An Eye-movement Study into the Processing of For- Mulaic Sequences

There is a consensus among applied linguistic scholars that the use of formulaic sequences contributes to fluent, well-formed, and appropriate language (e.g. Pawley and Syder, 1983; Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992; Wray, 2002; Schmitt and Carter, this volume). The underlying belief is that preformulated sequences of language, which are stored in the mind as wholes, can be recognized and retrieved with a minimum amount of processing effort, which facilitates quick and accurate language use. However, the actual mechanics of the processing of formulaic sequences have been inadequately researched. Much of the research into formulaic sequences has either been corpus-based and descriptive, or acquisition-based, which focuses on sequences which have been produced by language novices, either L1 or L2. There has been relatively little use of the rigorous experimental paradigms from the field of psychology which could shed light on the underlying processing mechanisms. This study will take advantage of one such methodology, the study of eye-movement during the reading of texts, to explore how formulaic sequences are processed, by investigating how they are read in context.