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Comfortable fossilization: Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition and use of formulaic sequences in L2 writing
Author(s)
Date Issued
2014
Journal
ISSN
2448-3389
0102-4906
Citation
Estudos Anglo-Americanos, 42, 37-52
Description
Open access
Type
Peer Reviewed Journal Article
Abstract
The present study set out to investigate the knowledge and use of formulaic sequences in Chinese EFL learner‟s L2 writing. Adopting Alison Wray‟s definition (Wray, 2000, p.465), formulaic sequence was operationalized as “idioms, collocations and sentence frames (including connectives)”. Authentic samples written by 16 advanced EFL writers in China were collected and analyzed with a view to probing into their knowledge and use of formulaic sequences. The results indicated that a strong influence of these EFL learners‟ native language (L1) affected their knowledge and use of formulaic sequences in L2 writing. The study argues that such over-reliance on these incorrect formulaic sequences is likely to become what Skehan and Foster (2001) have called “comfortable fossilization”. Implications of these results for EFL writing instructions are discussed.
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