expressions in spoken language

Strik

Hulsbosch

Cucchiarini

2009

Lang Resources & Evaluation

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The present paper investigates multiword expressions (MWEs) in spoken language and possible ways of identifying MWEs automatically in speech corpora. Two MWEs that emerged from previous studies and that occur frequently in Dutch are analyzed to study their pronunciation characteristics and compare them to those of other utterances in a large speech corpus. The analyses reveal that these MWEs display extreme pronunciation variation and reduction, i.e., many phonemes and even syllables are deleted. Several measures of pronunciation reduction are calculated for these two MWEs and for all other utterances in the corpus. Five of these measures are more than twice as high for the MWEs, thus indicating considerable reduction. One overall measure of pronunciation deviation is then calculated and used to automatically identify MWEs in a large speech corpus. The results show that neither this overall measure, nor frequency of co-occurrence alone are suitable for identifying MWEs. The best results are obtained by using a metric that combines overall pronunciation reduction with weighted frequency. In this way, recurring ''islands of pronunciation reduction'' that contain (potential) MWEs can be identified in a large speech corpus.

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Formulaic performance in conventionalised varieties of speech

Cited by 71 publications

References 0 publications

Formulaic Sequences: Are They Processed More Quickly than Nonformulaic Language by Native and Nonnative Speakers?

Formulaic Sequences: Are They Processed More Quickly than Nonformulaic Language by Native and Nonnative Speakers?

Formulaic Sequences as Fluency Devices in the Oral Production of Native Speakers of Polish

Analyzing and identifying multiword expressions in spoken language

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