A Study Of Formulaic Sequences In English Conversation

Formulaic sequence is an essential feature of human language. Therefore, it inevitably becomes a research object in linguistics. Observation of formulaic language can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth-century. Half a century later, Jespersen observed that"a language would be a difficult thing to handle if its speakers had the burden imposed on them of remembering every little item separately". In 2002,in the book Formulaic Language and Lexicon, Wray defines formulaic sequence as follows: A sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and received whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar. A large proportion of our everyday language is formulaic. Therefore, the studies of formulaic sequence have received more and more attention.The research of formulaic sequence has been conducted in many fields, while the studies on conversation are still few. This thesis attempts to further the formulaic study into the field of conversation textbook based on the former familiar study. The author also analyzes the phenomenon of formulaic sequence from the pragmatic point of view.This thesis has studied formulaic sequences in English conversations, by providing a descriptive and empirical account of formulaic sequences based on a corpus. A comparative study is conducted to demonstrate the extent of formulaic sequences in English conversation textbooks composed by Chinese authors and native authors. From the comparative study, we can draw some conclusions: firstly, formulaic sequences play an important role in English conversation, and they constitute a large number of the utterance, in other words, the utterance in English conversation is highly formulaic. Secondly, the study shows that between the conversation textbooks composed by both native and Chinese authors, the frequency of formulaic sequences in the textbooks composed by native authors is higher than the frequency of formulaic sequences in the textbooks composed by Chinese authors. This is mainly due to the fact that the native speakers tend to use large and complex phrases, and never break them down. While the non-native speakers pay more attention to individual units, organize utterances out of single words, employ small units and try to put them together. As a result, the Chinese authors employ less formulaic sequences in conversation textbooks than their foreign counterparts do. Therefore, on the whole, the English conversation textbooks composed by Chinese authors are less native-like than the English conversation textbooks composed by native authors.This paper studies the pragmatic function of formulaic sequences in English conversation in terms of social interactions, discourse devices and necessary topics. In conversations, formulaic sequences of social interaction and necessary topics predominate, with discourse devices having a relatively lesser role. Since formulaic sequences play an important role in English conversation, how to use them properly becomes a crucial issue. The paper also analyzes the appropriate use of formulaic sequences from three perspectives: cooperation, politeness and indirectness.However, due to the lack of teaching experience, the author's limited knowledge and the limitation of the research itself, there is still some room for further explanation of formulaic sequences in English conversation.