The Effects of Instruction of Formulaic Chunks on Second Language

Learners’ Oral Production

Yuan-Yuan Meng

Lecturer in Chinese, Columbia University

Formal linguistic approaches to second language acquisition (SLA) have been the dominant research trend for decades. The SLA field abounds with studies investigating the rule-governed processes of language acquisition and production. Until the 1990s, relatively little attention has been paid to the other aspect of the language system—the prefabricated language chunks, which are generally not rule-based, and which are also known as formulaic sequences, formulaic expressions, or formulaic language (Wray, 2002). These formulaic sequences range on a continuum from fully fixed to semi-fixed, including such multiword units as idioms, collocations, spoken sequences with a simple slot, and so on (Lewis, 1993). Even though recent years have witnessed a growth of research interest in the use of formulaic language (Wood, 2002), studies which examine how instruction of formulaic sequences affects second language (L2) learners’ development of oral proficiency have remained limited. In this presentation, I will review two such studies. Relating the findings of these studies to the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, I will also propose ways to improve Chinese learners’ oral fluency through focused instruction of formulaic chunks.

Keywords: formulaic chunks, oral fluency