7 - Formulaic Sequences in the First Language Acquisition Process: A Model

Summary

Introduction

In the previous chapter, we saw how formulaic sequences are able to support the process of first language acquisition in a variety of ways. They appear to

• establish a culture of interaction with carers;

• supplement gesture and other nonlinguistic behaviours in conveying the most important manipulative messages before the production of rule-governed language is possible;

• represent the entry of the child into the group of those who know this or that rhyme or song and expect certain linguistic behaviour;

• provide the child with material for analysis; and

• reduce the child's processing load once novel construction is possible.

It was also evident that for many commentators the default status of formulaic sequences (apart from the fused utterances) is that they are only temporarily holistic. They have been stored whole because that is the only thing the child can do with them, but once analysis is possible, they are routinely broken down in order to identify regular configurations and useful recombinable units. However, there is a major problem with this assumption.

The stream of language which the child hears can be divided into different types. There are novel constructions that may never be heard again: these can be analyzed, but there is only one opportunity to catch them. There are strings which are formulaic for a particular speaker, because he or she has fused and stored them: these are not necessarily a chunk in anyone else's lexicon.