Formelhafte Sprache / Formulaic Language

Both word-formation (WF) and the coinage of multi-word expressions (MWE) can be characterised in terms of creativity and routine. Routine in word-formation and multi-word expressions is traditionally described in terms of morphological, lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic rules, but ‘creativity’ is defined in different ways, with definitions ranging from seeing creativity at the heart of human (linguistic) cognition to seeing creativity as precisely beyond ‘regular’ routines, e.g. as an attention-seeking tool or wordplay. In this latter sense, ‘creativity’ is usually sharply distinguished from ‘productivity’, i.e. rule-governed behaviour. Despite these categorisations, the question on what basis patterns are to be defined as ‘creative’ still remains subject to debate. Futhermore, creativity and routine are often studied independently of each other, by different research communities. The volume aims to bring together these different research communities to discuss empirical evidence on the role of creativity and routinization in WF and MWEs.

Phraseology has established itself as an independent academic discipline. Its applied subdiscipline, phraseodidactics, has developed somewhat delayed, but just as intensively. The articles in this volume analyze the current state of German phraseodidactics using examples and by providing a cross-section of phraseodidactic schools of thought, discourses, theoretical modellings, and methodological approaches.

Adopting a corpus-based methodology, this volume analyses phraseological patterns in nine European languages from a monolingual, bilingual and multilingual point of view, following a mostly Construction Grammar approach. At present, corpus-based constructional research represents an interesting and innovative field of phraseology with great relevance to translatology, foreign language didactics and lexicography.

The existence of formulaic patterns has been attested to all languages of the world. However, systematic research in this field has been focused on only a few European standard languages with a rich literary tradition and a high degree of written norm. It was on the basis of these data that the theoretical framework and methodological approaches were developed.
The volume shifts this focus by centering the investigation on new data, including data from lesser-used languages and dialects, extra-european languages, linguistic varieties mostly used in spoken domains as well as at previous historical stages of language development. Their inclusion challenges the existing postulates at both a theoretical and methodological level.
Areas of interest include the following questions: What is formulaic in these types of languages, varieties and dialects? Are the criteria developed within the framework of phraseological research applicable to new data? Can any specific types of formulaic patterns and/or any specific features of regular (already known) types of formulaic patterns be observed and how do they emerge? What methodological difficulties need to be overcome when dealing with new data?

This essay collection examines formulaic speech from the perspectives of text and discourse linguistics. The focus is on the usage patterns and functions of formulaic turns of phrase in different kinds of texts and in discourses extending beyond single texts. By linking formulaic speech to discourse linguistics, the work advances our understanding of the interface between text and discourse linguistics.

This study addresses historical formulaic language and, for the first time in the context of basic theoretical and methodological research, systematically addresses the stages of development in a language that can be characterized as formulaic. It describes the characteristic features of formulaic patterns, the levels at which they occur, and the diachronic nature of the dynamics for their solidification.