Formulaic Language in Second Language Teaching—A Case Study of Situation-Bound Utterances in China’s EFL Textbooks

Abstract

As one kind of formulaic expressions, situation-bound utterances (SBUs) are “highly conventionalized, prefabricated pragmatic units whose occurrences are tied to standardized communicative situations†[1]. SBUs have also played a special role in intercultural communication, because misunderstandings will arise due to a lack of knowledge of using them appropriately. However, little importance has been attached to SBUs in China’s EFL teaching. This study first collects and classifies the SBUs in a being-used EFL textbook, then compares the identified expressions with recurrent patterns in existing corpora. Pedagogical implications will be given at last through providing a teaching worth list of SBUs as a reference for EFL teaching.