Abstract
Little is known about age effects on formulaic language acquisition in second language (L2) learners. This research compared use and comprehension of formulaic expressions (FEs) in English and Russian by two groups of Russian bilingual speakers differing in age of arrival (AoA) to the USA. A critical period perspective predicts better performance in the early than the later group in the second language. Contrary to this expectation, the early arriving group did not perform significantly better than the later arriving group on the English formulaic tasks. They did perform better on the English than the Russian formulaic tasks. The later arriving group scored significantly higher than the early group on all formulaic tasks in Russian, and performed significantly better in Russian than English. Both bilingual groups scored higher on comprehension than production for English. The surprising result, that earlier arrival in the second language country did not significantly benefit formulaic language use, remains to be explained. Linguistic input and brain maturation likely both play important roles in formulaic language acquisition.
Highlights
There is a growing interest in formulaic language and its role in language development and communication in first and second language acquisition (Puimege & Peters, 2019; Siyanova-Chanturia & Pellicer-Sánchez, 2018)
The aim of this study was to examine the effects of age of arrival (AoA) on the acquisition of formulaic language in English as a second language, and to evaluate the state of knowledge and use of Russian formulaic language for two bilingual groups
Comparison between the three groups in English showed that both early- and later-arriving bilingual Russian-English speaking groups performed significantly worse than the monolingual English-speaking control group on the proportion of English formulaic expressions (FEs) in conversation, formula completion in conversational speech, and English structured formulaic tasks probing production competence, which partially supported our first hypothesis
Summary
There is a growing interest in formulaic language and its role in language development and communication in first and second language acquisition (Puimege & Peters, 2019; Siyanova-Chanturia & Pellicer-Sánchez, 2018). 5) identified five properties that characterize formulaic language, including stereotyped form, conventionalized meaning, association with social context, inclusion of attitudinal and affective valence, and familiarity-recognition by native speakers. It follows that speakers in a language community can demonstrate competency in the use (i.e., production) of FEs, knowledge (i.e., recognition) of the correct FE form, and understanding (i.e., comprehension) of the FE meaning. Acquisition and mastery of formulaic language is challenging for L2 learners due to the inherent properties of formulaic language, mentioned earlier in the paper, including stereotyped form, conventionalized meaning, subtle association with social context, and inclusion of attitudinal and affective valence (Van Lancker Sidtis, 2004). It was proposed that in order to become truly bicultural and acquire the native-like knowledge of formulaic language, the L2 learner must be exposed to L2 in early childhood
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