Your phrases matter: Third waves in research approaches and new contexts for formulaic language

Abstract

BackgroundThis study reports on new contexts in which formulaic language has been used in the years since 2013 when the last synthesis was carried out. The background presents an old but still useful definition and lists themes under which research was arranged in 2013 and which continue to be used.AimsThis study has a particular emphasis on the relevance of formulaic language to people living with dementia.MethodsSection 3, identifying new directions, reviews new ‘third waves’ of research priorities in several fields in which formulaic sequences play a major role, including sociolinguistic variation, corpus‐based and corpus‐driven analyses, pragmatics, human‐computer interaction, and psycholinguistics, all of which are relevant to speech‐language therapists. Section 4, outreach and expansions, illustrates new contributions from cognitively impaired person‐to‐person exchanges in online environments, recent examinations of infant‐ and pet‐directed speech incorporating formulaic language, and online graphic explorations such as emojis. Section 5 focuses on growth of research in theoretical and clinical applications by Van Lancker Sidtis, as illustrated by references to her recent work.Main ContributionThe paper's main contribution is to summarize the work on formulaic language over the last 10 years, to indicate its continued importance and relevance in ordinary conversation, and especially in allowing people living with dementia to continue to interact with others.ConclusionThe paper concludes by suggesting that more focus be placed on the analysis of formulaic language with an emphasis on its relevance for speech‐language therapists and other clinicians.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDSWhat is already known on the subject Research has been growing since the late 1970s and early 1980s on non‐propositional language (as opposed at that time to the Chomskyan paradigm) and especially on lexical bundles, idioms, second language acquisition and multiword expressions. Studies beginning with Hughlings Jackson (1874) have been annotated through early 2012 (Wray, 2013).What this study adds This study examines ‘third waves’ in pragmatics, sociolinguistics and areas of neurology and speech perception contributing to what Van Lancker Sidtis (2021) calls the third wave of acceptance of the range and depth of formulaic sequences in ordinary or familiar language.What are the clinical implications of this work? Conversations with pet robots or web‐based composition with emojis are but two of the developing areas built on formulaic sequences currently being used for communication interventions with persons living with dementia or other major neurocognitive disorder. Overviews of major contributions in theory and social contexts by Wray (2020, 2021) and theoretical and cognitive applications by Van Lancker Sidtis (2021) detail new areas for the study of formulaic sequences and their contributions to a range of neurocognitive disorders.