The formulaic continuum

By formulaic language we usually mean multi-word collocations which are stored and retrieved holistically rather than being generated de novo with each use. Collocations, fixed expressions, lexical metaphors, idioms and situation-bound utterances can all be considered as examples of formulaic language in which word strings occurring together tend to convey holistic meanings that are either more than the sum of the individual parts, or else diverge significantly from a literal, or word-for-word meaning and operate as a single semantic unit.

Certain language sequences have conventionalized meanings which are used in predictable situations. This functional aspect, however, is different in nature in each type of fixed expression, which justifies the hypothesis of a continuum that contains grammatical units (for instance: be going to) on the left, fixed semantic units (cf. as a matter of fact; suffice it to say) in the middle and pragmatic expressions (such as situation-bound utterances: welcome aboard; help yourself) on the right.

Table 1.Formulaic Continuum

Gramm. Units	Fixed Sem. Units	Phrasal Verbs	Speech Formulas	Situation-bound Utterances	Idioms
be going to	as a matter of fact	put up with	Going shopping	Welcome aboard	kick the bucket
have to	suffice it to say	get along	not bad	help yourself	spill the beans

The more we move to the right on the functional continuum the wider the gap seems to become between compositional meaning and actual situational meaning. Language development often results in a change of function, i.e., a right to left or left to right movement of a linguistic unit on the continuum. Lexical items such as “going to” can become grammaticalized, or lexical phrases may lose their compositionality and develop an “institutionalized” function, such as I’ll talk to you later, How are you doing?, Welcome aboard, and the like. Speech formulas such as you know, not bad, that’s all right are similar to situation-bound utterances (SBU). The difference between them is that while SBUs are usually tied to particular speech situations, speech formulas can be used anywhere in the communication process where the speakers find them appropriate.

Corpus studies have broadened the scope of formulaic expressions.

Researchers working with large corpora talk about formulaic sequences that are defined by Wray (2002) as: “a formulaic sequence [is] a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar.” Based on this definition much of human language is formulaic rather than freely generated. I did not follow this definition in this study, and concentrated only on fixed expressions that are usually motivated and allow relatively few structural changes (fixed semantic units, speech formulas, phrasal verbs, idioms and situation-bound utterances). I ignored collocations such as if you say…; this is good…; I have been…, etc., which are frequent in the database but hardly fit into the groups given in the table.

Current linguistic models emphasize combinatorial creativity as the central property of human language. Although formulaic language has been mostly overlooked in favor of models of language that center around the rule-governed, systematic nature of language and its use, there is growing evidence that these prefabricated lexical units are integral to first- and second-language acquisition and use, as they are segmented from input and stored as wholes in long-term memory (Wood 2002; Wray 2002; Miller and Weinert 1998). Formulaic expressions are basic to fluent language production.

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Objectives	\|	Preferred ways of saying things

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