Foundations of Familiar Language: Formulaic Expressions, Lexical Bundles, and Collocations at Work and Play

A broad overview of the many kinds of unitary expressions found in everyday verbal and written communication, including their signature meaning, form, and usage, authored by a renowned scholar in the field Foundations of Familiar Language is renowned scholar Diana Sidtis's new contribution to the study of formulaic language through a wide-ranging overview of a large group of language behaviors that share characteristics of cohesion and familiarity, featuring a rational classification of fixed, familiar expressions into formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations. This unique volume offers a new approach to linguistic classification and construction grammar through a dual-process model of language competence rooted in linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic observations, combining insights drawn from foundational studies of psychology and neurology with contemporary theories of the differences between formulaic and propositional language. This approach offers a distinct and innovative contribution to scholarship in the field. The text contains resources for further study and research such as examples, research protocols, and lists of fixed, familiar expressions from the past and present. This authoritative volume: Describes the current state of knowledge and reviews experimental results, proposals, and models in a clear and straightforward manner Offers up-to-date surveys of the role of fixed expressions in education, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and brain science Features a wealth of engaging and relatable examples of formulaic expressions (conversational speech formulas, expletives, idioms, and proverbs), lexical bundles, and collocations Includes discussion of the use of fixed, familiar expressions in second language learning Presents new research data on the neurological foundations of familiar language drawn from clinical observations and experimental studies of stroke, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease Contains material from social media, magazines, newspapers, speeches, and other sources to illustrate the importance, abundance, and value of familiar language Sufficiently in-depth for specialists, while accessible to students and non-specialists, Foundations of Familiar Language is an essential resource for a wide range of readers, including linguists, child language specialists, psychologists, social scientists, neuroscientists, philosophers, educators, teachers of English as a second language, and those working in artificial intelligence and speech synthesis.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xi Preface xii 1 Introduction 1 Incidence of Familiar Language Exemplars 12 Where Do Fixed, Familiar Expressions Come From? 16 2 Classification 26 Identification 36 Three Classes of Familiar Expressions: Formulaic Expressions, Lexical Bundles, Collocations 37 Formulaic Expressions 40 Lexical Bundles 80 Collocations 86 Overview of Characteristics and Functions of Familiar Language 104 How Formulaic Expressions, Lexical Bundles, and Collocations Differ 114 3 How Is Familiar Language Acquired? 117 Frequency of Exposure: History and Veridicality 118 Acquisition: Role of Emotion and Familiarity 123 Acquisition: Memory for Speech and Language 127 4 Acquisition 131 Several Conditions Converge to Promote Acquisition 132 Acquisition of Fixed, Familiar Expressions in the First Language 136 Acquisition of Fixed, Familiar Expressions in the Second Language 143 Familiar Language Representation Compared in First and Second Language 150 5 Prosodic and Phonetic Characteristics of Fixed, Familiar Expressions 155 Stereotyped Prosodic Form in Fixed Expressions 157 Detailed Knowledge of Prosodic Features 160 Acoustic Studies 163 6 Familiar Language in Psychiatric and Neurologic Disorders 169 Psychiatric Disorders 170 The Neurology of Familiar Language 181 Stroke: Residual Speech and Familiar Phrases 187 Familiar Phrases in Speech Therapy 203 Specialized Functions of the Cerebral Hemispheres 217 The Right Hemisphere and Familiar Language 222 Cortical–Subcortical Dimension 224 Functional Imaging Studies of Fixed Expressions 241 7 Summing Up: Dual- or Multiprocess Model of Language Function? 251 The Linguistic View 251 The Psychological Perspective 253 Observations from Cerebral Processing 255 Familiar Language – Its Daunting Heterogeneity 258 Appendix I: Listing Accumulated by C. Fillmore, 1973 (2050 items) 263 Appendix II: Russell Baker: New York Times, the 1978 Commandments 287 Appendix III: Selected Familiar Expressions Listed in Chiardi, 1987 289 Appendix IV: Familiar Expressions Contributed by Students as Heard in Daily Communicative Interactions 291 Appendix Va: Formulaic Expressions as Encountered Every Day Over a Few Years 295 Appendix Vb: Lexical Bundles Encountered Every Day Over the Past Few Years 302 Appendix Vc: Collocations Encountered Every Day in the Past Few Years 305 Appendix VI: Schemata Accumulated from Current Communications 309 Appendix VII: German Proverbs Drawn from Hain (1951), Set Up in Survey Style to Assess Knowledge of Current Native Speakers of German 317 Appendix VIII: A Dialogue Composed Entirely of Movie Titles 321 Appendix IX: Formulaic Expressions Captured from On-line Viewing of the Film “Some Like It Hot” 323 Appendix X: Familiar Expressions from Newspapers: Class, Subset, Provenance, and Change of Form or Meaning 331 Appendix XI: Essential Nomenclature for Cerebral Structures: Definition, Location, and Function 343 Appendix XII: Matched Novel and Familiar Expressions; Stimuli for Rammell, Pisoni, and Van Lancker Sidtis (2018) Study 345 Appendix XIIIa: Northridge Evaluation of Formulas, Idioms, and Proverbs in Social Situations 348 Appendix XIIIb: Northridge Evaluation of Formulas, Idioms, and Proverbs in Social Situations 351 Appendix XIV: Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Protocol: Instructions and Answer Sheet 355 Appendix XV: Test Format for Survey: Some Like It Hot Protocol 365 Appendix XVI: Sample “Grid” from 2006 Used in Preliminary Studies to Document Subsets of Familiar Expressions in Healthy and Neurological Persons 368 Appendix XVII: Responsive Naming Test with Expected Answers (Garidis et al., 2009) 377 Appendix XVIII: Selected Books and Articles Listing Formulaic Expressions, Lexical Bundles, and Collocations 379 Glossary 381 References 386 Index 439

About the Author :
Diana Sidtis (formerly Van Lancker), PhD, CCC/SLP, is Professor Emerita of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at New York University and Research Scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York. She is the co-author of Foundations of Voice Studies, which won the 2011 Prose Award for Scholarly Excellence in Linguistics from the American Publishers Association. Her research examining voice, aphasia, motor speech, prosody, and formulaic language has been published in more than 130 peer-reviewed journals and other publications.