Abstract
The study examined the development of Chinese as a second language learners’ formulaic knowledge through comparing the processing of Chinese idioms versus non-idiomatic formulaic sequences (FSs) by advanced-level learners (ALs), super-advanced learners (SLs), and native speakers (NSs). Using two phrase acceptability judgment tasks with and without think-aloud protocols, we collected data on participants’ processing accuracy, processing speed, and processing strategies of reading the two types of FSs. Four processing patterns emerged from the analyses of the datasets. First, learners’ processing accuracy and speed increased along with their proficiency. Second, learners’ idiom processing ability was generally lower than that of non-idiom processing ability, but they demonstrated an improving trend as their proficiency level increased. Third, learners’ use of processing strategies did not change much as proficiency rose and demonstrated a categorical difference from NSs. Fourth, all three groups exhibited poorer productive idiom knowledge than productive non-idiom knowledge. The overall findings denote that second language learners’ formulaic knowledge can evolve beyond the lexical plateau as learners move from the advanced to a higher proficiency level, but the productive idiom knowledge can be a long-term problem. The findings provide implications for measuring and teaching Chinese formulaic knowledge at the higher-than-advanced stage.
Highlights
In second language acquisition (SLA), the two primary goals are to identify the nature of learners’ linguistic knowledge and to provide accounts for how this knowledge transforms over time (Ellis, 2005; Bowles, 2011)
In the last two decades, mounting evidence has suggested that overall second language (L2) proficiency can be improved by acquiring formulaic sequences (FSs), which are multiword expressions that frequently recur as a whole in language use (Biber and Conrad, 1999; Wray, 2000; Cortes, 2015; Wood, 2019)
Corpus linguistic research indicates that a small class of FSs covers a fairly large portion of spoken and written texts; this ubiquity underscores the importance of FSs in the use of language (e.g., Oppenheim, 2000; Bestgen, 2017)
Summary
In second language acquisition (SLA), the two primary goals are to identify the nature of learners’ linguistic knowledge and to provide accounts for how this knowledge transforms over time (Ellis, 2005; Bowles, 2011). In the last two decades, mounting evidence has suggested that overall second language (L2) proficiency can be improved by acquiring formulaic sequences (FSs), which are multiword expressions that frequently recur as a whole in language use (Biber and Conrad, 1999; Wray, 2000; Cortes, 2015; Wood, 2019). This claim has been supported by corpus linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional linguistic research (Schmitt, 2010; Myles and Cordier, 2017). As such, mastering FSs can lead to the development of overall language proficiency (Weinert, 1995; Wray, 2000)
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