Abstract
It is generally accepted that we store representations of individual words in our mental lexicon. There is growing agreement that the lexicon also contains formulaic language (How are you? kick the bucket). In fact, there are compelling reasons to think that the brain represents formulaic sequences in long-term memory, bypassing the need to compose them online through word selection and grammatical sequencing in capacity-limited working memory. The research surveyed in this chapter strongly supports the position that there is an advantage in the way that native speakers process formulaic language compared to nonformulaic language. This advantage extends to the access and use of different types of formulaic language, including idioms, binomials, collocations, and lexical bundles. However, the evidence is mixed for nonnative speakers. While very proficient nonnatives sometimes exhibit processing advantages similar to natives, less proficient learners often have been shown to process formulaic language in a word-by-word manner similar to nonformulaic language. Furthermore, if the formulaic language is idiomatic (where the meaning cannot be understood from the component words), the figurative meanings can be much more difficult to process for nonnatives than nonidiomatic, nonformulaic language.
Highlights
What is stored in our mental dictionary, the lexicon, is an open question
Before we turn to how our brains store and represent formulaic language,1 it is useful to ask why we study formulaic sequence processing at all
The body of research reviewed in this chapter points to the fact that adult native speakers, and most likely children and nonnative speakers who have had enough exposure to a language, appear to have representations for the words that make up formulaic sequences and for the sequence itself, which is in line with the view put forward by Wray (2008)
Summary
It is generally accepted that we store representations of individual words in our mental lexicon. The research surveyed in this chapter strongly supports the position that there is an advantage in the way that native speakers process formulaic language compared to nonformulaic language. It makes sense that our brains would make use of a relatively abundant resource (long-term memory) to compensate for a relative lack in another (working memory) by storing frequently occurring formulaic sequences. These could be retrieved and used without the need to compose them online through word selection and grammatical sequencing (Pawley & Syder, 1983). If native speakers are able to decrease demands on cognitive capacity because formulaic sequences are, in a sense, ready to go, are nonnative speakers able to do the same? This is an important issue, as some evidence seems to show that second language (L2) learners neglect phrases, focusing instead on individual words (e.g., Foster, 2001)
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