Formulaic Language in Academic Study

1
Formulaic Language in Academic Study

• Norbert Schmitt

2
Single Words vs. Multi-word Units

• Most discussion of vocabulary (including academic
  vocabulary) has been conceptualized in terms of
  single words or word families

3
How Much Vocabulary is Needed in English?

• Nation (CMLR, 2006)
• ? 6,000 - 7,000 word families for spoken
  discourse
• ? 8,000 - 9,000 word families for written
  discourse

4
Frequency and Coverage

• Levels Approximate Approximate
• written spoken
• coverage () coverage ()
• 1st 1,000 7881 8184
• 2nd 1,000 89 56
• 3rd 1,000 35 23
• 4th5th 1,000 3 1.53
• 6th9th 1,000 2 0.751
• 10th14th 1,000 lt1 0.5
• Proper nouns 24 11.5
• Not in the lists 13 1
• Nation (2006)

5
AWL (Coxhead, TQ 2000)

• capacity diverse evidence item
• assistance cooperate maintain purchase
• abstract funding invoke revise
• brief enormous integrity spherical
• focus investigation reverse successive
• hierarchy circumstance manual release
• hypothesis offset sum
• incentive rational scope
• minimum publication entity

6
AWL (Coxhead, TQ 2000)

• capacity diverse evidence item
• assistance cooperate maintain purchase
• abstract funding invoke revise
• brief enormous integrity spherical
• focus investigation reverse successive
• hierarchy circumstance manual release
• hypothesis offset sum
• incentive rational scope
• minimum publication entity

7
Academic Vocabulary

• Successive comes with its own typical phraseology
• What words collocate with successive?

8
COCA Results

• each successive
• successive generations
• successive governments
• successive administrations
• successive waves
• successive layers
• successive stages

9
Typical Collocations

• Each successive president chose entanglements and
  evasion over transparency, legality, and
  independence.
• Turning schools around could help save successive
  generations of kids who quit and often end up
  jobless.

10
Phraseology in Language

• There is a great deal of recurrent phraseology in
  language (including academic language)
• This formulaic language is crucial for
  accurate, appropriate, and fluent language use

11
What is Formulaic Language?

• Recurrent multi-word lexical items that have a
  single meaning or function (Schmitt, 2010)
• It is a umbrella cover term for a number of
  formulaic categories
• Idioms
• Collocations
• Phrasal verbs
• Lexical bundles
• Lexical phrases
• Phrasal expressions
• etc

12
What is Formulaic Language?

• multi-word units, multiword chunks, fixed
  expressions, frozen phrases, phrasal vocabulary,
  routine formulas, chunks, prefabricated routines
  
• Individual phrasal items will be referred to as a
  formulaic sequences

13
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is one of the most important
  components of language overall
• The reasons for this are numerous

14
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use

15
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
• Meanings and functions are often realized by
  formulaic language

16
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
• Meanings and functions are often realized by
  formulaic language
• Formulaic language is necessary for appropriate
  functional language use

17
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
• Meanings and functions are often realized by
  formulaic language
• Formulaic language is necessary for appropriate
  functional language use
• Formulaic language has processing advantages

18
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is an important component of
  language acquisition

19
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is an important component of
  language acquisition
• Formulaic language is a feature of many languages

20
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is an important component of
  language acquisition
• Formulaic language is a feature of many languages
• The use of formulaic language helps speakers be
  fluent

21
Why is Formulaic Language Important?

• Formulaic language is an important component of
  language acquisition
• Formulaic language is a feature of many languages
• The use of formulaic language helps speakers be
  fluent
• Phraseology is a main feature that distinguishes
  different synonyms

22
Ubiquitous in Language Use

• 52-58 Erman and Warren (2000)
• 32 Foster (2001)
• 48-80 (M66) Oppenheim (2000)
• once every five words Sorhus (1977)
• 21 30 Biber, et al. (1999)
• 31 - 40 Howarth (1998)
• 15 Rayson (2008)

23
Ubiquitous in Language Use

• 52-58 Erman and Warren (2000)
• 32 Foster (2001)
• 48-80 (M66) Oppenheim (2000)
• once every five words Sorhus (1977)
• 21 30 Biber, et al. (1999)
• 31 - 40 Howarth (1998)
• 15 Rayson (2008)
• Figures depend on the method of measurement, and
  whether spoken vs. written discourse

24
Meanings and Functions

• The more recurrent a language need is (e.g. need
  to apologize, make a request, explain a
  particular idea), the more likely there will be a
  conventionalized expression (i.e. formulaic
  language) to express it

25
Meanings and Functions

• Expressing a concept (get out of Dodge City
  get out of town quickly, usually in uncomfortable
  circumstances)
• Stating a commonly believed truth or advice (Too
  many cooks spoil the soup it is difficult to
  get a number of people to work well together)
• Providing phatic expressions which facilitate
  social interaction (Nice weather today is a
  non-intrusive way to open a conversation)
• Signposting discourse organization (on the other
  hand signals an alternative viewpoint)

26
Meanings and Functions

• Providing technical phraseology which can
  transact information in a precise and efficient
  manner (2-mile final is a specific location in
  an aircraft landing pattern)
• Maintaining conversations (How are you?, See you
  later)
• Realizing the topics necessary in daily
  conversations (When is X? (time), How far is X?
  (location))
• Expressing functions I'm (very) sorry to hear
  about ___ to express sympathy

27
Appropriate Language Use

• Formulaic language is expected by the speech
  community, and so word combinations which do not
  comply to the norm sound unnatural

28
Appropriate Language Use

• gap Native speaker or learner?
• Betty very skillfully stopped the gap of the
  mailbox so that birds could not get in.
• but to bridge the gap between existing

29
Appropriate Language Use

• Betty very skillfully stopped the gap of the
  mailbox so that birds could not get in.
• Meaningful but awkward
• but to bridge the gap between existing
• Appropriate word (collocation) choice

30
Appropriate Language Use

• Schmitt (ELIA, 2005-2006)
• Define border
• How is it used?

31
Appropriate Language Use

• BNC frequency X on Figurative sense
•  
• border 8,011 89 (1)
• borders 2,539 84 (3)
• bordering 367 177 (48) 71
• bordered 356 99 (28) 75

32
Appropriate Language Use

• His passion for self-improvement bordered on the
  pathological.
• But his approach is unconscionable, bordering on
  criminal.
•  
• Some other words which occur to the right of
• bordered/ing on
• a slump arrogance chaos
• a sulk austerity conspiracy
• alcoholic poisoning bad taste contempt
• antagonism blackmail cruelty
• apathy carelessness cynicism

33
Appropriate Language Use

• SOMETHING (is/are) bordered/bordering on
  SOMETHING
• 
  UNPLEASANT

34
Processing Advantages

• Pawley and Syder (1983)
• Formulaic sequences offer processing efficiency
  because single memorized units, even if made up
  of a sequence of words, are processed more
  quickly and easily than the same sequences of
  words which are generated creatively.
• The mind uses an abundant resource (long term
  memory) to store a number of prefabricated chunks
  of language that can be used ready made in
  language production.
• This compensates for a limited resource (working
  memory), which can potentially be overloaded when
  generating language on-line from individual
  lexical items and syntactic/discourse rules.

35
Processing Advantages

• Figurative
• Personally, I think you can have the highest
  degree from the best university in the world, but
  at the end of the day its your contribution to
  the society that matters, and not the name of the
  university you went to at all.
• Literal
• However, I still had to carry most of my stuff
  in small boxes from my old room to the new one. I
  had to make at least 50 trips so
• at the end of the day I was absolutely
  exhausted.
• Novel
• I know that at the end of the war he went on to
  teach students at the Military Academy.

36
Processing Advantages

• Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt (SLR, 2011)
•  
•  
• First Pass Reading Time 3 4 (early)
• Total Reading Time 3 4 6 (late)
• Fixation Count 3 4 6 (late)
•  

37
Processing Advantages

• Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt
• Figurative Literal
  Novel
• First Pass Reading Time (ms) 447 454 497
• Total Reading Time (ms) 514 507 628
• Fixation Count 2.8 2.7 3.2  

38
Processing Advantages

• Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt
• Figurative Literal
  Novel
• First Pass Reading Time (ms) 447 454 497
• Total Reading Time (ms) 514 507 lt 628
• Fixation Count 2.8 2.7 lt 3.2  

39
Language Acquisition

• Peters (1983) suggests that formulaic sequences
  may be decomposed and the individual components
  extracted through a process of segmentation, to
  give insights into vocabulary and grammar
• An hour ago, a year ago, a month ago
• ?
• A(n) _____ ago hour, year, month

40
Occurs in a Range of Languages

• Formulaic language has been found in a range of
  languages
• English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian,
  German, Swedish, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish,
  Greek, and Chinese
• Is it a universal trait of all languages?

41
Helps Speakers be Fluent

• The largest unit of novel discourse that native
  speakers are able to process is a single clause
  of 8-10 words
• When speaking, proficient speakers will speed up
  and become fluent during these clauses
• But they will then slow down or even pause at the
  end of these clauses
• NS seldom pause in the middle of a clause, or at
  least not for long

42
Helps Speakers be Fluent

• But proficient speakers can fluently say
  multi-clause utterances
• - You can lead a horse to water, but you cant
  make him drink.
• Kuiper (2004) shows that speakers who operate
  under severe time constraints (play-by-play
  sports announcers, auctioneers) use a great deal
  of formulaic language in their speech
• So, formulaic language helps speakers be more
  fluent

43
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• How are the following (near) synonyms used?
• WORK
• JOB
• CAREER
• LABOR
• EMPLOYMENT

44
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• WORK
• workaholic, workforce, workload, workplace aid
  worker, factory worker, office worker, social
  worker

45
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• WORK
• workaholic, workforce, workload, workplace aid
  worker, factory worker, office worker, social
  worker
• neutral? (frequent word many contexts)

46
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• JOB
• botched, crummy, bad, hatchet, menial

47
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• JOB
• botched, crummy, bard, hatchet, menial
• negative?

48
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• CAREER
• brilliant, distinguished, glittering, acting,
  director, film, international, literary

49
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• CAREER
• brilliant, distinguished, glittering, acting,
  director, film, international, literary
• positive?

50
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• LABOR
• casual, cheap, deskilling, manual, unproductive
  

51
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• LABOR
• casual, cheap, deskilling, manual, unproductive
  
• negative?

52
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• EMPLOYMENT
• conditions, contract, discrimination, rights

53
Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)

• EMPLOYMENT
• conditions, contract, discrimination, rights
• legal?

54
Learner Use of Formulaic Language

• Learners dont use many idioms
• Learners do use many high-frequency collocations
  (nice day)
• Learners dont use many lower-frequency but
  tightly-bound collocations (preconceived notions)

55
Learner Use of Formulaic Language

• But learners often do not use the collocations
  they know appropriately
• Inappropriate collocations is a leading problem
  in learner language
• Learners often use words with their correct
  meanings, but do not understand the correct
  context of use (collocation, register, frequency)

56
Learner Use of Formulaic Language

• Learners consistently overestimate their
  comprehension of reading texts that contain
  formulaic sequences that they either fail to
  identify or misunderstand, even at high levels of
  proficiency (Martinez and Murphy, TQ 2011)

57
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• Boers Lindstromberg (ARAL 2012) reviewed
  acquisition research
• Learning from exposure requires repetition
  (frequency)
• Intentional learning produced better results
• Raising awareness of formulaic language is not a
  powerful accelerator of learning
• Knowing the component words makes learning a
  formulaic sequence easier
• Providing learning strategies (dictionaries,
  concordance lines) produced mixed results

58
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• Does learner use of formulaic language (e.g.
  collocations) improve just from studying in an
  academic environment?
• Incidental acquisition
• Li and Schmitt (JSLW, 2009)

59
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• We followed a Chinese MA student at Nottingham
  over one academic year and compiled a learner
  corpus from all of her essays and dissertation
• We then analyzed all of her assignments and
  dissertation for formulaic language

60
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• Would the student produce more formulaic language
  over the year?
• Would the student produce better formulaic
  language over the year?
• Would the student become more confident in
  producing formulaic language over the year?

61
Amount Produced
62
Appropriateness
63
Confidence
64
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• Does learner use of formulaic language (e.g.
  collocations) improve from explicit teaching?
• Focused instruction
• Jones and Haywood (2004, In Schmitt (Ed.)
  Formulaic Sequences)

65
Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language

• Learners had better awareness of formulaic
  language after 10 weeks and could identify a
  greater number of sequences in a text
• Some learners made some progress in producing
  more formulaic sequences in a C-test
• He suspected that too much of th__ ki__ o__
• chemical might encourage the immune
  system)
• Most learners made no noticeable improvement in
  the number of formulaic sequences produced in
  their essays over 2 weeks

66
Necessity of Formulaic Language

Cowie (199210) goes so far to say It is
impossible to perform at a level acceptable to
native users, in writing or in speech, without
controlling an appropriate range of multiword
units.
67
Pedagogical Implications

• Meunier review (ARAL, 2012)
• If formulaic sequences are so important
• They need to be included in teaching syllabuses
  and materials
• We cant assume they will just be learned from
  exposure
• They need to incorporated into language tests to
  a greater extent

68
Pedagogical Implications

• But what formulaic sequences?
• Vincent (JEAP, 2013) proposes a 6-stage process
  for identifying academic phraseology
• Martinez (ELTJ, 2013) suggests a selection
  framework based on frequency and transparency
• In order to incorporate formulaic sequences into
  their teaching and testing, most practitioners
  need a list of formulaic sequences to address

69
An Academic Formulas List
(1-24)Simpson-Vlach Ellis (AL, 2010)
in terms of at the same time from the point of view in order to as well as part of the the fact that in other words the point of view of there is a as a result of this is a on the basis of a number of there is no point of view the number of the extent to which as a result in the case of whether or not the same time with respect to point of view of
70
An Academic Formulas List (1-24)

• The table showed the first 24 formulas on the
  core list (written and spoken), ranked by a
  combination of frequency and MI scores
• All component words of these formulas come from
  the 1st 1,000 frequency band

71
An Academic Formulas List Written 177-200
even though the this does not was based on the nature of the in the course of degree to which be argued that in terms of a for this reason are based on in a number of two types of the total number is more likely which can be are able to be considered as be used to b and c depend on the is that it is is affected by should also be if they are
72
An Academic Formulas List Written 176-199
even though the this does not was based on the nature of the in the course of degree to which be argued that in terms of a for this reason are based on in a number of two types of the total number is more likely which can be are able to be considered as be used to b and c depend on the is that it is is affected by (AWL) should also be if they are
73
An Academic Formulas List

• Top 200 from written texts
• 1st 1,000 127 different words
• 2nd 1,000 2 different words
• AWL 16 different words

74
An Academic Formulas List

• To learn formulas from the AFL, learners must
  either
• Know the high frequency component words already
• This makes the learning easier
• Or
• Learn the AFL formulas as wholes even if some
  component words are not known
• Less efficient
• Knowing AWL words would not help much
• Knowing the 1st 1,000 words is key

75
An Academic Formulas List

• Many of the AFL are structural components of
  meaningful sentences, but may not contain clear a
  meaning sense in their own right
• is that it is
• is affected by
• should also be
• if they are

76
An Academic Formulas List

• The AFL is based around functions
• Framing attributes
• the idea that
• the change in
• Quantity specification
• a series of
• Identification and focus
• different types of
• such as a

77
An Academic Formulas List

• Identification and focus
• exactly the same
• (the) difference between (the)
• Locatives
• in the real world
• Vagueness markers
• and so forth
• Hedges
• to some extent

78
An Academic Formulas List

• Obligation and directive
• I want you to
• Expressions of ability and possibility
• allows us to
• are able to
• Evaluation
• an important role in
• is consistent with
• Discourse markers
• even though the
• in conjunction with

79
Formulaic Framework (Martinez, ELTJ, 2013)

• Infrequent Frequent
• take credit take issue take
  time take place
• 27 121
  910 10,556
• Transparent Opaque
• take credit take time take
  issue take place

80
Formulaic Framework (Martinez, ELTJ, 2013)

• Frequent
• take time (2) take place (1)
• Transparent
  Opaque
• take credit (4) take issue (3)
• Infrequent

81
PHRASE List (Martinez Schmitt, AL, 2012)

• PHRASE List (PHRASal Expressions)
• Some formulaic sequences are very frequent
• 500 phrasal expressions within 5,000 BNC
  frequency level
• Based on same frequency as individual BNC words
• Phrases which are opaque and not easily guessable
  

82
PHRASE List

• LEAD TO (CAUSE) 13,555 (1st 1,000 frequency
  level)
• Excessive smoking can lead to heart disease.
• HAVE GOT TO (must) 12,270 (2nd 1,000 frequency
  level)
• You have got to try this salad.
• BY THE TIME (when) 3,607 (3rd 1,000 frequency
  level)
• By the time dinner started there were none left.
  

83

• PHRASE List
• Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken
  Written Written Example
• List (per 100 million)
  general general academic
• Rank
• 107 HAVE TO 83,092
  I exercise
• 
  
  because I
• 
  
  have to.
• 463 GOING TO 28,259
  x Im going to
• (FUTURE)
  
  think about it.
• 894 WAS TO 14,366 x
  The message
• 
  
  was to be

84

• PHRASE List
• Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken
  Written Written Example
• List (per 100 million)
  general general academic
• Rank
• 5502 MAKE UP 788
  x Youd better
• ONES MIND
  make
  up
• 
  
  your mind.
• 5503 AT WORK 787 x
  There were
• 
  
  strange forces
• 
  
  at work.

85
Experimental PHRASE Test

• Inclusion in the Vocabulary Levels Test
• 1 take place
• 2 have got to _____ do
• 3 seek to _____ try
• 4 find out _____ must
• 5 make sure
• 6 carry out

86
Experimental PHRASE Test

• Inclusion in the Vocabulary Levels Test
• 1 take place
• 2 have got to __6__ do
• 3 seek to __3__ try
• 4 find out __2__ must
• 5 make sure
• 6 carry out

87
Experimental PHRASE Test

• 1 take place
• 2 have got to __6__ do
• 3 seek to __3__ try
• 4 find out __2__ must
• 5 make sure
• 6 carry out
• X Didnt work well learners needed context to
  make sense of many phrasal expressions

88
Experimental PHRASE Test

• turn out It turned out different.
• a. started 
• b. seemed 
• c. became 
• d. did not look

89
Experimental PHRASE Test

• turn out It turned out different.
• a. started 
• b. seemed 
• c. became 
• d. did not look

90
Experimental PHRASE Test

• at least At least it is warm.
• a. other things may be bad, but 
• b. many days have passed and now 
• c. I cannot believe that 
• d. the least important thing is

91
Experimental PHRASE Test

• at least At least it is warm.
• a. other things may be bad, but 
• b. many days have passed and now 
• c. I cannot believe that 
• d. the least important thing is

92
Experimental PHRASE Test

• Seems to work much better
• Still in piloting
• Ron Martinez
• (San Francisco State University)

93
Vocabulary Website Resource

• Most Norbert Schmitt ( co-author)
  publications and other vocabulary resources can
  be accessed at his personal website
• www.norbertschmitt.co.uk
• This PowerPoint presentation is available
• The PHRASE List is available
• Link to COCA Corpus BYU web site