68 

 

EEJ 6 (2) (2016) 

 

English Education Journal 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej 

 

 

THE EFL LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND REALIZATIONS OF 

FORMULAIC SEQUENCES IN CASUAL CONVERSATION 

 

Dafi KhusnitaDwi Rukmini 

 

English Language Education Postgraduate Program Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia. 

Article Info 

________________ 
Article History: 

Received 10 August 2016 

Accepted 15September 

2016 

Published 20 November 

2016 

________________ 
Keywords: 

conversation, EFL learners, 

formulaic sequences, 

perception, realization 

____________________ 

Abstract
 

___________________________________________________________________ 
This research is descriptive qualitative study aiming at finding out EFL learners‟ perceptions and 

realizations of formulaic sequences in casual conversations and seeing how the perceptions relate 

to the realizations. 13 students of English Department of Unnes Graduate Program were chosen as 

the participants of the study. Two sources of data were used in this study: interview and audio 

recordings of the casual conversations. The result of the interview revealed that the learners 

generally have positive perceptions of formulaic sequences. However, they do not ever get any 

materials about formulaic sequence in their EFL learning so that they do not really familiar with its 

concept.From the analysis of the learners‟ casual conversations using the combination of Biber et 

al. (1999) and Celce-Murcia (2007) categorization system of formulaic sequences, all six types of 

formulaic sequences are found: inserts, collocation, routines, multi-word units, binomial 

expressions, and idioms. Furthermore, it is found that learners‟ problem in realizing formulaic 

sequences includes the tendency to simply use the expressions they heard from any sources without 

considering the appropriateness of the expressions, the difficulty in using correct formulaic 

sequences to be used in the given situation, theidiomaticity of formulaic sequences, the tendency to 

translate Indonesian expressions into English literally word by word, and problems related to 

grammar. The learners‟ perceptions of formulaic sequences are related to its realizations in terms of 

the problems they faced in using formulaic sequences in casual conversation.   

 

© 2016 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Correspondence: 

E-mail :dafikhusnita@gmail.com 

Kampus Unnes Bendan Ngisor, Semarang, 50233 

 

p-ISSN 2087-0108 

e-ISSN 2502-4566 



 

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69 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

There are many problems faced by EFL 

learners in using English to communicate 

caused by the lack of input and exposure as 

well as late learning of English. One of the 

difficulties that EFL learners face is the lack 

of idiomaticity in their speech, which is one 

of the qualities of native-like language use 

(Ustunbas 2014). The lack of idiomaticity 

will make the EFL learners‟ speech sound 

unnatural and awkward when it is compared 

with English-native speakers. 

Pawley and Syder (1983) report that 

native-like oral fluency depends largely on 

the speaker‟s ability to rely on automatized 

repertoires of prefabricated chunks which 

reduce the amount of processing and 

encoding involved in speech production and 

afford the speaker the time to attend to other 

aspects of the speaking process. These 

prefabricated chunks are commonly known 

as formulaic sequences (Wray 1999: 214; 

Celce-Murcia 2007: 44). 

There are many problems related to 

formulaic competence in EFL learning. 

Based on my experience in teaching students 

in formal school, tutoring agency, and 

private courses, I found that Indonesian EFL 

learners tend to translate Indonesian into 

English word by word rather than to use 

formulaic sequences in their speaking. This 

results on unnatural and sometimes 

awkward expressions. Moreover, the 

movement from one word into another is 

often unfluent because they will need to 

think what the English translation of the next 

Indonesian word will be. As a result, their 

oral productions sound stilted and awkward, 

yet sometimes can change the meaning they 

want to convey. I assume that these 

conditions happen because of the learners‟ 

lack of formulaic competence. In this case, 

they found it difficult to use or recall the 

formulaic sequences in their speech. In 

addition, their understanding of the concept 

of formulaic sequences itself may also affect 

their English learning. When they are not 

aware of the existence of formulaic 

sequences, they will tend to generate English 

word one by one whenever they speak in 

English. 

These conditions are also found 

during my study in English Department of 

Unnes Graduate Program. The students 

majoring at English Education in this degree 

are supposed to have high formulaic 

competence. It is asssumed that their 

formulaic competence is better than that of 

school students because they have longer 

span of time to learn and practice English. 

However, I found that both in the daily and 

academic conversation, they still find 

problems in conveying message to the 

interlocutor. They often confuse about how 

to say something. Sometimes, they create 

new expressions which sound awkward for 

other students so that they cannot 

understand what the speaker actually wants 

to say. 

Based on those conditions, I am 

interested in studying this case to find out 

how EFL learners in Indonesia, especially 

college students majoring in English 

education, perceive formulaic sequences in 

their communication. I find that it is 

necessary to see how they perceive formulaic 

sequences in their communication because it 

may influence their actual use of formulaic 

sequences in communication using English. 

Furthermore, I am also interested to 

investigate the learners‟ realizations of 

formulaic sequences in casual conversation. 

In addition, I am challenged to see how their 

perceptions relate to their realizations of 

formulaic sequences.  

 

 

 

 



 

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70 

Formulaic sequences 

Formulaic sequence, which is also known as 

formulaic language, formulaic expression, 

lexical bundle, etc is defined 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 (Wray 

1999:214; Wray 2000:465; Wray and Perkins 

2000:1). 

Formulaic sequences play important 

roles in oral language development. First of 

all, it facilitates learners to memorize chunks 

that can be drawn from long-term memory 

store and slotted in their speech. Wray 

(2000:473) states that formulaic sequences 

have a function to save effort in processing 

language. As a saving effort processing, 

Becker (1975) in Wray (2000:473) explaines 

that: 

(formulaic sequences) serve as ready-

made frameworks on which to hang the 

expression of our ideas, so that we do not 

have to go through the labor of generating an 

utterance all the way out from S every time 

we want to say anything (Becker 1975 in 

Wray 2000:473).  

This function of formulaic sequences 

can be benefitted as a language learning 

strategy both for children and adult in the 

context of second language learning 

(Weinert 1995:186-9). Therefore, learners 

will be able to save effort in learning English 

and hopefully they will be able to acquire the 

language faster and better. 

The second role of formulaic 

sequences in second language acquisition is 

related to fluency. Kecskes states that 

formulaic expressions are basic to fluent 

language production (2007: 4). In line with 

this, Celce-Murcia (2007:48) states that 

“fluent speaker of a language draw on 

formulaic knowledge of the target language 

as often as they use systematic linguistic 

knowledge”. A study conducted by Guz 

(2014) provides another evidence that 

formulaic sequences can increase the speed 

of speech production and minimize the 

occurrence of hesitation. 

The third function of formulaic 

sequences is to achieve interactional 

situations. This function relates to aspects of 

how we want others to treat or view us 

(Wray 2000: 474). The more number of 

formulaic sequences we stored, the more we 

will be facilitated to communicate and have 

interaction with others. 

 

Types of Formulaic Sequences  

Some scholars have provided taxonomies for 

classifying formulaic sequences like Becker 

(1975), Aijmer (1996), Nattinger and 

DeCarrico (1992), Biber et al. (1999), 

Kecskes (2007), Celce-Murcia (2007),etc. In 

this study, I employed the combination of 

formulaic sequences categorization from 

Biberet. al (1999) and Celce-Murcia (2007). 

The categories are multiword units, idioms, 

collocations, binomial expressions, routines, 

and inserts. 

 Multi-word units are sequences of 

words which function like a single 

grammatical unit (Biber et al. 1999:58). 

According to Biber et al. (1999: 59), multi-

word units exist in various types such as 

phrasal and prepositional verbs like pick up, 

look at, and get away with; complex 

prepositions like as well as; correlative 

coordinators like both ... and, either...or, 

neither ... nor, and not only ... but also; 

complex subordinators like according as, as 

far as, as soon as, etc.  

Idioms are expressions with a 

meaning not entirely derivable from the 

meaning of their parts and can represent 

many different kinds of structural units 

(Biber et al. 1999:1024). For example,the 

idiom have bitten off more than you can 

chewmeans you have tried to do something 

which is too difficult for you. 



 

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71 

Collocations consist of independent 

words that tend to co-occur (Biber et al. 

1999:59). For example, the word research 

collocates with conduct become conduct 

research or conduct a research. When someone 

says make a research instead of conduct a 

research, people will still understand the 

meaning. However, it may not be a natural 

collocation which is used by native speakers.  

Binomial Expressions are expressions 

which consist of two words from the same 

grammatical category, coordinated by „and„ 

or „or„ (Biber et al. 1999:1030). For example 

fish and chips, go and get, black and white, 

and in and out. 

Routines are phrases which frequently 

occur and become specialized for discourse 

function which predominates over or 

replaces the literal referential meaning 

(Aijmer, 1996: 11). According to Celce-

Murcia (2007:48), routines can be in the 

form of fixed phrases like of course, all of a 

sudden and formulaic chunks like how are 

you?; I‟m fine, thanks. O'Keeffe, McCarthy, 

and Carter (2007: 165) further described the 

varieties of routines based on its functions. 

They are greeting, leave-taking, expressives, 

commissives, and directives.  

Inserts are stand-alone words which 

are characterized in general by their inability 

to enter into syntactic relations with other 

structures (Biber et al., 1999:1082). Inserts 

are spontaneously produced in the 

conversation to make it more expressive and 

communicative. It may appear as one single 

word such as well, yeah, and God or as 

multi-word unit such as excuse me and hey 

look.  

 

Casual conversation 

Casual conversation is a talk which is not 

motivated by any clear pragmatic purpose 

(Eggins and Slade, 1997:19). Eggins and 

Slade distinguished it from pragmatic 

conversation or goal-oriented conversation. 

According to Laden (2012), goal-oriented 

conversation include activities of deciding, 

persuading, investigating, understanding, 

etc. while casual conversation is an activity 

that not only has no natural end but is also 

stuctured as ongoing. Furthermore, Eggin 

and Slade (1997: 20) characterize casual 

conversation as more informal, colloquial 

and contains more humour.  

In this study, the learners performed 

such casual conversation in which they 

talked about random topics with no clear 

pragmatic purpose such as job, food, 

wedding ceremony, TV programme, and 

vacation. 

 

METHODOLOGY 

 

This research is descriptive qualitative study 

aiming at finding out EFL learners‟ 

perceptions and realizations of formulaic 

sequences in casual conversations and seeing 

how the perceptions relate to the 

realizations. 13 students of English 

Department of Unnes Graduate Program 

were chosen as the participants of the study. 

Interview was given to the participants to 

collect the data of their perceptions of 

formulaic sequences in their casual 

conversation. Five casual conversations were 

used as the data source of learners‟ 

realizations of formulaic sequences in casual 

conversations. The conversations are about 

fifteen minutes each. The learners‟ casual 

conversations were transcribed and the 

formulaic sequences were classified using the 

combination of Biber et al. (1999) and Celce-

Murcia (2007) categorization system. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

 

The Learners’ Perceptions of the Formulaic 

Sequences in CasualConversations 

Based on the findings, most of the learners 

feel that they are not really good at speaking 

English in daily life regardless the fact that 

they are graduate students of English 



 

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72 

department. There are some problems faced 

by students in their speaking related to 

formulaic language such as the difficulty in 

finding the right wordsor expressions to say 

something, the difficulty in managing 

grammar and vocabulary to construct the 

utterances to make it sounds English, and 

the limited number of expression they have.  

Those problems are related to learners‟ 

mastery of formulaic sequences. Good 

mastery of formulaic sequences can help 

learners to solve those problems as learners 

will be able to recall the pattern they have 

stored in their mind before to express what 

they want to say. We can also minimize the 

difficulty in managing grammar and 

vocabularies as formulaic sequences exist as 

building blocks that facilitate learners to 

generate the utterances easier. This is in line 

with Becker‟s (1975) statement:  

(formulaic sequences) serve as ready-

made frameworks on which to hang the 

expression of our ideas, so that we do not 

have to go through the labor of generating an 

utterance all the way out from S every time 

we want to say anything(Becker 1975 in 

Wray 2000:473). 

Unfortunately, not all learners are 

familiar with formulaic sequences and the 

advantages they offer in learning English as 

foreign language. However, learners 

basically perceive formulaic sequences 

positively. Most of them are aware of the 

role of formulaic sequences in EFL learning. 

They think that it can be a simple way to talk 

since it is helpful for them to convey their 

ideas while speaking. It can be the shortcut 

in learning English since we directly learn 

the language by its functions. It can also give 

them more time to think more about the 

other word which they need to generate by 

themselves. In line with this, Wray 

(2000b:473) states that formulaic sequences 

have a function to save effort in processing 

language.  

Furthermore, the learners said that it 

facilitates them to learn English easier and 

avoid making mistakes like when they just 

translate Indonesian expression into English 

word by word. Finally, it helps them sound 

native-like, more meaningful, and natural so 

that they can achieve the communicative 

goals. In line with this, Schmitt (2013:3) 

states that in L2 acquisition, formulaic 

sequences are relied on initially as a quick 

means to be communicative, although in a 

limited way. That‟s why formulaic sequences 

can be benefitted as a language learning 

strategy both for children and adult in the 

context of second language learning 

(Weinert 1995:186-9). 

The findings also showed that all 

learners are not familiar with the types of 

formulaic sequences. It happens mostly 

because they never get materials about it in 

EFL learning. Furthermore, there are so 

many various categorization systems of 

formulaic sequences that learners may find 

difficulties to understand the term used to 

name the types of formulaic sequences.  

Most of them feel that they are not 

good enough at employing formulaic 

sequences in their speaking. The problems 

are mostly on their understanding of the 

formulaic sequences and the input they get 

from their EFL learning. According to 

Howarth (1998: 186), L2 learners‟ problems 

with formulaic sequences are attributable to 

“a lack of awareness of the phenomenon”. 

Therefore, the learners suggest that English 

department students should be taught 

formulaic sequences in order to be able to 

speak well. Especially for teachers-to-be, 

they need to master it well since they have to 

teach the students to be able to communicate 

well. 

 

The Learners’ Realizations of Formulaic 

Sequences in Casual Conversations 

The learners‟ realizations of formulaic 

sequences can be seen from two aspects. 



 

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73 

They are the types of formulaic sequences 

used by the learners and the learners‟ 

problems in using formulaic sequences in 

casual conversations.  

 

Types of Formulaic Sequences 

From the analysis of the learners‟ casual 

conversations, all six types of formulaic 

sequences are found. The frequency of use of 

each type can be seen in Table 1. 

 

Table 1. The types of formulaic sequences 

used by the learners 

Types of formulaic 

sequences 
Frequency 

Multi-word units 

Idioms 

Collocations 

Binomial 

expressions 

Routines 

Inserts 

56 

8 

293 

21 

112 

478 

 

1.  Multi-Word Units 

Based on the data analysis, multi-word units 

were produced 56 times. Not all kinds of 

multi-word units stated by Biber et al. 

(1999:58) were found in the learners‟ 

conversations. The multi-word units 

produced by the learners are in the form of 

phrasal and prepositional verbs, complex 

prepositions, and correlative coordinators.  

There is no complex subordinators found in 

the conversations.  

Phrasal and prepositional verbs found 

in the conversation are in the form of two-

word phrases. Prepositional verbs were 

produced 39 times with various 

combinations of verb and preposition such as 

“dream of”, “depend on”, “based on”, 

“interfered with”, “cope with”, “talk about”, 

“stand for”, “look at”, “look for”, “work 

on”, “ask about”, “tell about”, “throw to”, 

“heard from”, “heard about”, “listen to”, 

“wait for”, and “know about”. Meanwhile, 

there is only one phrasal verb found in the 

whole five conversation, “throw away”.  

Complex prepositions were produced 

12 times in the form of two-word phrases like 

“as well”, “because of”, “such as”, “up to” 

and three-word phrases such as “in front of” 

and “as simple as”. Meanwhile, correlative 

coordinator appeared 4 times in form of “not 

only … but also …”. 

The multi-word units found in the 

learners‟ conversations have some functions 

such as giving detailed information, showing 

relation between two things, stating 

condition, stating acceptance, stating 

experience, stating action, stating activity, 

stating acknowledgment, adding more idea, 

stating position, stating reason, stating a 

range of number, stating quality, giving 

examples, and relating two ideas. 

 
2. Idioms 

Idioms appeared 8 times in the learners‟ 

conversations. They are the expressions like 

“I can eat a horse”, “eat like a horse”, “take 

it easy”, “give birth” and “fall in love”. The 

idiom “I can eat a horse” used by the speaker 

to express her desire to eat a lot of food. 

Similar to this, idiom “eat like a horse”was 

used to express someone‟s ability of eating a 

lot of food. Meanwhile, “take it easy”was 

used to express the idea of being relaxed and 

not use too much energy. The learners 

successfully use these idioms in the context. 

In addition, idiomatic phrase like 

“give birth”is also found in the 

conversations. They are used to state the 

process of producing a baby from a woman‟s 

body. The example of the usage of this idiom 

can be seen in the following excerpt. The 

idiom “fall in love” appeared one time in the 

conversations. It is used to express the 

feeling of being very attracted to someone or 

somebody.  

It is also found that some learners 

showed some attempts to create their own 

idioms due to their limited knowledge of 



 

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74 

English idioms. For example, the learners 

use the phrase “thick wallet” whichis 

translated from Indonesian idiom 

dompettebal. It simply means having a lot of 

money. The other example is the use of 

phrase “morning activity” and “throw away 

something” as idioms which refers to 

defecation. The term “morning activity” are 

commonly used in Bahasa as people 

commonly defecate in the morning. 

Meanwhile, “throw away something”seems 

to be originated from the Indonesian phrase 

buang air besar. Since those idioms are not 

used by English native speakers, they are not 

included in the idioms category of formulaic 

sequences in this study. 

 
3. Collocation 

Collocations were produced 293 times in the 

learners‟ conversation. The collocation was 

realized in many forms. The first type is 

collocation in the form of adjectives and 

nouns such as “freelance translator”, “good 

swimmer”, “white sand”, “strict regulation”, 

“funny joke”, etc. Another types of 

collocations produced by teachers were the 

combination of verbs and nouns such as 

“earn money”, “get money”, “raise 

children”, “find job”, ”get the payment”, 

“watch tv”, “provide information”, 

etc.;nouns and verbs such as “experience 

teach”, etc.; noun and noun such as 

“exchange rate”, “wedding ceremony”, 

“music contest”, etc.; verbs and adverbs such 

as “know well”, “know exactly”, “dress 

well”, etc.; adverbs and verbs like “really 

like”, etc.; adverbs and adjectives such as 

“all day long”, “really helpful”, etc.; verbs 

and adjectives such as “look bad”, “look 

beautiful”, “look fine”, “look happy”, “feel 

tired”, “feel hungry”, “sound funny”, 

“sound interesting”, “get hurt”, etc.; and 

collocations in prepositional phrases such as 

“useful for”, “the price of”, “within a year”, 

“in cash”, etc. 

The collocations found in the 

conversations perform some functions 

including naming entities (persons and 

things), processes (actions, events, etc), and 

qualities. 

 
4. Binomial Expressions 

Binomial Expressions were produced 21 

times by the learners during the 

conversations. This type of formulaic 

sequences are frequently found in the 

conversations in the form of noun and/or 

noun. Binomial expressions in form of noun 

and/or noun in the learners‟ conversation 

were used to express a couple of things such 

as “guidance and counseling”, “wife and 

husband”, “food or cookies”, “jewelry and 

clothes”, “bride and groom”, “couple and 

the family”, “the judges and the 

contestants”, “the judges and the hosts”, 

“the actresses and the actors”, “nature and 

culture”, “coral and fish”, “ticket and hotel”, 

“somebody or someone”, “snorkeling and 

diving”, “fishing and surfing”, “swimming 

and sunbathing”, “snorkeling and surfing”. 

The binomial expressions were also 

realized in form of adjective and adjective. 

They were mostly used to describe the 

characteristics of something. For 

example:“bigger and smoother”, “younger 

and older”, “happy and fun”, and “thin and 

slim”. There is no binomial expressions in 

the form of verb and/or verb and adverb 

and/or adverb found in the learners‟ casual 

conversations. 

 
5. Routines 

From the data analysis, routines were 

produced 112 times. The routines produced 

by the learners in the casual conversation 

perform different functions. The first 

function is stating agreement and 

disagreement like “of course”, “of course 

not”, “I guess so” and “I think so”; 

expressing certainty like “of course”; 

greeting and leave-taking “hi”, “hay”, 



 

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75 

“hello”, “how are you?”, “how are you 

today?”, “I‟m fine”, “we are fine”, “I‟m very 

well”, “not so bad”, “what about you?”, 

“how about you?” “that‟s all for us”, “see 

you”, “bye bye”, “I`ll see you later”, “see 

you next time”, and “have a nice day”; 

showing appreciation like “that‟s great”, “it‟s 

great”, “that‟s good”;showing acceptance 

like “it‟s okay”, “that‟s okay”, “it‟s alright”; 

showing understanding like “I see”; offering 

like “do you want it?” and “do you want to 

read?”; requesting like “could you please tell 

us?” and “can you tell me about that?”; 

commanding like “come on”, condemning 

like “what a funny thing!”; suggesting like 

“it‟s better for me to…”; asking for 

permission like “let me …”; thanking like 

“thanks” and “thank you”; and apologizing 

like “sorry”. 

 

6. Inserts 

Insert appeared 476 times in the whole five 

conversations in form of discourse markers, 

attention signals, response elicitors, response 

form,polite formulae, and expletives. 

Response form were produced 250 

times. They were used to respond to the 

previous speakers‟ utterance either it is 

questions, statements, or directives. 

Discourse markers were used 148 times by 

the learners to maintain their turn in the 

conversation. They were used either to 

initiate turn in speaking, shift to a new topic, 

or to indicate that the speaker is still 

continuing his/her talk. Response elicitor 

appeared 58 times in the conversations in the 

form of as “right?”, “is it right?”, “yeah?”, 

“then?”, and question tags like “aren‟t you?”. 

This type of insert is used to elicit response 

from the hearer. The attention signals used 

by the learners in the conversations 7 times 

in the form of “hey” and “look”.Expletive 

“Oh my God” is used by the learners to 

express surprise. It appeared 7 times in total. 

Polite formulae are used to indicate 

politeness in the expression uttered by the 

speaker. The polite formulae is used 6 times 

in the conversation in the form of “please”, 

“thank you”, and “I‟m sorry”.  

 

Learners’ Problems in Using Formulaic 

Sequences in Casual Conversations  

The first problem is related tothe learners‟ 

tendency to simply use the expressions they 

heard from any sources without considering 

the appropriateness of the expressions. For 

example, learners repeatedly say “discuss 

about something” whereas there is no need 

to put preposition “about” between the main 

verb and the object. 

The second problem is the difficulty in 

using correct formulaic sequences to be used 

in the given situation. For example, learners 

are confused in saying ”What are you 

doing?” or “What do you do?” to ask 

someone‟s profession or to ask what 

someone is doing.  

The third problem is related to the 

idiomaticity of formulaic sequences. 

Learners often find it hard to use or 

understand the meaning of phrasal verbs and 

idiom since its meaning is different from the 

words constructing it. The analysis of the 

conversation shows that there are only 8 

productions of idioms in the whole 

conversations. It proves Biber et al.„s 

assumption (1999) that idioms are less 

produced in the actual conversation. It is 

also in line with Utami‟s (2015) research in 

which she found that idioms were the most 

infrequently type of formulaic sequences 

used by teachers while teaching English.  

The analysis of the conversation 

shows that there are only 2 productions of 

phrasal verbs in the whole five 

conversations. This is in line with Kesckes 

(2007: 14-15), who states that EFL learners 

almost always considers the literal meaning 

as the most salient meaning both in 

production and comprehension. It makes 

them avoid using idioms and phrasal verbs in 

their speaking. According to Laufer (2000: 



 

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76 

186), it is a strategy used by learners in order 

to overcome a communicative difficulty. 

Laufer (2000: 186) adds that sometimes 

“learners decided to use one form rather than 

another with which they feel safer in order to 

express the intended meaning”. In this case, 

learners prefer creating their own literal 

sentences to using idioms and phrasal verb. 

Furthermore, Kecskes (2007:14-15) 

adds that EFL learners‟ avoidance of 

idiomaticity in their speaking leads them to 

create their own expressions. If that does not 

work out they make the necessary 

modifications by negotiating meaning. It 

leads the learners to the next problem: the 

tendency to translate Indonesian expressions 

into English literally word by word. For 

example, a learner said “Idon‟t followthe 

institution”. The phrase “don‟t follow” is a 

literal translation of Indonesian phrase 

tidakmengikuti. The appropriate expression is 

“I don‟t work in any institution”. This 

problem is in line with Kesckes‟ (2007: 11) 

statement: EFL learners frequently coin or 

create their own ways of expressing 

themselves effectively, and the mistakes they 

may make will carry on in their speech even 

though the correct form is there for them to 

imitate. 

 The last problem is related to 

grammar. Based on the data analysis, it is 

found that learners sometimes use the wrong 

grammar in the expression they made. For 

example, a learner said “you‟re so looking 

happy”. The learner had used the right 

collocation “look happy” but she mistakenly 

used tense which is inappropriate with the 

context. The most appropriate expression for 

the above excerpt is “you look so happy”.  

 

The Relations between the Learners’ 

Perceptions of Formulaic Sequences and 

the Realizations of Formulaic Sequences in 

their Casual Conversations 

From the analysis of the learners‟ casual 

conversation, there are at least 5 kinds of 

problems faced by learners in employing 

formulaic sequences. These five problems are 

also mentioned in equivalent by the learners 

during the interview. Table 2 presents those 

five problems and its appearance either in 

learners‟ perceptions or realizations of 

formulaic sequences in casual conversations. 

 

Table 2. The Ways Learners‟ Perceptions of 

Formulaic Sequences  Relate to the 

Realizations 

Problems Perceptions Realizations 

Copying 

random 

expressions 

heard from any 

sources such as 

television, 

magazines, etc. 

√ √ 

Choosing the 

correct 

formulaic 

sequences to be 

used in the 

given situation 

√ √ 

Problems with 

idiomaticity 

√ √ 

The tendency to 

translate 

Indonesian 

expressions into 

English literally 

word by word 

√ √ 

Grammatical 

problems 

√ √ 

Table 2 shows that the learners are 

aware of the problems they may face in 

employing formulaic sequences in casual 

conversation. Therefore, it is concluded that 

learners‟ perceptions of the problem they 

face in employing formulaic sequences relate 

to the realization in which the problems they 

stated before really emerge in their casual 

conversations. 

 

 

 

 



 

DafiKhusnita&Dwi Rukmini/English Education Journal 6 (2) (2016) 

 

77 

CONCLUSIONS  

 

Most of the learners are familiar with 

formulaic sequences. However, they mostly 

do not know about the categorization of 

formulaic sequences. Furthermore, the 

learners generally have positive perceptions 

of formulaic sequences. Most of them are 

aware of the important roles of formulaic 

sequences in EFL learning and speaking 

even though they do not ever get any 

materials about formulaic sequences in their 

EFL learning. 

From the analysis of the students‟ 

casual conversations, all six types of 

formulaic sequences are found. Inserts were 

produced mostly, followed by collocation, 

routines, multi-word units, binomial 

expressions, and idioms. Furthermore, it is 

found that learners‟ problem in realizing 

formulaic sequences includes the tendency to 

simply use the expressions they heard from 

any sources without considering the 

appropriateness of the expressions, the 

difficulty in using correct formulaic 

sequences to be used in the given situation, 

theidiomaticity of formulaic sequences, the 

tendency to translate Indonesian expressions 

into English literally word by word, and 

problems related to grammar. 

The learners‟ perceptions of formulaic 

sequences are related to its realizations in 

terms of the problems they faced in using 

formulaic sequences in casual conversation. 

It shows that learners‟ are able to notice their 

problem well and it should be useful for 

them as reminder to learn more and 

overcome their weaknesses. 

 

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