(How) is formulaic language universal? Insights from Korean, German and English

The existence of common expressions, also referred to as formulaic language or phraseological units, has been evidenced in a very large number of languages. However, the extent to which languages feature such formulaic material, how formulaicity may be understood across typologically different languages and whether indeed there is a concept of formulaic language that applies across languages, are questions that have been less commonly discussed. Using a novel data set consisting of topically matched corpora in three typologically different languages (Korean, German and English), this study proposes an empirically founded universal concept for formulaic language and discusses what the shape of this concept suggests for the theoretical understanding of formulaic language going forward. In particular, it is argued that the nexus of the concept of formulaic language cannot be fixed at any particular structural level (such as the phrase or the level of polylexicality) and incorporates elements specified at varying levels of abstraction (or schematicity). This means that a cross-linguistic concept of formulaic language fits in well with a constructionist view of linguistic structure

Chapter 1 Formulaic sequences: a drop in the ocean of constructions or something more significant?

This article investigates how formulaic sequences fi t into a constructionist approach to grammar, which is a major post- Chomskyan family of approaches to linguistic structure. The author considers whether, in this framework, formulaic sequences represent a phenomenon that is suffi ciently diff erent to warrant special status or whether they might best be studied in terms of the larger set of all constructions found in language. Based on data drawn from a large corpus of Wikipedia texts, it is argued that it is extremely diffi cult to form a distinct class of formulaic sequences without creating highly arbitrary boundaries. On the other hand, based on existing theoretical claims that formulaic sequences are the basis of fi rst language acquisition, a marker of profi ciency in a language, critical to the success of communicative acts and key to rapid language processing, it is argued that formulaic sequences as constructions are nevertheless signifi cant enough to be the focus of research, and a theoretical category meriting particular attention. These fi ndings have key repercussions both for research primarily interested in formulaic language and phraseology as well as for construction grammatical research

Formulaic sequences: a drop in the ocean of constructions or something more significant?

This article investigates how formulaic sequences fit into a constructionist approach to grammar, which is a major post-Chomskyan family of approaches to linguistic structure. The author considers whether, in this framework, formulaic sequences represent a phenomenon that is sufficiently different to warrant special status or whether they might best be studied in terms of the larger set of all constructions found in language. Based on data drawn from a large corpus of Wikipedia texts, it is argued that it is extremely difficult to form a distinct class of formulaic sequences without creating highly arbitrary boundaries. On the other hand, based on existing theoretical claims that formulaic sequences are the basis of first language acquisition, a marker of proficiency in a language, critical to the success of communicative acts and key to rapid language processing, it is argued that formulaic sequences as constructions are nevertheless significant enough to be the focus of research, and a theoretical category meriting particular attention. These findings have key repercussions both for research primarily interested in formulaic language and phraseology as well as for construction grammatical research

Lexis that rings a bell: on the influence of auditory support in vocabulary acquisition

This empirical study investigated the effectiveness of auditory support in vocabulary learning by comparing acquisition and retention of lexical items studied using a traditional paired-associates memorisation technique to results achieved using an audio-supported paired-associates technique. The subjects were 88 Korean university students. Results indicated that the audio- supported vocabulary learning approach leads to significantly higher rates of acquisition. This advantage was retained over the two months following treatment. The largest difference was noticed in pronunciation. Furthermore, it was found that success in the audio-supported approach was not significantly dependent on learning preferences, and that the approach enjoyed a higher level of acceptance among subjects than non-auditory paired-associates memorisation

Idiom–based features in sentiment analysis: cutting the Gordian knot

In this paper we describe an automated approach to enriching sentiment analysis with idiom–based features. Specifically, we automated the development of the supporting lexico–semantic resources, which include (1) a set of rules used to identify idioms in text and (2) their sentiment polarity classifications. Our method demonstrates how idiom dictionaries, which are readily available general pedagogical resources, can be adapted into purpose–specific computational resources automatically. These resources were then used to replace the manually engineered counterparts in an existing system, which originally outperformed the baseline sentiment analysis approaches by 17 percentage points on average, taking the F–measure from 40s into 60s. The new fully automated approach outperformed the baselines by 8 percentage points on average taking the F–measure from 40s into 50s. Although the latter improvement is not as high as the one achieved with the manually engineered features, it has got the advantage of being more general in a sense that it can readily utilize an arbitrary list of idioms without the knowledge acquisition overhead previously associated with this task, thereby fully automating the original approach

Furiously fast: on the speed of change in formulaic language

Addressing a topic that has been marginal to discussions within historical linguistics, this study looks at how extent and speed of language change can be quantified meaningfully using corpus data. Looking specifically at formulaic language (understood here as word sequences that instantiate typical phrasings), a solidly data-based assessment of the speed of change within a 100-year time window is offered. This includes both a relative determination of speed (against the speed of change in lexis which is generally thought to be the fastest type of linguistic change, cf. Algeo 1980:264; Trask and Millar 2010:7) as well as a new independent measure of speed which is easy to interpret and therefore of high validity, while also robust and potentially applicable to any linguistic feature that can be counted in corpus data. Using data from a diachronic reference corpus of 20th century German, it is shown that change in formulaic language is very notably faster than lexical change, that the extent of change over a century is comparable in extent to contemporary inter-genre variation and that overall, the rate of change does fluctuate somewhat at the level of temporal granularity employed in this study. It is also argued that quantifying the speed of linguistic change can play an important role in building a deeper understanding language change in general

Formulaic sequences: a drop in the ocean of constructions or something more significant?

This article investigates how formulaic sequences fit into a constructionist approach to grammar, which is a major post-Chomskyan family of approaches to linguistic structure. I consider whether, in this framework, formulaic sequences represent a phenomenon that is sufficiently different to warrant special status or whether they might best be studied in terms of the larger set of all constructions found in language. Based on data drawn from a large corpus of Wikipedia texts, it is argued that it is extremely difficult to form a distinct class of formulaic sequences without creating highly arbitrary boundaries. On the other hand, based on existing theoretical claims that formulaic sequences are the basis of first language acquisition, a marker of proficiency in a language, critical to the success of communicative acts and key to rapid language processing, it is argued that formulaic sequences as constructions are nevertheless significant enough to be the focus of research, and a theoretical category meriting particular attention. These findings have key repercussions both for research primarily interested in formulaic language and phraseology as well as for construction grammatical research

Reading discourses through their phraseology: the case of Brexit

Abstract. That social, cultural and political events leave their mark on the language of the communities shaped by those events is well-established in the area of the lexicon (cf. 'cultural keywords'). More recently, it has been shown that phraseological phenomena like common turns of phrase or usual expressions of a speech community are also moulded by significant events in the life of that community. This chapter investigates the extent to which social discourses can crystalize and therefore become readable, in phraseology. The example used is that of the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union which was an event that has resulted in a prolonged and on-going period of social, cultural and political change and uncertainty in the UK. The investigation is based on a large corpus of UK media texts and includes the presentation of a methodology for the identification of phraseological expressions in texts, and their comparison across time and topics. Findings in terms of aspects of the Brexit discourse revealed in its phraseology are discussed and comments relevant to phraseological theory are made, including a demonstration of pro-tem phraseology and the speed of phraseological development. Finally, three theses are put forward to progress the field of discourse analytical research: 1) phraseological patterns allow a deep and insightful reading of discourses, because 2) discourses crystallise in phraseology, and 3) phraseological theory explains why this is the case