IS THE IDIOM PRINCIPLE BLOCKED IN BILINGUAL L2 PRODUCTION? Hiroki Tsuchimochi

The Idiom Principle and the Open Choice Principle The Idiom Principle The principle that argues that language users primarily rely on ready-made expressions when they speak. The open choice principle The principle that argues that language users produce their utterances on ad hoc basis.

Hypothesis The idiom principle that drives word selection in monolinguals may be blocked in the L2 of bilinguals and the open choice principle governs instead.

Formulaic Language multiword collocations that are stored and retrieved holistically rather than being freely generated. Something prefabricated. Ex) collocation, fixed semantic units, frozen metaphors, phrasal verbs, speech formulas, idioms, and situation-bound utterances

Why formulaic language? -Formulaic Language represents preferred ways of saying things [Express gratitude] “Thank you.” English “rare” lit. Japanese [Earn money] “make money” English “look for money” lit. Hungarian - Correct use of formulaic language is a sign of native-like production. - Economy principle in language use Human beings want to achieve as much as possible with the least possible effort both in production and comprehension.

Economy Principle in Language Use Ex) You are on an airplane. Captain: Welcome aboard. This is your captain speaking. Captain: I am happy because you are now on my airplane. I am the captain of this airplane. I am now making announcement. Listen to me.

Problems for non-native speakers Native speakers can extracted the underlying co-occurrence information, often implicitly, from usage non-natives, even advanced ESL students have difficulty in understanding FL due to lack of access to the English speaking communities. Ex) Lee: Could you sign this document for me? Clerk: Come again? Lee: Why should I come again? I am here now. (p34) Noritaka: Hi Professor Kecskes. Professor: Hi Noritaka. How are you? Why don’t you sit down? Noritaka: Because you did not tell me to. Professor: OK. I am telling you now. (p39)

Studies on Formulaic Language Use 1) English as a lingua franca speakers 2) English by bilingual speakers

Formulaic Continuum The more we move to the right, the greater gap is observed between literal meaning and figurative meaning

FL use by lingua franca speakers Participants: thirteen adult individuals with the following first languages: Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Czech, Telugu, Korean, and Russian. All subjects came from the Albany community, had spent a minimum of six months in the United States, and had at least intermediate knowledge of English before arriving. No native speaker The conversation was not directed. Topics: housing in the area, jobs, and local customs.

Results -1,040 expressions out of 13,726 were formulaic (7.6 %) -Most frequent occurrences were observed in Fixed Semantic Units, Phrasal verbs and Speech Formula *66.8% of speech formula can be categorized as Back channeling such as right, I see, Ok “I am following you.” Filling a gap such as You know, I mean

FL use by Bilinguals Participants: C1: Japanese and Korean C2: Korean and Turkish C3: Korean and Chinese C4: Japanese and Chinese C5: Chinese and Korean C6: Korean and Burmese C7: African French and Korean No Native speaker of English Pre-advanced proficiency in English Part A How do participants introduce themselves?(closed social situations) Part B Introducing a New Topic (open social situation) Topics: health, sports, life in Albany and so on.

Part A How do participants introduce themselves?(closed social situations) The participants relied on situation-bound utterances rather than freely generated expressions. (the Idiom principle worked.) Examples) Let me introduce my self first. So glad to see you. Let me ask how long have you been here? Can I ask your name? Nice to meet you. etc

Part B Introducing a New Topic (open social situation) Much more ad hoc/ freely generated expressions. the idiom principle was still in play because the ad-hoc- generated utterance chunks are combined with some formulaic expressions Examples) C1B: Ok It’s been three or … theree months so far right? Do you like living in Albany? CB3: So what about here? CB4: So can you tell me the difficulties in life here? C5B: Another thing I noticed about American food is that.....

Results

Analysis Non- native speakers use formulaic language but they prefer to use semantically more transparent expressions in order to be understood by other speakers. Non-native speakers are less dependent on formulaic language than native speakers. In Bilingual project, they used much more situation-bound utterances and idioms. “A sign of the L2 language socialization” (p45)

Conclusion Is the Idiom Principle blocked in L2 production by non-native speakers? = No it is not blocked. It is inherent. We have to rely on prefabricated expressions primarily. Whatever language(s) you speak, no matter how much proficient in a language you are, you rely on something prefabricated. The Economy Principle

Discussion Questions 1. Nowadays English is spoken as a global language or a lingua franca. Do you think non-native speakers of English should speak English as native speakers do? 2. As a teacher, should you avoid to use formulaic language in ESL/EFL language classes?

Discussion Questions 3. What kind of formulaic language is the most important/ least important for ESL/ EFL students? What kind of formulaic language should we teach first, from the left side or the right side? 4. What kind of formulaic language is the most difficult to teach for you? How can we teach them in ESL/EFL?

References Kecskes, I “Is the Idiom Principle Blocked in Bilingual L2 Production?” Chapter 2. In Roberto Heredia and Anna Cieslicka (eds.) Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp