A sizable repertoire of formulaic sequences benefits second-language learners, but learners are slow to close the gap with native speakers in formulaic language¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r? · q2 · n=?
Currency · newest study 2012 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Formulaic sequences are multiword units such as collocations and fixed expressions. This claim concerns second-language learners of any age; the one source here is a review of experimental and intervention studies published since 2004.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? A review of (quasi-)experimental and intervention studies on L2 formulaic sequences reports plenty of evidence that learners gain from a sizable repertoire of them, but that learners are known to be slow to close the gap on native speakers; proposed treatments draw attention to sequences, prompt dictionary and corpus lookups, or help learners commit sequences to memory. → Boers and Lindstromberg 2012

Evidence¶

Boers and Lindstromberg 2012¶

Boers, F., & Lindstromberg, S. (2012). Experimental and intervention studies on formulaic sequences in a second language. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32, 83–110. doi:10.1017/s0267190512000050

q2 · narrative review (abstract only) · i? · no effect size reported in the abstract · n=? · review · r?

A review of experimental and intervention studies on formulaic sequences in a second language published since 2004. The authors state that there is plenty of evidence that learners have a lot to gain from building a sizable repertoire of L2 formulaic sequences, and that formulaicity is an area where learners are known to be slow to close the gap on native speakers. They group the pedagogical treatments proposed into three kinds: drawing learners' attention to formulaic sequences as they are encountered, stimulating lookups in dictionaries and corpus tools, and helping learners commit particular sequences to memory, and they gauge each against the (quasi-)experimental studies that tested it, framed by Laufer and Hulstijn's involvement load hypothesis. Read from the abstract only: it does not say how many studies were reviewed, what the evidence for the benefit of a large repertoire is, or which of the three kinds of treatment the review found most effective, so this entry supports the claim only as the review's stated premise.

"There is plenty of evidence that learners have a lot to gain from building a sizable repertoire of L2 formulaic sequences language, but formulaicity is an area where learners are known to be slow to close the gap on native speakers."

Discussion¶

The claim rests on one narrative review read from its abstract, and the abstract states the benefit and the slow uptake as background rather than reporting the evidence for them. The review's verdicts on which treatments work (attention-drawing, lookups, memorisation) are in its body and are not recorded here; reading the full text is what would turn this into a claim about instruction. The involvement load framing links it to tasks that raise involvement load improving word retention. For children in immersion, formulaic utterances appear first and are later analysed into parts (formulaic utterances dominate early immersion speech), which is a different proposition from the slow uptake the review describes.

Learner Variables¶

• English-Learner Status — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Children acquiring a second language through immersion begin with formulaic utterances used as wholes, which are gradually analyzed into component words — related
• Tasks with higher involvement load, involving search and evaluation, are conducive to better word retention, with marginal glosses efficient for incidental learning — related
• Mere exposure to the target language does not automatically lead to native-like communicative competence in adult learners — related
• Vocabulary-focused programs are probably insufficient to accelerate vocabulary development and close the vocabulary gap — related
• A 2010 narrative review reports that even very advanced L2 learners read more slowly than native speakers and miss subtle anaphoric interpretation distinctions — related