Preferred ways of saying things

Formulaic language is the heart and soul of native-like language use. In fact this is what makes language use native-like. Languages and their speakers have preferred ways of saying things (cf. Wray 2002). English native speakers shoot a film, dust the furniture, or ask you to help yourself at the table. Having said that, if we want to find out how much non-native speakers stick to the rules of the game when no native speakers are present, we should look into the differences in the use of formulaic language.

Keeping the preferred ways of native speakers means that LF interlocutors try to keep the original rules of the game. These preferred ways lead to the use of prefabricated expressions. The knowledge of these expressions gives a certain kind of idiomaticity to language use. Our everyday communication is full of phrasal expressions and utterances because we like to stick to preferred ways of saying things. Why is this so? Three important reasons can be mentioned:

Formulas decrease the processing load

There is psycholinguistic evidence that fixed expressions and formulas have an important economizing role in speech production (cf. Miller and Weinert 1998; Wray 2002). Sinclair’s idiom principle says that the use of prefabricated chunks “…may…illustrate a natural tendency to economy of effort” (Sinclair 1991). This means that in communication we want to achieve more cognitive effects with less processing effort. Formulaic expressions ease the processing overload not only because they are “readymade” and do not require the speaker/hearer any “putting together” but also because their salient meanings are easily accessible in online production and processing.

Phrasal utterances have a strong framing power

Frames are basic cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of reality (Goffman 1974). Frames help determine which parts of reality become noticed. They are not consciously manufactured but are unconsciously adopted in the course of communicative processes. Formulaic expressions usually come with framing. Most fixed expressions are defined relative to a conceptual framework. If a policeman stops my car and says Step out of the car, please, this expression will create a particular frame in which the roles and expressions to be used are quite predictable.

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