A NEW STARTING POINT?

Abstract

The use of formulaic expressions by second language learners has received little attention from second language acquisition research investigating interlanguage temporal systems. Instead, this field of inquiry has emphasized the productive use of verbal morphology by employing type-token analyses. This paper considers the proposed developmental sequence of formula > low-scope pattern > construction in the emergence of future expression in a longitudinal study of 16 adult learners of English as a second language. The findings suggest that the use of formulaic expressions may be subject to individual variation and that learners may use formulaic expressions to different degrees when developing form-meaning associations even in the same grammatical subsystem, such as the tense-aspect system. The findings also suggest, however, that the practice of favoring type over token analysis as a matter of course may eliminate valuable information about the emergence and development of temporal expression.