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Part of
Current Issues in Phraseology
Edited by Sebastian Hoffmann, Bettina Fischer-Starcke and Andrea Sand
[Benjamins Current Topics 74] 2015
► pp. 83–108

The development of formulaic sequences in first and second language writing

Investigating effects of frequency, association, and native norm

| University of Michigan
ORCID logo | Georgia State University
| University of Michigan

Formulaic sequences are recognised as having important roles in language acquisition, processing, fluency, idiomaticity, and instruction. But there is little agreement over their definition and measurement, or on methods of corpus comparison. We argue that replicable research must be grounded upon operational definitions in statistical terms. We adopt an experimental design and apply four different corpus-analytic measures, variously based upon n-gram frequency (Frequency-grams), association (MI-grams), phrase-frames (P-frames), and native norm (items in the Academic Formulas List – AFL-grams), to samples of first and second language writing in order to examine and compare knowledge of formulas in first and second language acquisition as a function of proficiency and language background. We find that these different operationalizations produce different patterns of effect of expertise and L1/L2 status. We consider the implications for corpus design and methods of analysis.

Keywords: academic writing, formulaic sequences, n-grams, phrase-frames, proficiency development
Published online: 10 July 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.74.05odo
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