Psychological Reality Of Formulaic A Study Of Chinese Efl Learners’Reaction To Binominal Expressions

Since1990s, formulaic language, which we usually refer to chunks or formulaic sequences, has received a special attention.A large number of previous studies have shown that there exist some advantage during the process of dealing with the formulaic sequences. Furthermore, it is analyzed that there is a psychological reality for formulaic sequences, that is to say, the formulaic sequence is extracted or stored as a whole block. The study of the mental representation of the formulaic sequence need both the theoretical supports and the experimental evidences. At present, the empirical studies are conducted from four perspectives:Reaction Time (RT)(Conklin&Schmitt,2008; Nan Jiang,2007); Eye-tracking (Underwood et al,2004&Ehrlich et al,1981); Oral Reproduction(Conklin&Schmitt,2008; Schmitt&Underwood,2004); and ERP (Zhang Hui,2009; Siyanova et al,2009). For such a phenomenon, the current study focus on the psychological reality of formulaic sequences issues, namely:in the psychological lexicon, whether the formulaic sequence is extracted and stored as a whole unit, or whether the formulaic sequence is represented as a whole unit.It is generally accepted that we store representations of words in our mental lexicon. However, what exactly is stored remains an open question (Siyanova et al,2009). Following the trend of psycholinguistic approach to FS, this thesis is trying to do a further research on the study of Siyanova et al. This thesis will use a new perspective on the psychological reality of formulaic sequences, and then answer the three research questions:For Chinese EFL learners, do the frequent binominal expressions read faster than the infrequent reversed forms and the abnormal phrases? For Chinese EFL learners, are there exist differences between different language levels of the subjects? And what are the factors that may influence the result? What inspirations that the research enlighten the educators in second language acquisition (SLA)?In this study, the author will use the RT (Reaction Time) experiment, which referenced the study of Jiang Nan’s experiment (Self-paced Reading task). Moreover, the E-Prime experimental software will be used to design the experiment, in order to study the different reactions of Chinese EFL learners on the chosen binominals and its variants. According to the conclusions of this study:all the participants’respond to the frequent binominal expressions is significantly faster than they have done the infrequent reversed forms and the abnormal phrases by SPSS17.0analysis. In addition, specific data analysis shows that different language levels of the subjects respond to different blocks.This current study has some significance for English learning. In L2vocabulary learning class, L2educators should emphasize the importance of the formulaic sequences, to guide students to master some important formulaic sequences. In addition, the author pointed out that formulaic sequences teaching should be established as a specific discipline, to improve the second language learner’s attention to the formulaic sequences, and then to increase the overall level of the second language.