A Meta-analysis Of Studies On Processing Of L2 Formulaic Sequences

Formulaic sequence is ubiquitous in human language and has long been a focus of attention.Much have been done on formulaic language from different perspectives.Recently,there is a growing awareness involving the representation and processing of formulaic language in psycholinguistics.However,findings to date appear to be conflicting.For example,some indicate processing advantage of formulaic language for native speakers,some show positive evidence for nonnative speakers and some even find no support for native speakers and nonnative speakers.Since each single study cannot shed light on the whole picture of formulaic language processing,this thesis adopts meta-analysis as a research method to synthesize the results of primary studies.Specifically,four research questions are addressed in this study:1.Do formulaic sequences have a processing advantage? If so,to what degree do formulaic sequences have the processing advantage?2.Which kind of formulaic sequences holds bigger processing advantage,idiomatic expression or non-idiomatic expression?3.Is there any difference on processing of formulaic sequences between native speakers and L2 learners?4.Are there any other factors that may influence the effect size of formulaic language processing efficiency?To answer these questions,this meta-analysis carries a four-step procedure,including literature collection,literature selection,literature coding and effect size calculation.16 primary studies are selected as the final target literature,which contain 25 experiments and involve totally 1313 participants.57 effect sizes are extracted and averaged.Results of this study indicate that formulaic language needs less time to process than its nonformulaic control.That is to say,formulaic language has a processing advantage at a medium-effect level(d=0.597).Besides,effect sizes from both idioms(d=0.463)and non-idiomatic formulaic sequences(d=0.628)further support this finding.After examining the characteristics of participant and methodology,the current meta-analysis finds that the processing advantage of formulaic language is shared by both native speakers and L2 learners although learners still have a long way to go to become more nativelike.In addition,types of tasks and stimuli influence the effect size of formulaic language processing.By using a meta-analysis,which synthesizes the results of primary studies,this thesis supports the processing advantage of formulaic sequences in L2.Thus,results can provide beneficial suggestions for L2 teaching and learning.