Synonymy is important but difficult for language learners to grasp. Using a forced-choice question instrument, along with corpus data as reference, this study examines the use of four sets of synonyms by intermediate/advanced Chinese EFL/ESL learners and native English speakers. The data analyses reveal several key findings, including a general…

Many age-related second language (L2) studies have confirmed that young children have a better chance to become nativelike in L2 acquisition than adults. The current study investigated whether age effects exist in the L2 acquisition of Japanese and whether nativelike proficiency is guaranteed for early child L2 starters after constant target…

This manuscript reports on a corpus-based comparison of native and nonnative graduate students' language production in an asynchronous learning environment. Using 486 discussion board postings from a five-year period (2009-2013), we analyzed the extent to which native and nonnative university students' writing differed in 10 measures of syntactic…

In this study, we investigated criterial discourse features in L2 writing through the use of recurrent word combinations, a.k.a. lexical bundles, taking a corpus-driven and expert-judged approach by examining L2 English data across various proficiency levels from L1 Chinese learners. Proficiency was determined by a robust rating procedure which is…

Cohesion, or the connectedness of discourse, has been recognized as playing a crucial role in both language production and comprehension processes. Researchers have debated about the "right" number and classification of cohesive devices, as well as about their interaction with coherence and/or genre. The present study proposes an integrative model…

There is little dispute that formulaic sequences form an important part of the lexicon, but to date there has been no principled way to prioritize the inclusion of such items in pedagogic materials, such as ESL/EFL textbooks or tests of vocabulary knowledge. While wordlists have been used for decades, they have only provided information about…

With the ever increasing number of studies on formulaic language, we are beginning to learn more about the processing of formulaic language (e.g. Ellis et al. 2008; Siyanova et al. 2011), its use in speech (e.g. Aijmer 1996; Wood 2012) and writing (e.g. Hyland 2008a, 2008b) and its application in natural language processing (e.g. Tschichold 2000).…

This study investigated the effects of three factors (the number of collocates per node word, the position of the node word, synonymy) on learning collocations. Japanese students studying English as a foreign language learned five sets of 12 target collocations. Each collocation was presented in a single glossed sentence. The number of collocates…

The prevalence of formulaicity in naturally occurring language use points to an important role in the way language is acquired, processed, and used. It is widely recommended that second-language instruction should ensure that learners develop a rich repertoire of formulaic sequences. If this is justified, it follows that learner failure to use…

This article assesses the influence of L1 intralexical knowledge on the formation of L2 intralexical collocations. Two tests, a primed lexical decision task (LDT) and a test of receptive collocational knowledge, were administered to a group of non-native speakers (NNSs) (L1 Swedish), with native speakers (NSs) of English serving as controls on the…

John McHardy Sinclair has made major contributions to applied linguistics in three related areas: language in education, discourse analysis, and corpus-assisted lexicography. This article discusses the far-reaching implications for language description of this third area. The corpus-assisted search methodology provides empirical evidence for an…

This research creates an empirically derived, pedagogically useful list of formulaic sequences for academic speech and writing, comparable with the Academic Word List (Coxhead 2000), called the Academic Formulas List (AFL). The AFL includes formulaic sequences identified as (i) frequent recurrent patterns in corpora of written and spoken language,…

It is generally accepted that formulaic sequences like "take the bull by the horns" serve an important function in discourse and are widespread in language. It is also generally believed that these sequences are processed more efficiently because single memorized units, even though they are composed of a sequence of individual words, can be…

If good proficiency in L2 entails the acquisition not only of many single words but of many lexical chunks as well, it must then be asked how all this additional lexis is to be committed to long-term memory in the limited time available on non-intensive classroom-based language courses. If it is the case that a significant fraction of…

One of the great puzzles of language acquisition has been described as poverty of the stimulus: how are complex aspects of language acquired when they appear to be rare or even non-occurring in the input that a learner receives and comprehends? This article presents an emergentist solution to one aspect of this puzzle (involving relative clauses)…