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Formulaic sequences ( FSs), or prefabricated multi-word structures (e.g. on the other hand), are often difficult to identify objectively, and current corpus-driven methods yield structurally incomplete, overlapping, or overly extended structures of questionable psychological validity and pedagogical usefulness. To address these limitations, this study evaluated transitional probability as a potential metric to improve the identification of FSs by presenting 100 four-word sequences from the British National Corpus, varying in transitional probabilities between words, to native and non-native speakers of English ( N = 293) in a sequence completion task (e.g. for the sake__). Results revealed that the application of transitional probability reduces many of the problems associated with current approaches to FS identification and can produce lists of FSs that are more functionally salient and psychologically valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of Granger's Integrated Contrastive Model for describing real language use and predicting correct and incorrect L2 productions with a detailed corpus-based study of the structural and semantic similarities and divergences between the French and Dutch demonstrative determiner systems in L1 and their precise impact on written L2 productions. This study allows us to formulate six objective recommendations for developing pedagogical grammars and thus illustrates to what extent the combination of L1 and L2 corpora analysis should become an obligatory practical step rather than a theoretical one between primary forged linguistic analyses and the elaboration of well-balanced and representative didactic material. Dans cet article, nous évaluons l'efficacité de l'Integrated Contrastive Model de Granger pour décrire la langue réelle et pour prédire les productions L2 correctes et erronées par le biais d'une étude de corpus détaillée des ressemblances et divergences structurelles et sémantiques entre les systèmes du déterminant démonstratif en français et en néerlandais en L1 et leur impact précis sur les productions écrites en L2. Cette étude permet de formuler six recommandations objectives pour le développement de grammaires pédagogiques et illustre, par conséquent, dans quelle mesure la combinaison d'analyses de corpus L1 et L2 devrait devenir une étape pratique obligatoire plutôt qu'une étape théorique entre les premières analyses linguistiques et l'élaboration de matériaux didactiques représentatifs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]