Effects Of Frequency,Semantic Transparency And EFL Learners' Language Proficiency On Processing Formulaic Sequence

Formulaic sequence is the phrase or coherent semantic unit with formulaicity at a relatively high frequency and holistically stored in the mental lexicon.Since it was found to significantly contribute to language production,an increasing number of researchers have conducted studies on formulaic sequence from different perspectives,of which psycholinguistics is a representative perspective of studying formulaic sequence processing.From this perspective,researchers put forward the holistic hypothesis,namely,formulaic sequence was stored and retrieved as a whole,and have basically testified it through various empirical studies in native English speakers.Subsequently,attention began to be shifted to the exploration into English as a Foreign Language learners' processing of formulaic sequence with a focus on whether they also had the same processing advantage or holistic representation of formulaic sequence just as native English speakers did.Nevertheless,the number of relevant studies was relatively small and their results remained inconsistent.The present study intends to probe into the effects of the three variables,frequency,semantic transparency of formulaic sequence,and EFL learners' English language proficiency,on the processing of formulaic sequence.Enlightened by the study of Jiang&Nekrasova(2007),the current study employed an online grammaticality judgment task for investigation.88 three-or four-word fixed formulaic sequences varying in frequency and semantic transparency were selected as the test materials.Participants of the study were 64 second-year non-English majors with a 10-year English learning experience from two classes of a university enlisted in 211 Project in Jiangsu Province.They were divided into two groups according to their language proficiency in CET-4 and CET-6:high-proficiency learners and low-proficiency learners.In the online grammaticality judgment task,participants needed to make a judgment whether the formulaic sequences varying in frequency and semantic transparency were grammatical.The presentation of the materials and the collection of data were accomplished via E-prime software.The data included participants' reaction time and error rate which served as the evidence of formulaic sequence processing speed and accuracy,based on which the effects of the three variables on processing formulaic sequence were testified.The study aims to answer:(1)Does frequency of formulaic sequence have an effect on processing formulaic sequence?If yes,to what extent?(2)Does semantic transparency of formulaic sequence have an effect on processing formulaic sequence?If yes,to what extent?(3)Does EFL learners' language proficiency have an effect on processing formulaic sequence?If yes,to what extent?The findings of the present study are:Firstly,frequency of formulaic sequence exerts remarkable influence on the processing of formulaic sequence.Both groups of learners have less reaction time and lower error rate in the identification of high-frequency formulaic sequence than low-frequency formulaic sequence.This finding shows the processing advantage and the possibility of holistic processing of high-frequency formulaic sequence.Secondly,the effects of semantic transparency of formulaic sequence are testified on the processing of formulaic sequence.Participants identify formulaic sequence with low-semantic transparency faster and more accurately than those with high-semantic transparency in the online grammaticality judgment task,indicating that learners benefit from the processing advantage of formulaic sequence with low-semantic transparency.Thirdly,leaners' English language proficiency has impact on the processing of formulaic sequence.In general,high-proficiency learners perform better than low-proficiency learners on different categories of formulaic sequences(with faster speed and lower error rate).However,the effects of learners' English language proficiency are more pronounced on the processing of low-frequency formulaic sequence than that of high-frequency formulaic sequence,especially in terms of processing speed.The findings of the study have implications for formulaic sequence acquisition and teaching.On the one hand,a large quantity of high-frequency formulaic sequences should be included in textbooks to cultivate learners' formulaic sequence awareness and sensitivity to identify formulaic sequence.On the other hand,instructors are supposed to adopt different strategies to teach formulaic sequences varying in semantic transparency.Formulaic sequences with low-semantic transparency are suitable to be taught as a whole,while for high-transparency formulaic sequences,repetitive teaching with various relatedexercises promotes English learners to rapidly extract the schemas of formulaic sequences,?constantly consolidating their representations in English learners' mental lexicons.