Two-Track Mind: Formulaic and Novel Language Support a Dual-Process Model

This chapter presents a historical and critical survey of phraseology, the study of formulaic language, in the context of analytic, experimental, and biological approaches. It begins with Weinreich’s (1969) early reluctance to explore the topic in a scholarly way and follows a circuitous path through linguistic, psychological, and neurological studies, culminating in current views of formulaic language as an integral component of speech performance and language competence (Fillmore, 1979; Locke & Bogin, 2006; Pawley & Syder, 1983). Linguistic and psychological studies have grappled with the question of whether idioms (as a prime example of a formulaic expression) are best described as compositional, i.e., composed of constituent parts, or unitary, i.e., processed as whole units. The preponderance of the evidence supports a dual-process model of language, whereby novel expressions and formulaic expressions differ essentially in how they are learned or acquired, stored, and processed (Kempler & Van Lancker, 1993; Kuiper, 2009; Van Lancker Sidtis, 1973, 2004, 2008; Wray & Perkins, 2000). Novel expressions are made up of lexical items assembled by grammatical rules; these communicate new information. In contrast, formulaic expressions, known in their unitary shape to the language user, are acquired and processed according to unique properties. Biological studies provide strong evidence for this distinction, as damage to different brain areas produces different effects on the two modes of language, novel (or propositional) and formulaic (Van Lancker Sidtis, Kempler, Ahn, & Yang, 2011). It is the purpose of this chapter to describe and clarify this distinction.