1. Formulaic Language in Academic Study
Norbert Schmitt

2. Single Words vs. Multi-word Units
Most discussion of vocabulary (including academic vocabulary) has been conceptualized in terms of single words or word families

3. How Much Vocabulary is Needed in English?
Nation (CMLR, 2006)
 6, ,000 word families for spoken discourse
 8, ,000 word families for written discourse

4. Frequency and Coverage
Levels Approximate Approximate
written spoken
coverage (%) coverage (%)
1st 1, – –84
2nd 1, – –6
3rd 1, – –3
4th–5th 1, –3
6th–9th 1, –1
10th–14th 1, <
Proper nouns – –1.5
Not in the lists –
Nation (2006)

5. AWL (Coxhead, TQ 2000) capacity diverse evidence item
assistance cooperate maintain purchase
abstract funding invoke revise
brief enormous integrity spherical
focus investigation reverse successive
hierarchy circumstance manual release
hypothesis offset sum
incentive rational scope
minimum publication entity

6. AWL (Coxhead, TQ 2000) capacity diverse evidence item
assistance cooperate maintain purchase
abstract funding invoke revise
brief enormous integrity spherical
focus investigation reverse successive
hierarchy circumstance manual release
hypothesis offset sum
incentive rational scope
minimum publication entity

7. Academic Vocabulary Successive comes with its own typical phraseology
What words collocate with successive?

8. COCA Results each successive successive generations
successive governments
successive administrations
successive waves
successive layers
successive stages

9. Typical Collocations
Each successive president chose entanglements and evasion over transparency, legality, and independence.
Turning schools around could help save successive generations of kids who quit and often end up jobless.

10. Phraseology in Language
There is a great deal of recurrent phraseology in language (including academic language)
This ‘formulaic language’ is crucial for accurate, appropriate, and fluent language use

11. What is Formulaic Language?
Recurrent multi-word lexical items that have a single meaning or function (Schmitt, 2010)
It is a umbrella cover term for a number of formulaic categories
Idioms
Collocations
Phrasal verbs
Lexical bundles
Lexical phrases
Phrasal expressions
etc

12. What is Formulaic Language?
multi-word units, multiword chunks, fixed expressions, frozen phrases, phrasal vocabulary, routine formulas, chunks, prefabricated routines …
Individual phrasal items will be referred to as a formulaic sequences

13. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is one of the most important components of language overall
The reasons for this are numerous:

14. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use

15. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
Meanings and functions are often realized by formulaic language

16. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
Meanings and functions are often realized by formulaic language
Formulaic language is necessary for appropriate functional language use

17. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is ubiquitous in language use
Meanings and functions are often realized by formulaic language
Formulaic language is necessary for appropriate functional language use
Formulaic language has processing advantages

18. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is an important component of language acquisition

19. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is an important component of language acquisition
Formulaic language is a feature of many languages

20. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is an important component of language acquisition
Formulaic language is a feature of many languages
The use of formulaic language helps speakers be fluent

21. Why is Formulaic Language Important?
Formulaic language is an important component of language acquisition
Formulaic language is a feature of many languages
The use of formulaic language helps speakers be fluent
Phraseology is a main feature that distinguishes different synonyms

22. Ubiquitous in Language Use
52-58% Erman and Warren (2000)
32% Foster (2001)
48-80% (M=66%) Oppenheim (2000)
once every five words Sorhus (1977)
21% 30% Biber, et al. (1999)
31% - 40% Howarth (1998)
15% Rayson (2008)

23. Ubiquitous in Language Use
52-58% Erman and Warren (2000):
32% Foster (2001)
48-80% (M=66%) Oppenheim (2000)
once every five words Sorhus (1977)
21% 30% Biber, et al. (1999)
31% - 40% Howarth (1998)
15% Rayson (2008)
Figures depend on the method of measurement, and whether spoken vs. written discourse

24. Meanings and Functions
The more recurrent a language need is (e.g. need to apologize, make a request, explain a particular idea), the more likely there will be a conventionalized expression (i.e. formulaic language) to express it

25. Meanings and Functions
Expressing a concept: (get out of Dodge [City] = get out of town quickly, usually in uncomfortable circumstances)
Stating a commonly believed truth or advice: (Too many cooks spoil the soup = it is difficult to get a number of people to work well together)
Providing phatic expressions which facilitate social interaction: (Nice weather today is a non-intrusive way to open a conversation)
Signposting discourse organization: (on the other hand signals an alternative viewpoint)

26. Meanings and Functions
Providing technical phraseology which can transact information in a precise and efficient manner: (2-mile final is a specific location in an aircraft landing pattern)
Maintaining conversations: (How are you?, See you later)
Realizing the topics necessary in daily conversations: (When is X? (time), How far is X? (location))
Expressing functions: I'm (very) sorry to hear about ___ to express sympathy

27. Appropriate Language Use
Formulaic language is expected by the speech community, and so word combinations which do not comply to the norm sound ‘unnatural’

28. Appropriate Language Use
gap Native speaker or learner?
Betty very skillfully stopped the gap of the mailbox so that birds could not get in.
… but to bridge the gap between existing …

29. Appropriate Language Use
Betty very skillfully stopped the gap of the mailbox so that birds could not get in.
Meaningful but awkward
… but to bridge the gap between existing
Appropriate word (collocation) choice

30. Appropriate Language Use
Schmitt (ELIA, )
Define border
How is it used?

31. Appropriate Language Use
BNC frequency X + on Figurative sense
border 8, (1%)
borders 2, (3%)
bordering (48%) 71%
bordered (28%) 75%

32. Appropriate Language Use
His passion for self-improvement bordered on the pathological.
But his approach is unconscionable, bordering on criminal.
Some other words which occur to the right of
bordered/ing on:
a slump arrogance chaos
a sulk austerity conspiracy
alcoholic poisoning bad taste contempt
antagonism blackmail cruelty
apathy carelessness cynicism

33. Appropriate Language Use
SOMETHING (is/are) bordered/bordering on SOMETHING
UNPLEASANT

34. Processing Advantages
Pawley and Syder (1983)
Formulaic sequences offer processing efficiency because single memorized units, even if made up of a sequence of words, are processed more quickly and easily than the same sequences of words which are generated creatively.
The mind uses an abundant resource (long term memory) to store a number of prefabricated chunks of language that can be used ‘ready made’ in language production.
This compensates for a limited resource (working memory), which can potentially be overloaded when generating language on-line from individual lexical items and syntactic/discourse rules.

35. Processing Advantages
Figurative
Personally, I think you can have the highest degree from the best university in the world, but at the end of the day it’s your contribution to the society that matters, and not the name of the university you went to at all.
Literal
However, I still had to carry most of my stuff in small boxes from my old room to the new one. I had to make at least 50 trips so
at the end of the day I was absolutely exhausted.
Novel
I know that at the end of the war he went on to teach students at the Military Academy.

36. Processing Advantages
Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt (SLR, 2011)
First Pass Reading Time = (early)
Total Reading Time = (late)
Fixation Count = (late)

37. Processing Advantages
Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt
Figurative Literal Novel
First Pass Reading Time (ms)
Total Reading Time (ms)
Fixation Count  

38. Processing Advantages
Siyanova, Conklin, and Schmitt
Figurative Literal Novel
First Pass Reading Time (ms) 447 = 454 = 497
Total Reading Time (ms) 514 = 507 < 628
Fixation Count = 2.7 < 3.2  

39. Language Acquisition
Peters (1983) suggests that formulaic sequences may be decomposed and the individual components extracted through a process of segmentation, to give insights into vocabulary and grammar:
An hour ago, a year ago, a month ago 
A(n) _____ ago + hour, year, month

40. Occurs in a Range of Languages
Formulaic language has been found in a range of languages:
English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and Chinese
Is it a universal trait of all languages?

41. Helps Speakers be Fluent
The largest unit of novel discourse that native speakers are able to process is a single clause of 8-10 words
When speaking, proficient speakers will speed up and become fluent during these clauses
But they will then slow down or even pause at the end of these clauses
NS seldom pause in the middle of a clause, or at least not for long

42. Helps Speakers be Fluent
But proficient speakers can fluently say multi-clause utterances:
- You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
Kuiper (2004) shows that speakers who operate under severe time constraints (play-by-play sports announcers, auctioneers) use a great deal of formulaic language in their speech
So, formulaic language helps speakers be more fluent

43. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
How are the following (near) synonyms used?
WORK
JOB
CAREER
LABOR
EMPLOYMENT

44. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
WORK:
workaholic, workforce, workload, workplace aid worker, factory worker, office worker, social worker

45. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
WORK:
workaholic, workforce, workload, workplace aid worker, factory worker, office worker, social worker
neutral? (frequent word = many contexts)

46. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
JOB:
botched, crummy, bad, hatchet, menial

47. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
JOB:
botched, crummy, bard, hatchet, menial
negative?

48. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
CAREER:
brilliant, distinguished, glittering, acting, director, film, international, literary

49. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
CAREER:
brilliant, distinguished, glittering, acting, director, film, international, literary
positive?

50. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
LABOR:
casual, cheap, deskilling, manual, unproductive

51. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
LABOR:
casual, cheap, deskilling, manual, unproductive
negative?

52. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
EMPLOYMENT:
conditions, contract, discrimination, rights

53. Distinguishes Synonyms (Stubbs, 1994)
EMPLOYMENT:
conditions, contract, discrimination, rights
legal?

54. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
Learners don’t use many idioms
Learners do use many high-frequency collocations (nice day)
Learners don’t use many lower-frequency but tightly-bound collocations (preconceived notions)

55. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
But learners often do not use the collocations they know appropriately
Inappropriate collocations is a leading problem in learner language
Learners often use words with their correct meanings, but do not understand the correct context of use (collocation, register, frequency)

56. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
Learners consistently overestimate their comprehension of reading texts that contain formulaic sequences that they either fail to identify or misunderstand, even at high levels of proficiency (Martinez and Murphy, TQ 2011)

57. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Boers & Lindstromberg (ARAL 2012) reviewed acquisition research:
Learning from exposure requires repetition (frequency)
Intentional learning produced better results
Raising awareness of formulaic language is not a powerful accelerator of learning
Knowing the component words makes learning a formulaic sequence easier
Providing learning strategies (dictionaries, concordance lines) produced mixed results

58. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Does learner use of formulaic language (e.g. collocations) improve just from studying in an academic environment?
Incidental acquisition
Li and Schmitt (JSLW, 2009)

59. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
We followed a Chinese MA student at Nottingham over one academic year and compiled a learner corpus from all of her essays and dissertation
We then analyzed all of her assignments and dissertation for formulaic language

60. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Would the student produce more formulaic language over the year?
Would the student produce better formulaic language over the year?
Would the student become more confident in producing formulaic language over the year?

61. Amount Produced

62. Appropriateness

63. Confidence

64. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Does learner use of formulaic language (e.g. collocations) improve from explicit teaching?
Focused instruction
Jones and Haywood (2004, In Schmitt (Ed.) Formulaic Sequences)

65. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Learners had better awareness of formulaic language after 10 weeks and could identify a greater number of sequences in a text
Some learners made some progress in producing more formulaic sequences in a C-test:
He suspected that too much of th__ ki__ o__
chemical might encourage the immune system…)
Most learners made no noticeable improvement in the number of formulaic sequences produced in their essays over 2 weeks

66. Necessity of Formulaic Language
Cowie (1992:10) goes so far to say:
“It is impossible to perform at a level acceptable to native users, in writing or in speech, without controlling an appropriate range of multiword units.” 66

67. Pedagogical Implications
Meunier review (ARAL, 2012)
If formulaic sequences are so important:
They need to be included in teaching syllabuses and materials
We can’t assume they will just be learned from exposure
They need to incorporated into language tests to a greater extent

68. Pedagogical Implications
But what formulaic sequences?
Vincent (JEAP, 2013) proposes a 6-stage process for identifying academic phraseology
Martinez (ELTJ, 2013) suggests a selection framework based on frequency and transparency
In order to incorporate formulaic sequences into their teaching and testing, most practitioners need a list of formulaic sequences to address

69. An Academic Formulas List (1-24) Simpson-Vlach & Ellis (AL, 2010)
in terms of
at the same time
from the point of view
in order to
as well as
part of the
the fact that
in other words
the point of view of
there is a
as a result of
this is a
on the basis of
a number of
there is no
point of view
the number of
the extent to which
as a result
in the case of
whether or not
the same time
with respect to
point of view of

70. An Academic Formulas List (1-24)
The table showed the first 24 formulas on the core list (written and spoken), ranked by a combination of frequency and MI scores
All component words of these formulas come from the 1st 1,000 frequency band

71. An Academic Formulas List Written 177-200
even though the
this does not
was based on
the nature of the
in the course of
degree to which
be argued that
in terms of a
for this reason
are based on
in a number of
two types of
the total number
is more likely
which can be
are able to
be considered as
be used to
b and c
depend on the
is that it is
is affected by
should also be
if they are

72. An Academic Formulas List Written 176-199
even though the
this does not
was based on
the nature of the
in the course of
degree to which
be argued that
in terms of a
for this reason
are based on
in a number of
two types of
the total number
is more likely
which can be
are able to
be considered as
be used to
b and c
depend on the
is that it is
is affected by (AWL)
should also be
if they are

73. An Academic Formulas List
Top 200 from written texts
1st 1, different words
2nd 1, different words
AWL different words

74. An Academic Formulas List
To learn formulas from the AFL, learners must either:
Know the high frequency component words already
This makes the learning easier Or
Learn the AFL formulas as wholes even if some component words are not known
Less efficient
Knowing AWL words would not help much
Knowing the 1st 1,000 words is key

75. An Academic Formulas List
Many of the AFL are structural components of meaningful sentences, but may not contain clear a meaning sense in their own right:
is that it is
is affected by
should also be
if they are

76. An Academic Formulas List
The AFL is based around functions:
Framing attributes
the idea that
the change in
Quantity specification
a series of
Identification and focus
different types of
such as a

77. An Academic Formulas List
Identification and focus
exactly the same
(the) difference between (the)
Locatives
in the real world
Vagueness markers
and so forth
Hedges
to some extent

78. An Academic Formulas List
Obligation and directive
I want you to
Expressions of ability and possibility
allows us to
are able to
Evaluation
an important role in
is consistent with
Discourse markers
even though the
in conjunction with

79. Formulaic Framework (Martinez, ELTJ, 2013)
Infrequent Frequent
take credit take issue take time take place
,556
Transparent Opaque
take credit take time take issue take place

80. Formulaic Framework (Martinez, ELTJ, 2013)
Frequent
take time (2) take place (1)
Transparent Opaque
take credit (4) take issue (3)
Infrequent

81. PHRASE List (Martinez & Schmitt, AL, 2012)
PHRASE List (PHRASal Expressions)
Some formulaic sequences are very frequent
500 phrasal expressions within 5,000 BNC frequency level
Based on same frequency as individual BNC words
Phrases which are opaque and not easily guessable

82. PHRASE List LEAD TO (CAUSE) 13,555 (1st 1,000 frequency level)
Excessive smoking can lead to heart disease.
HAVE GOT TO (must) 12,270 (2nd 1,000 frequency level)
You have got to try this salad.
BY THE TIME (when) 3,607 (3rd 1,000 frequency level)
By the time dinner started there were none left.

83. PHRASE List Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken Written Written Example
List (per 100 million) general general academic
Rank
HAVE TO 83, *** ** * I exercise
because I
have to.
GOING TO , *** ** x I’m going to
(FUTURE) think about it.
WAS TO , x *** ** The message
was to be
transmitted
worldwide.

84. PHRASE List Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken Written Written Example
List (per 100 million) general general academic
Rank
MAKE UP *** ** x You’d better
ONE’S MIND make up
your mind.
AT WORK x *** *** There were
strange forces
at work.

85. Experimental PHRASE Test
Inclusion in the Vocabulary Levels Test
1 take place
2 have got to _____ do
3 seek to _____ try
4 find out _____ must
5 make sure
6 carry out

86. Experimental PHRASE Test
Inclusion in the Vocabulary Levels Test
1 take place
2 have got to __6__ do
3 seek to __3__ try
4 find out __2__ must
5 make sure
6 carry out

87. Experimental PHRASE Test
1 take place
2 have got to __6__ do
3 seek to __3__ try
4 find out __2__ must
5 make sure
6 carry out
X Didn’t work well – learners needed context to make sense of many phrasal expressions

88. Experimental PHRASE Test
turn out: It turned out different.
a. started 
b. seemed 
c. became 
d. did not look

89. Experimental PHRASE Test
turn out: It turned out different.
a. started 
b. seemed 
c. became 
d. did not look

90. Experimental PHRASE Test
at least: At least it is warm.
a. other things may be bad, but 
b. many days have passed and now 
c. I cannot believe that 
d. the least important thing is

91. Experimental PHRASE Test
at least: At least it is warm.
a. other things may be bad, but 
b. many days have passed and now 
c. I cannot believe that 
d. the least important thing is

92. Experimental PHRASE Test
Seems to work much better
Still in piloting
Ron Martinez
(San Francisco State University)

93. Vocabulary Website Resource
Most Norbert Schmitt (& co-author) publications and other vocabulary resources can be accessed at his personal website:
This PowerPoint presentation is available
The PHRASE List is available
Link to COCA Corpus BYU web site