Situation-Bound Utterances and Formulaic Competence: The Case of Chinese Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

AbstractThis study investigated the relationship between situation-bound utterances (SBUs thereafter) and formulaic competence, focusing on the acquisition of three subcategories of SBUs among early intermediate and early advanced Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). A group of native English speakers also participated in this study to provide baseline data. One-way ANOVA analysis and post hoc tests confirmed that linguistic competence usually preceded formulaic competence for EFL learners. The findings also showed no statistically significant difference existing between the three groups of participants in the use of plain SBUs, and this could be attributed to the low degree of cultural-embeddedness and high semantic transparency of plain SBUs. It was further argued that a threshold has to be reached for EFL learners to go through a movement from rules to wholes.