Formulaic Language as an Interactional Resource for Pragmatic Fluency: A Conversational Analysis of Kurdish EFL Learners

Abstract

The focus of this research is formulaic language as an interactive tool utilized by intermediate EFL Kurdish students to enhance their pragmatic fluency. Although formulaic sequences are known to alleviate cognitive loads, their role in managing turn-taking and conversation maxims does not receive much attention within Kurdish contexts, as previous studies have mainly concentrated on non-lexical fillers. By combining Conversation Analysis with Grice’s Cooperative Principle, this qualitative micro-analytic research focuses on the ten task-based conversations that were recorded at Salahaddin University, Erbil (41.5 minutes and 20 undergraduate participants). After coding 187 instances of formulaic language into five functional categories, the analysis indicates that formulaic chunks help to achieve the immediate ownership of the floor and prevent delays in transitioning from one speaker to another, while their absence causes problems such as prolonged pauses and faltering speech. Furthermore, using formulaic expressions helps to act as pragmatic hedges and to violate or soften some of Grice’s maxims with the help of code-switched L1 markers such as, for example, Wallah and Shukur. In general, the outlined findings contribute to the theories of psycholinguistics, making it possible to argue that teaching students how to use frames and hedges in conversation instead of treating them as unattainable deficits might prove useful.