Uptake in incidental focus-on-form episodes concerning formulaic language in advanced adult EFL classes

I Introduction

Incidental focus on form (FonF) has received considerable pedagogical attention in light of a number of theoretical frameworks and psycholinguistic evidence, such as Swain’s output hypothesis (1985), Long’s (1996) interaction hypothesis, and Schmidt’s (2001) noticing hypothesis (for a review, see R. Ellis, 2016). Incidental FonF involves drawing learners’ attention to linguistic features as they arise spontaneously and naturally in communicative-oriented activities (Long & Robinson, 1998). Target forms in incidental FonF are unpredictable (Loewen, 2005); hence, the potential effectiveness of incidental FonF in promoting second language (L2) learning has been mainly gauged through uptake rate (e.g. Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewen, 2001a, 2001b; Lyster & Ranta, 2013; Sheen, 2006) or customized posttests (e.g. Loewen, 2005; Nassaji, 2011, 2013) in observational classroom studies.

Uptake refers to ‘learners’ responses to the provision of feedback after either an erroneous utterance or a query about a linguistic item within the context of meaning-focused language activities’ (Loewen, 2004, p. 153). A number of theoretical perspectives such as pushed output hypothesis (Swain, 2005) and noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 2001) suggest that there is a potential link between uptake and L2 development (Egi, 2010; Mackey, 2007; McDonough, 2005). Uptake in incidental FonF is considered to be one type of ‘pushed output’ and ‘modified output’ as it entails either learners’ target-like modification (i.e. successful uptake) or non-target-like reformulation of their original erroneous or incomprehensible output (i.e. unsuccessful uptake) (Egi, 2010). Moreover, noticing is deemed as the intended outcome of FonF (Long & Robinson, 1998), and successful uptake is an indication of noticing (Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000).

Successful uptake has the potential to foster learners’ procedural knowledge of various linguistic features (Egi, 2010). The rate and quality of uptake are believed to be contingent on a number of factors, including the nature of the linguistic target in incidental FonF (for a review, see Brown, 2014). FonF ‘can be directed at any aspect of language’ (Ellis, Loewen, & Basturkmen, 2006, p. 139). To date, form in FonF has been investigated in relation to linguistic features mainly involving morphosyntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Formulaicity of language has eluded researchers’ attention in interactional research as formulaic sequences (FSs) (i.e. collocations, idioms, lexical bundles, compounds, etc.) have been categorized in terms of their constituent linguistic elements rather than stand-alone units of meaning.

Formulaic aspects of language constitute a substantial proportion of common language use (Cowie, 1994; Wood, 2015; Wray, 2002). Language is organized around rule-based and rote-learned elements (R. Ellis, 2005; Widdowson, 1989). The dual-nature view of language is corroborated by the open choice principle and the idiom principle (Sinclair, 1991). A formulaic sequence (FS) is conceptualized by Wray (2002) as:

a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements, which is or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar (p. 9).

Whereas formulaic language has received considerable recognition in corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics (e.g. Biber, 2006; Cortes & Csomay, 2015; N. Ellis, 2012), FSs have not been figured prominently in research on interaction in SLA. Wood (2002) notes that ‘the evidence that formulaic language is basic to language development, processing, production, and learning … has important implications for how language is dealt with in the classroom’ (p. 2). Drawing on a corpus of intact classroom pedagogical interactions to investigate the extent to which FSs are addressed in incidental FonF and the degree to which targeted formulaic forms result in (successful) uptake, the findings of the present study may offer novel insights into FonF studies by accounting for the rates and effectiveness of FSs.

II Literature review

III Method

3 Operationalizations

a (Non)formulaic form

Formulaicity and creativity are matters of degree instead of a clear-cut dichotomy; however, formulaic language is distinguished from non-formulaic language for the sake of practicality in the present study in line with other studies (e.g. Columbus, 2010; Yeldham, 2015). Drawing on Sinclair’s (1991) open choice principle, in this study, non-formulaic forms refer to ‘elements used in their literal senses and freely substitutable’ (Howarth, 1998, p. 28). These elements are subject to syntactic analysis where ‘the only restraint is grammaticalness’ (Sinclair 1991, p. 109). Instances of creatively constructed non-formulaic word strings include break the cup, watch the car coming behind you, or under the table. Conversely, based on the idiom principle, formulaic forms are characterized as the elements that ‘constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysable into segments’ (Sinclair, 1991, p. 110). Formulaic forms are, in fact, driven by idiomaticity, that is ‘native-like selection of expressions one has to know over and above rules and words’ (Warren, 2005, p. 35). Examples of formulaic word strings include break the ice, watch out!, or under the weather.

The criteria for judging and categorizing formulaic linguistic features are unsettled (Wood, 2015). FSs can be recognized based on one, all, or a number of criteria (Wood, 2015). In this study, a word string was marked as formulaic by drawing upon the FS identification checklists in the literature (Coulmas, 1979; Hickey, 1993; Myles, Hooper, & Mitchell, 1998; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992), coders’ intuition (Wray & Namba, 2003), references (e.g. dictionary), and FSs identified by the previous research (e.g. Academic Formulas List). Moreover, the principle of ‘restricted exchangeability’ (Erman & Warren, 2000, p. 32), denoting that ‘a constituent component of an FS ‘cannot be replaced by a synonymous word without causing change of meaning or function and/or idiomaticity’, was applied in identifying formulaic elements. Wray and Namba’s (2003) checklist (see Appendix 1) was employed as one of the main reference material for judging formulaicity in this study. Consisting of a relatively comprehensive set of diagnostic criteria, their checklist provides guidelines to cater to different types of data, such as error free, error in form, and error in usage and specifies the application of specific criteria to different data types with detailed explanation and examples as described in Namba (2010). Hence, it was considered a suitable instrument for analysing adult spoken corpus of the present study.

b Focus-on-form episode (FFE)

Following Ellis et al.’s (2001a) definition, in this study, an FFE is operationalized as the discourse triggered by correcting learners’ errors by the teacher or another learner (reactive FonF) or a query that explicitly addresses a linguistic form raised by either a learner (student-initiated preemptive) or the teacher (teacher-initiated preemptive) when there is no perceived occurrence of an actual error.

According to Wray’s (2002) needs only analysis model, L1 users treat virtually all word strings holistically unless there is a need for breaking them down. In contrast, L2 learners tend to predominantly break down FSs and store their components separately in their mental lexicon. L2 learners’ deviant use of FSs has been ascribed to their limited procedural knowledge of formulaicity (Wray, 2002) or their ‘lack of awareness of the phenomenon’ (Howarth, 1996, p. 186) that FSs as stand-alone units do not require ‘generation or analysis of the language grammar’ (Wray, 2002, p.9). For instance, tables in the FS turn the tables on somebody has a plural form for no apparent reason or ball in the FS ball is in your court is never pluralized (Wray, 2002). In a formulaic FFE, learners’ attention is drawn to an FS either reactively or preemptively to address its: (1) entire form, meaning, and/or usage; (2) lexical selection; and/or (3) lexical formation (Millar, 2011) (see Appendix 2). It is argued that the figurative sense of the FS a piece of cake (‘easy to do’) is lost if one ignores idiomaticity by saying the piece of cake (i.e. lexical misformation) or a slice of cake (i.e. lexical misselection) (Xu, 2015). In addition, based on Nesselhauf’s (2005) collocation error annotation, formulaic deviations (i.e. those that directly stem from the phraseological status of an FS) were differentiated from non-formulaic deviations (i.e. those that relate to the syntactic rules governing creative constructions). Accordingly, if subject-verb agreement was focused on in the utterance she make judgments, the FFE was marked as non-formulaic. In case lexical formation (judgment is never pluralized) or lexical selection (we say pass judgment) was addressed, the FFE was marked as formulaic (Nesselhauf, 2005).

c Uptake

As illustrated in Figure 1, the end of an FFE is coded as:

no opportunity for uptake where the teacher immediately continues the ongoing topic without giving the learner a chance to react to the target form;

no uptake where the learner does not respond to the target form despite having a chance for producing an uptake move;

uptake where the learner responds to the form triggering the FFE;

successful uptake where the learner successfully incorporates the target item into their linguistic production by giving an example, rephrasing, or correcting the original error in response to corrective feedback;

unsuccessful uptake where uptake is non-target-like and requires further repair.

Unsuccessful uptake is further categorized into three subtypes of acknowledgement where the learner simply acknowledges the recognition of the focused form (by saying yes, oh, thanks, um, etc.); modified where the learner modifies their non-target-like utterances incorrectly or partially correctly; and unmodified where the learner does not modify the original error, expresses difficulty understanding the target form, or circumvents the use of the target form.

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Figure 1.

Coding scheme of uptake.

Uptake may be either overt (i.e. learners’ audible immediate responses) or covert (i.e. subvocalized uptake) (Ohta, 2000). In line with other FonF studies, this study was concerned with overt instances of uptake. Any learner error in uptake move that was not the focus of the FFE was disregarded. Instances of FFEs wherein there was no opportunity for uptake were excluded from the analysis. In case an FFE contained multiple uptake moves, only the final move was counted as suggested by Elli et al. (2001a).

4 Coding linguistic categories

The first researcher and the second researcher independently listened to a randomly selected sample of the audio recordings (10%) to identify FFEs. Kappa measure of agreement (Cohen, 1960) was used to establish agreement between the two coders, and the inter-coder reliability was found to be very high, K = .91. The discrepancies were resolved through negotiation. The first researcher listened to the entire audio recordings to identify all FFEs and transcribe them. After being contacted via Skype and Email and briefed on the key pieces of literature on FSs, a native speaker of American English (an MA graduate of applied linguistics) was involved in the coding process to bolster confidence in the identification of FSs. Then, the two researchers independently listened to the audio recordings and analysed the transcribed FFEs to code all FFEs for their linguistic foci using Zhao and Bitchener’s (2007) coding scheme as illustrated in Table 1. It was possible to code other types of forms (e.g. cliché) or double code one FFE (e.g. compound and pronunciation); however, such instances did not occur in this database.

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Table 1.

Linguistic categories.

Category	Description
A. Formulaic forms:
1. Collocation	Linguistic features with formulaic nature. A lexical collocation consists of two content words (i.e. adjective, adverb, noun, or verb) that contribute almost equally to its entire meaning. A grammatical collocation consists of a dominant content word (i.e. a noun, a verb, or an adjective) and a subordinate grammatical structure (i.e. a preposition, an infinitive, or a clause) (Benson et al., 2010).	K = .93
2. Lexical bundle	Lexical bundles are recurrent expressions that ‘commonly go together in natural discourse’ (Biber et al., 1999, p. 990).	K = . 96
3. Idiom	Idioms are ‘opaque invariant word combinations’ (Warren, 2005, p. 35).	K = .99
4. Compound	A compound is the creation of a word with a specific meaning by blending two existing words (Wood, 2015).	K = .91
B. Non-formulaic forms:
1. Grammar	Linguistic features with non-formulaic nature. Subject-verb agreement, tense, plurals, word order, question formation, negation, determiners, pronouns, prepositions, plural, verb morphology, sentence construction, etc.	K = .87
2. Pronunciation	Segmental and supra-segmental aspects of the phonological system that are not related to bound grammatical morphemes. Pronunciation of words.	K = .99
3. Vocabulary	Meaning of single-word items.	K = .81
4. Spelling	The orthographic form of words (Ellis et al., 2001b, p. 424).	K = 1.0

Source. Adapted from Zhao & Bitchener, 2007, p. 438.

a Collocational FFEs

Collocations are defined as semi-fixed and partially figurative sequences concerning holistic language processing (Xu, 2015). Following Nesselhauf’s (2005) phraseological approach, collocations are distinguished from other word combinations according to arbitrary restriction on combinability. Accordingly, kick the ball is a free combination as all of its elements in the given senses are combinable with other elements without collocational restriction (e.g. kick the stone). A collocational unit (e.g. kick a habit) is comprised of the base (habit) and the collocator (kick) (Nesselhauf, 2005). Whereas the base in the sense present in the collocation is freely combinable with other elements, the collocator, in the given sense, is relatively arbitrarily restricted to a single element or a smaller set of certain elements known as ‘collocational range’ (e.g. break a habit) (Handl, 2008). Nesselhauf’s (2005) and Alonso Ramos et al.’s (2010) guidelines were consulted to delimit formulaic deviations from non-formulaic ones in the case of malformed collocations.

Collocations are divided into two common categories of lexical collocations (e.g. heavy rain) and grammatical collocations (e.g. in advance) (Xu, 2015). In grammatical collocations (also called colligations), certain lexical items ‘are primed to occur in, or avoid, certain grammatical functions or structures’ (Hoey, 2005, p. 13). Lexical collocations were coded using Xu’s (2015) coding scheme, and grammatical collocations were coded adopting Benson, Benson, and Ilson’s (2010) coding scheme (see Appendices 3 and 4). Following Nesselhauf (2005), collocations were crosschecked with Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (Sinclair, 1996), Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2015), Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009), and The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English (2010). The extracted collocations containing phrasal verbs were checked with Oxford Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs (1993), Oxford Phrasal Verbs (2010), and the PHaVE List (Garnier & Schmitt, 2015).

b Lexical bundle FFEs

Lexical bundles (e.g. with respect to) are structurally incomplete, fixed, frequent, phonologically coherent, and holistically processed phrases that fulfill significant discourse functions (Conrad & Biber, 2005). Lexical bundles are typically recognized using the frequency-based heuristic approaches which require large corpora. Given the limited size of the corpus in this study, Simpson-Vlach and Ellis’s (2010) academic formulas list (AFL) was used to cross-examine lexical bundles (see Appendix 5).

c Idiomatic FFEs

The key characteristics of idioms include semantic opacity, relative fixity, processing ease, and figurative nature (Tabossi, Fanari, & Wolf, 2009). In idioms (e.g. kick the bucket), all the elements in the present sense can be employed in particular restricted environments (Nesselhauf, 2005). The extracted idioms were crosschecked with Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms (2010) and The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (2005).

d Compound FFEs

A compound is the combination of a word with two or more words to generate a word with a unique meaning (ten Hacken, 2004). Three major forms of compounds include closed form (firework), hyphenated form (ice-skate), and open form (real estate). The coders consulted the Internet and dictionaries to determine the form of a compound (see Appendix 6).

5 Coding types of FFEs

All FFEs concerning formulaic forms were further coded for incidental FonF types using coding scheme proposed by Zhao and Bitchener (2007) (see Appendix 7). Examples of FFEs with different types and foci taken from the corpus of the present study are presented in Table 2.

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Table 2.

Examples of FFEs.

			Characteristics	Category
Example 1: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	S	Excuse me (.) How can we say امید به زندگی /’əʊmɪd be Zendegi:/ in English?	Type Linguistic focus Uptake	Student-initiated Lexical collocation Uptake, successful
2	T	Life expectancy.
3	S	Thank you. I think (.) life expectancy is low among men
Example 2: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	S	Stress is the cause of several problems (.)on other hand (.) stress can be useful.	TypeLinguistic focus	ReactiveLexical bundle
2	T	On THE other hand.	Uptake	Uptake, successful
3	S	Ahh, sorry (.) on the other hand (.) stress before exams can be useful …
Example 3: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	S1	What’s the meaning of ‘pop the question’?	TypeLinguistic focus	Student-initiatedIdiom
2	S2	سوال رو برگردوندن /’səʊl rɑ: b.rg.rdɑ:nd.n/	Uptake	No opportunity
3	T	Oh (.) NO (.) It’s an expression
4	T	Imagine (.)I want to get married.
5	S2	Really? @
6	Ss	@
7	T	So I arrange a meeting with her(.) and I pop the question. I say I want to marry you! Proposing marriage (.)OK, let’s move on
Example 4: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	T	Which one is correct? APOLOGIZE TO somebody or APOLOGIZE FROM	TypeLinguistic focus	Teacher-initiated Grammatical collocation
2	S1	Apologize from someone?
3	T	In Farsi we say عذرخواهی از /əʊzrkhɑ:hi: æz/ (.) but in Englishwe use to (.) APOLOGIZE TO sb.	Uptake	No Uptake
Example 5: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	S	… she promote women’s rights.	Type	Reactive
2	T	She proMOTES?	Linguistic focus	Grammar
3	S	Yeah (.) equity is women’s right.	Uptake	Unsuccessful
4	T	Absolutely! Can you explain more?
Example 6: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	S	How do you pronounce this?	Type	Student-initiated
2	T	/fəˈsɑːd/	Linguistic focus	Pronunciation
			Uptake	No uptake
Example 7: Episode with formulaic focus:
1	T	Feckless means? Did you get it?	Type	Teacher-initiated
2	Ss	(….)	Linguistic focus	Vocabulary
3	T	Irresponsible and careless.	Uptake	Successful uptake
4	S1	My sis is very a feckless person (.)I can’t rely on her!

IV Results

1 Uptake in (non)formulaic-oriented FFEs

In aggregate, 1,217 FFEs were identified. The focus of 820 (67%) FFEs was non-formulaic, and 397 (33%) instances were formulaic-oriented. Therefore, FFEs with non-formulaic focus occurred more frequently than episodes concerning FSs in the observed classes by two folds. Instances of no opportunity (n = 30) eliminating the possibility of learner uptake were excluded from the analysis. Of all the coded FFEs, uptake occurred in 574 episodes, comprising almost half of the total episodes (47%). A distribution of FFEs and uptake in episodes with (non)formulaic foci is illustrated in Table 3. Out of the FFEs containing uptake, 59% and 41% resulted in successful uptake and unsuccessful uptake, respectively. A comparison of (un)successful uptake rate in FFEs with (non)formulaic foci is presented in Table 4.

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Table 3.

Focus-on-form episodes (FFEs).

Form	FFE		Uptake
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Formulaic FFEs	397	33	266	46
Non-formulaic FFEs	820	67	308	54
Total	1,217	100	574	100

Note. The percentages are rounded off.

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Table 4.

Uptake.

Form	Successful uptake		Unsuccessful uptake		No uptake
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Formulaic	197	58	69	29	122	20
Non-formulaic	142	42	166	71	491	80
Total	339	100	235	100	613	100

Note. The percentages are rounded off.

In order to investigate any association between the nature of the linguistic target in FFEs and uptake rate, Pearson’s chi-square analysis was performed given the categorical nature of the data. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 24.0 was used to calculate all inferential statistics, and an alpha level of p < .05 was set for all chi-square analyses. A chi-square analysis revealed a significant relationship between the nature of FFEs (formulaic vs. non-formulaic) and whether FFEs led to uptake, χ² (1, 1187) = 94.177, p = .001. The effect size was found to be medium, w = .3 (Fielding & Gilbert, 2000). Thus, when the focus of FFEs was formulaic, 69% of them contained uptake move and 31% did not, whereas when non-formulaic forms were targeted in FFEs, 38% of the episodes resulted in uptake and 62% did not.

There was also a significant association between formulaic versus non-formulaic foci of FFEs and successful uptake rate, χ² (1, 574) = 46.135, p = .001. The effect size was found to represent a medium association, w = .3. Out of the total formulaic-oriented FFEs containing uptake, 74% was successful and 26% was unsuccessful; however, 46% of the episodes with non-formulaic focus led to successful uptake and 54% did not. These findings suggest that learners are more likely to generate targeted formulaic features correctly compared to non-formulaic ones. The analysis then compared the occurrence of uptake and successful uptake in relation to specific categories of (non)formulaic forms. The findings are summarized in Table 5.

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Table 5.

Uptake according to the linguistic foci of focus-on-form episodes (FFEs).

Form	Uptake		No uptake		Successful uptake		Unsuccessful uptake
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Formulaic FFEs:
Collocation	203 a	76	82	67	165 a	84	38	55
Lexical bundle	14	5	8	7	8	4	6	9
Idiom	34 a	13	9	7	16	8	18	26
Compound	15	6	23	19	8	4	7	10
Total	266	100	122	100	197	100	69	100
Non-formulaic FFEs:
Grammar	64	21	140 a	29	12	8	52 a	31
Pronunciation	35	11	101 a	20	17	12	18	11
Vocabulary	195	63	230	47	106	75	89	54
Spelling	14	5	20	4	7	5	7	4
Total	308	100	491	100	142	100	166	100

Notes. The percentages are rounded off. ^aAdjusted residuals greater than +2.0.

In some analyses where the variables involved more than two categories, adjusted standardized residuals of greater than plus 2 (indicating significantly higher frequency) or minus 2 (indicating significantly lower frequency) were used to indicate the source of the statistical significance (Haberman, 1973). A chi-square analysis revealed that the linguistic foci of FFEs was related to uptake rate, χ² (7, 1187) = 132.373, p = .001. The strength of the association was medium, w = .33. Uptake was most likely to occur in FFEs targeting collocations (71%) and idioms (79%). In contrast, FFEs concerning grammar (31%) and pronunciation (26%) significantly were least likely to lead to uptake. These results suggest that when particular sub-types of FSs are focused on, learners are more inclined to produce uptake, whereas when non-lexical forms are addressed, learners seem less likely to respond.

In addition, any association between the linguistic foci of FFEs and successful uptake rate was examined. The chi-square analysis was found to be significant, χ² (7, 574) = 90.564, p = .001, with a high effect size, w = .4. FFEs dealing with collocations (81%) most frequently resulted in successful uptake, and episodes concerning grammar (19%) least frequently led to successful uptake. Therefore, the proportion of uptake and successful uptake varied in FFEs with different linguistic foci.

2 Uptake in formulaic-oriented FFEs

The following analyses examined uptake and successful uptake only in formulaic-oriented FFEs regarding the scope of formulaic forms in terms of entire versus constituents of FSs (see Appendix 2) and types of incidental FonF (see Table 2). A total number of 187 (47%) formulaic-oriented FFEs concerned FSs in their entirety, and 210 (53%) instances targeted constituent components of FSs. A comparison of (successful) uptake in FFEs dealing with whole as opposed to constituents of formulaic forms is shown in Table 6.

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Table 6.

Uptake according to the scope of FS-related focus-on-form episodes (FFEs).

Formulaic form	Uptake		No uptake		Successful uptake		Unsuccessful uptake
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Entire formulaic sequences (FSs)	119	45	68	56	92	47	27	39
Constituents of FSs	147	55	54	44	105	53	42	61
Total	266	100	122	100	197	100	69	100

Note. The percentages are rounded off.

A chi-square analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between uptake and the scope of formulaic-oriented FFEs in terms of entire versus constituents of an FS, χ² (1, 388) = 4.054, p = .04, though with a small effect size, w = .1. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between successful uptake and the foci of FS-related FFEs with respect to entire or constituents of FSs, χ² (1, 266) = 1.184, p = .28. The difference in uptake rate in episodes targeting constituents (73%) and whole FSs (64%) was minimal as indicated by a low effect size, and episodes dealing either with components of FSs (71%) or with their entirety (77%) led to high successful uptake. These results suggest that the length of an FS is not greatly associated with learners’ correct production when their attention was drawn to formulaic features.

Finally, the frequency of formulaic-oriented FFEs was found to be high in reactive (49%), student- (32%), and teacher-initiated preemptive episodes (19%), respectively. Moreover, the analysis compared the rate of (successful) uptake in formulaic-oriented FFEs with respect to three types of incidental FonF the findings of which are summarized in Table 7.

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Table 7.

Uptake according to types of FonF.

Type	Uptake		No uptake		Successful uptake		Unsuccessful uptake
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Reactive	102	38	86 a	70	64	33	38 a	55
Teacher-initiated	43	16	30 a	25	26	13	17 a	25
Student-initiated	121 a	46	6	5	107 a	54	14	20
Total	266	100	122	100	197	100	69	100

Notes. The percentages are rounded off. ^aAdjusted residuals greater than +2.0.

The difference in uptake rate among reactive, teacher- and student-initiated preemptive FFEs concerning formulaic forms was found to be statistically significant, χ² (2, 388) = 63.052, p = .001, with a high effect size, w = .4. Likewise, the difference in successful uptake rate among three types of incidental FonF was significant, χ² (2, 266) = 23.94, p = .001, with a medium effect size, w = .3. Both uptake (95%) and successful uptake (88%) were most prevalent in student-initiated preemptive FFEs with formulaic focus. Following this type of FonF, whereas uptake (59%) was slightly more common in teacher-initiated preemptive FFE concerning FSs compared to reactive ones (54%), successful uptake occurred more often in reactive episodes with formulaic focus (63%) than teacher-initiated preemptive ones (60%) though with a low margin. These findings indicate that the learners were most likely to incorporate targeted FSs into their speech successfully when they took the initiative to focus on them.

V Discussion

The present study aimed to investigate the degree to which the amount of FonF and its effectiveness as gauged through uptake and successful uptake were associated with the differences in linguistic targets in FFEs. Altogether, 1,217 FFEs were identified in 36 hours of classroom interactions in an EFL setting. Ellis et al. (2001a) found a total of 448 episodes in 12 hours of instruction in an English as a second language (ESL) context. In Nassaji’s (2013) study, a total of 1,986 FFEs occurred across three classroom participation structures in 54 hours of the analysed data. Likewise, Sterling and Loewen (2015) reported the occurrence of 581 FFEs with 27 being playful FFEs. Even though the optimal number of FFEs in meaning-oriented contexts is indeterminate (Loewen, 2004), the considerable number of FFEs identified in this study suggests that similar to ESL contexts, incidental FonF is a common practice in EFL settings.

Episodes with non-formulaic focus constituted the preponderance of FFEs (67%) in this study compared to formulaic-oriented FFEs (33%). According to R. Ellis (2016), form in FonF ‘is often misunderstood as referring solely to grammatical form’ (p. 4). Lewis (2000) maintains that formulaic aspects of language have largely been dismissed as periphery in language pedagogy due to the traditional dominance of grammar/vocabulary dichotomy. L2 learners’ (and presumably non-native teachers) are predisposed to operate predominantly based on the open choice principle (Sinclair, 1991). The dearth of corpus-informed materials as sources of authentic input to foster formulaicity is also documented (Boulton, 2010). These factors may partly explain the discrepancy in the number of FFEs with formulaic versus non-formulaic foci in this study.

Furthermore, among three types of incidental FonF through which FSs could be addressed incidentally, the number of teacher-initiated preemptive FFEs concerning FSs (19%) was strikingly lowest. Not only do L2 learners lack sufficient knowledge of formulaicity, but non-native language teachers also suffer from the paucity of an adequate phraseological knowledge (Maum, 2002). Mackey, Polio, and McDonough (2004) contend that experienced and educated teachers are more adept in utilizing incidental FonF techniques. The participant teachers in this study held university degrees in applied linguistics with an average of 7.5 years of supervised experience in teaching EFL. The assessment of phraseological knowledge of the teachers was beyond the scope of the present study; however, a considerably lower number of formulaic-oriented FFEs found in this corpus could also be attributed to the lack of sufficient idiomatic knowledge by a large number of non-native English language teachers (Meunier, 2012). Teachers’ accumulated experiences are instrumental in molding classroom practices (Borg, 2003). Hence, shortage of pedagogical focus on formulaicity in teachers’ educational background as students could also lessen teachers’ conscious attention on this area in pedagogy.

The first research question asked about the occurrence of (successful) uptake in FFEs with various linguistic foci. Overall, uptake occurred approximately in half of the total FFEs. Investigating uptake involving pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, Lyster and Ranta (1997) found that uptake occurred in 55% of reactive FFEs. An overwhelming majority of episodes in Ellis et al.’s (2001a) study resulted in uptake (74%). The rate of successful uptake (59%) in this study roughly replicates that of Loewen’s (2004) study where successful uptake occurred in 66.1% of reactive and student-initiated FFEs.

Even though FFEs concerning non-formulaic forms, by far, outnumbered formulaic-oriented FFEs, uptake (69%) and successful uptake rates (74%) were notably higher in episodes pertaining to FSs. The salience of formulaic forms, which is considered to affect their noticing by learners (Schmidt, 2001), may have contributed to the learners’ tendency to generate targeted FSs correctly in the course of interactions analysed in this study. Lexically-oriented items are deemed to be relatively more salient than morphosyntactic elements (Lyster & Saito, 2010; Mackey & Goo, 2007). Given the higher level of (successful) uptake in FS-related FFEs, the degree of noticeability of FSs appears to be more than that of non-formulaic forms.

Linguistic features are focused on incidentally following either negotiation of meaning involving communication breakdown or negotiation of form involving a linguistic problem with no miscommunication (Ellis et al., 2001a). Research on classroom interaction suggests that negotiation inherently gives the centrality to lexicon by underscoring message comprehensibility and message form only if it contributes to its comprehension (Pica, 1994). Additionally, learners tend to allocate their core attentional resources to meaning when they encounter difficulty with simultaneous attention to form and meaning, (VanPatten, 1990). Hence, in the course of communication as is the case in incidental FonF, learners may commit mistakes in using grammatical forms, and such mistakes might not be actual gaps in their interlanguage development particularly at advanced levels. As a result, they might feel less obliged to acknowledge their noticing of morphosyntactic FFEs through (successful) uptake. Negotiation of meaning mainly involves lexically-oriented elements, and uptake is more likely to occur in FonF practices concerning negotiation of meaning (Ellis et al., 2001a). Thus, the discrepancy in the extent of (successful) uptake in FS-related FFEs versus episodes with non-formulaic focus could be also ascribed to the fact that formulaic forms comprise one particular aspect of lexicon, namely, phrasicon, that is, ‘the whole set of formulaic sequences’ (Paquot & Granger, 2012, p. 3).

L2 vocabulary learning can be optimized by taking into account saliency in conjunction with frequency of vocabulary items (Crossley, Kyle, & Salsbury, 2016). Well-documented in corpus-based studies (e.g. Erman & Warren, 2000), the learners’ inclination to notice formulaic forms as indicated by the higher rates of uptake and successful uptake in FS-related FFEs and frequency of FSs in natural discourse underscore the relevance of FSs in incidental FonF.

Among various linguistic items, FFEs targeting collocations and idioms most frequently resulted in uptake, and the degree of successful uptake was at its peak in episodes with collocational focus. On the contrary, uptake was least observed in FFEs dealing with grammar and pronunciation, and successful uptake was least common in episodes concerning grammar. That collocations markedly took priority over other forms in learners’ generation of successful uptake can be, to some extent, explained by the following convictions. Known as collocational teddy bears, L2 learners’ over-rely on this category of FSs in language use (Nesselhauf, 2005). Williams (1999) maintains that learners are strongly inclined to ‘focus, above all things, on words’ (p. 617). In addition, learners may fail to notice morphosyntactic elements as they lack salience and are less essential in meaning negotiation (Harley, 1995).

Another important aspect of this study examined (successful) uptake in solely formulaic-oriented FFEs targeting FSs in entirety versus their constituents. Based on the findings of this study, the attentional scope of formulaic-oriented FFEs (i.e. whole FS, lexical selections, or lexical formations) was not found to correlate with the extents of the ensued successful uptake moves. Targeting entire FSs (e.g. pin money), formulaic-oriented FFEs have the potential to create opportunities for holistic processing by drawing learners’ attention to overall meaning and use of unknown FSs (Wray, 2002). Likewise, constituent-based FFEs with formulaic focus (e.g. cope on instead of cope with) could assist learners in capitalizing on the analytic mode of processing by attaining a profound procedural knowledge of known FSs (Wray, 2002).

The analysis of FS-related FFEs with respect to three types of incidental FonF indicated that (successful) uptake occur most frequently in student-initiated episodes. Similarly, Ellis et al. (2001b) found that successful uptake was most common in student-initiated FFEs with grammatical, phonological, and lexical foci. Learners generally become more attentive to input when given the chance to topicalize (Slimani, 1989). It seems that learners are most likely to correctly use the information they had been given in FFEs when they take initiative to address them. Higher effectiveness of student-initiated FFEs with formulaic focus compared to teacher-imitated ones could be ascribed to learners’ predilection for raising queries on phraseological problems they themselves recognized or felt the need. Linguistic problems that learners nominate in FonF may be indicative of actual gaps in their competence (Ellis et al., 2001a). A good number of student-initiated FS-based queries were raised in the learners’ mother tongue. Conversely, linguistic items in teacher-initiated FonF may not necessarily reflect learners’ actual gaps (Loewen, 2004).

A number of factors including learning context, learners’ age, and primary focus of their current language program could have a bearing on their inclination to generate (successful) uptake or lack thereof (Loewen, 2004). Another plausible explanation for markedly higher successful (uptake) rate in student-initiated FFEs concerning FSs can be that the learners in this study consisted of advanced adult learners who attended goal-oriented and tuition-based classes. Idiomaticity is reckoned to be ‘the final difficult hurdle’ for advanced learners (Wray & Fitzpatrick, 2008, p. 124). Considering the fact that uptake is an optional learner move (Ellis et al., 2001b), the advanced adult learners attending a meaning-centered program in this study appeared to be more preoccupied with improving their phraseological competence and opted for raising a substantial number of student-initiated FS-related FFEs and the follow-up uptake moves.

Finally, reactive FFEs with formulaic focus ranked third and second in culminating in uptake and successful uptake, respectively. A possible reason for this finding might lie in the contexts where this study was conducted. Reactive FonF entailing error correction might render some learners anxious (Nassaji, 2013). Considering the cultural background of learners in this study, most had little experience of attending co-educational classes. Given, face-threatening nature of uptake moves following reactive FFEs, affective issues might have impacted the learners’ fairly lower (successful) uptake in reactive FFEs concerning FSs.

VI Conclusions

Previous FonF studies have revealed that the nature of the linguistic target limited to only grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation is a significant factor affecting the occurrence of FonF, uptake, and its quality. The present study demonstrated that both teachers and learners constantly take incidental time-outs to address FSs along with non-formulaic forms in the course of meaning-centered activities, and a substantial number of formulaic-oriented FFEs culminate in (successful) uptake moves that have not been captured and accounted for in FonF studies so far. Even though FFEs concerning non-formulaic forms constituted the majority of episodes in this corpus, uptake and successful uptake rates were, by far, higher in formulaic-oriented FFEs. Higher degree of (successful) uptake in formulaic-oriented FFEs can be indicative of greater saliency and noticeability of FSs and their relatively higher currency for L2 learners. Given the fact that one third of the FFES (33%) were formulaic in nature with a high rate of (successful) uptake, FSs are as frequent and effective as non-formulaic linguistic elements. Hence, teachers are strongly recommended to allocate more room for the incorporation of FSs in their FonF practices.

FSs are reckoned to impose inherent challenges to L2 learners in their attempts to achieve native-like selection and native-like fluency (Pawley & Syder, 1983). Notwithstanding the pivotal role of authentic input in language acquisition, mere exposure to FSs (Cortes, 2004) or parrot-fashion learning is deemed insufficient for developing phraseological competence (Foster, 2001). Resting on the premise that communicative competence mainly requires developing a rich repertoire of FSs rather than ‘knowing rules for the composition of sentences and being able to employ such rules to assemble expressions from scratch’ (Widdowson, 1989, p. 135), chunk-oriented pedagogy (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2009), and lexical approach (Lewis, 1993), the instruction of FSs takes precedence over other forms. Boers and Lindstromberg (2012) argue that L2 learners are unlikely to autonomously attend to FSs. Nation (2001) maintains that the acquisition of lexical items requires noticing, retrieval, and generation. In this respect, through meaning negotiation, corrective feedback, and pushed output, incidental FonF is conducive to creating three conditions pointed out by Nation (2001) as prerequisite for learning vocabulary items and by extension FSs (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001). That FFEs with formulaic focus, in general, and teacher-initiated preemptive episodes, in particular, were markedly lower compared to FFEs with non-formulaic focus underscores the need for further incorporation of FSs, and the part of practitioners to strike a balance between formulaic and non-formulaic language.

Moreover, (successful) uptake was most common in FFEs with collocational focus and least common in episodes pertaining to grammar. L2 learners’ collocational competence generally lag behind their vocabulary knowledge (Henriksen, 2013). Teachers are suggested to give more prominence to collocations given their saliency for L2 learners as indicated by the substantial amount of successful uptake in FFEs with collocation focus and considering their pivotal role in fulfilling communicative needs (Nesselhauf, 2005).

In FS-related FFEs, the difference in uptake rate between FFEs targeting formulaic forms in their entirety as opposed to those dealing with constituents of FSs was found negligible, and there was no significant difference regarding successful uptake. In light of this finding, practitioners are also better to direct FonF practices to both entire and constituents of FSs as the generation of successful uptake was found to be substantial with no striking difference between whole FSs and their constituents. There is a consensus that it is probably best for teachers to keep FSs intact as holistic units (e.g. Boers, Dang, & Strong, 2016a). Thus, it is advisable that teachers highlight the nature of FSs as holistic chunks of language that often cannot be modified regarding determiner, number, etc. Of course, introspective analyses of teachers’ cognitions on the whole/part nature of FFEs concerning FSs seem to be illuminating.

The present study also supports the idea of encouraging learners to raise queries on formulaic forms owing to the effectiveness of such student-initiated episodes. Though teacher-initiated FFEs with formulaic focus were found to be the least frequent, they were the second most effective type as far as uptake is concerned. In this respect, this study calls for further employment of teacher-initiated FFEs with formulaic focus and, in turn, additional emphasis on enhancing teachers’ phraseological competence in pre-service and in-service professional development programs. Although the rates of uptake and successful uptake were notably high in the total FFEs identified in this study, in 30 instances, there was no chance for learners to produce uptake. Therefore, teachers are recommended to refrain from immediate continuation of their turn following FFEs to afford learners a chance to incorporate focused forms into their production (Oliver, 2000).

As a promising avenue for further research, it is worthwhile to compare formulaicity in incidental FonF practices of native speaker teachers with their non-native counterparts given their disparate linguistic resources. Finally, this study hopefully expands the scope of FonF studies through accounting for a neglected aspect of the linguistic target, that is, FSs and their followed-up uptake and successful uptake in the literature.