Formulaic Sequences in Learners’ Spoken English: A Comparative Corpus- based Study between Native and Non-Native Speakers of English

Formulaic sequences are commonly employed in general and educational communication, and come up with the construction of rationality in talking and non-verbal language, in addition to playing an essential role in the conception of communication. The current study examined the rate of formulaic sequences among competent non-native university students, structurally and functionally. Notably, a comparative corpus-based study was conducted to probe the accomplishment of formulaic sequences through administering the conversation in group discussions between native and Iranian speakers of English. For this purpose, four-word formulaic sequences were drawn out from a corpus of 21 group discussions and were categorized following Biber et al. (2004) taxonomies. Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) was employed as a native corpus. The results uncovered that native speakers employed more formulaic sequences than EFL peers. Besides natives utilized ‘discourse organizing bundles’ in functional classification, and ‘noun and prepositional phrases’ in structural classification. However, non-native speakers used ‘stance expressions’ in functional classification and ‘verb phrase fragments’ in structural classification. The outcomes present various educational suggestions for EFL teachers and learners.