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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 20:4 (2015) ► pp.500–525

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Formulaic sequences in native and non-native argumentative writing in German

 | University of Reading
 | Coventry University
 | Bangor University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 3.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 21 January 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.4.04jaw
The aim of this paper is to contribute to learner corpus research into formulaic language in native and non-native German. To this effect, a corpus of argumentative essays written by advanced British students of German (WHiG) was compared with a corpus of argumentative essays written by German native speakers (Falko-L1). A corpus-driven analysis reveals a larger number of 3-grams in WHiG than in Falko-L1, which suggests that British advanced learners of German are more likely to use formulaic language in argumentative writing than their native-speaker counterparts. Secondly, by classifying the formulaic sequences according to their functions, this study finds that native speakers of German prefer discourse-structuring devices to stance expressions, whilst British advanced learners display the opposite preferences. Thirdly, the results show that learners of German make greater use of macro-discourse-structuring devices and cautious language, whereas native speakers favour micro-discourse structuring devices and tend to use more direct language.
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