Comparing Formulaic Sequences in English as a Lingua Franca and English as a Native Language in Academic Lectures

The high significance of Formulaic sequences (FSs) in each language has attracted the attention of scholars. This study aimed at comparing the use of FSs in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as Native Language (ENL) lectures. Additionally, it attempted to discover the textual and structural functions of used FSs in two corpora of lectures. Finally, this study aimed at finding the position of FSs in sentences. To this end, two corpora, namely the transcribed corpus of spoken English of ELF and the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English were selected to be studied. The present study selected 100,000 words from the two corpora, approximately 50,000 from each The study employed Antconc software in order to accomplish its goal. Then, 638 FSs were extracted from previous studies and examined one by one. They were analyzed from different perspectives according to the objectives of the study. The results indicated non-native speakers used FSs more than native ones. Moreover, the most used textual function was saptio-temporal one both by non-native and native speakers. The most used structure by both groups was prepositional phrase. Furthermore, both groups used FSs in initial position more than other positions. The present study has implications for students, teachers, and material developers.