In the study of oral-formulaic performance the formula has always been understood as playing a pivotal role (Lord 1960, Foley 1995). But although it is clearly a linguistic unit, the technical study of formulae by linguists has been slight. This paper intends to remedy this lack by proposing some linguistic theories as to the nature of the formula. They will take the form of formal and testable...

Previous studies have suggested that formulaic and literal expressions are stored and processed according to differing characteristics, and that certain auditory–acoustic cues serve to distinguish formulaic from literal meanings. This study took these observations a step further by investigating listeners’ ability to discriminate between literal or idiomatic exemplars of ambiguous utterances an...

The comparison of English wh-questions acquisition by monolinguals, bilinguals and EFL learners showed inter-groups similarities, which included formulaic use, overgeneralization, non-inverted structures, archiforms, double marking auxiliaries past tense. authors suggest a special role there is/are structures in the learners. research results allow assuming impact universal factors upon process...

This study investigates the effects of left- (LHD) or right-hemisphere damage (RHD) on the production of matched idiomatic or literal expressions by examining healthy listeners' abilities to identify, evaluate and perceptually characterize the utterances. Native speakers of Korean with LHD or RHD and healthy controls (HCs) produced six ditropically ambiguous (idiomatic or literal) sentences in ...

In line with usage-based accounts, recent psycholinguistic studies have confirmed that frequency of occurrence impacts processing latencies for multiword strings (e.g., Arnon & Snider, 2010). However, these studies have not been concerned with the meaning of the multiword chunks in question, which is central to accounts of formulaic language rooted in cognitive linguistics (e.g., Wray, 2002). H...

In 2008, Chinese netizens began creating subversive puns. These puns, including the well known “grass-mud horse,” were designed to engage in a satirical online movement against internet censorship of vulgar or politically sensitive words. By examining online subversive puns’ birth and development, this paper presents a phonological analysis of the growing Chinese internet lexicon. First, the re...