A Study On Frequency Effect And Learning Strategies Of Formulaic Sequences For Chinese EFL Learners

The present study explores whether frequency of formulaic sequence and language proficiency would affect the processing of formulaic sequences in L2mental lexicon from psycholinguistic perspective and investigates the overall characteristics of the employment of formulaic sequence learning strategies and their relationship between L2learners’receptive and productive competence of formulaic sequences.The60subjects in this study are composed of two grades, freshmen and juniors, representing two levels of language proficiency from the English department of a comprehensive university in China. This study mainly consists of three parts:phrasal decision task, vocabulary phrase completion and formulaic sequence learning strategy questionnaire. By analyzing the data from phrasal decision task and vocabulary phrase completion, the author testifies frequency effect in the processing of formulaic sequences. The thesis investigates the overall characteristic of the employment of formulaic sequence learning strategies through a formulaic sequence learning questionnaire. The results of data analysis indicate the following findings:Firstly, frequency does affect the processing of formulaic sequences. Participants are more sensitive to high-frequency formulaic sequences than low-frequency ones. The processing of high-frequency formulaic sequence is more automatic when compared with that of low-frequency category and non-formulaic language category.Secondly, language proficiency would affect the processing of formulaic sequences to a certain extent. High-proficiency group process formulaic sequences more quickly and accurately than low-proficiency group.Thirdly, participants employ more cognitive strategies in formulaic sequences learning. Cognitive strategies correlate closely with the productive competence of formulaic sequences for freshmen. There is no significant difference found in the employment of formulaic sequence learning strategies between freshmen and juniors.Theoretically, the findings of this research provide empirical evidence for the processing of formulaic sequences, and testify the influence of frequency exerting on the processing of formulaic sequences. Practically, this thesis discusses the pedagogical implications and the importance of formulaic sequence learning strategy training, which provides some insight for L2teaching and learning.