Phraseology and Culture in English

particular, obscured the focal role formulae play in native-like use of lan-
guage and concomitant acceptance of people as cultural insiders. In doing 
so, it has also sometimes tended to bypass the theoretical challenge of ex-

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plaining the status of conventional phrasing (particularly when character-
ized by productive mini-grammars) in the individual internalized linguistic 
systems that generate such performance. Pawley and Syder (1983a) high-
lighted these points in their landmark article, while also emphasizing the 
contribution of idiomatic control of formulae to fluency, but references to 
that article, although it is probably cited more often than other important 
papers by Pawley and his associates (e.g. Pawley and Syder 1983b, 2000; 
Pawley 1985, 1986, 1987, 1991, 2001; Pawley and Lane 1998; Kuiper 1991, 
1992, 1996; Kuiper and Austin 1990; Kuiper and Flindall 2000; Kuiper and 
Haggo 1984, 1985; Kuiper and Tan 1989) are often perfunctory or marginal 
(e.g. Fillmore et al. 1988) or missing altogether where they might be expected 
(e.g. Barlow and Kemmer 2000). That there are no references in many of 
the papers in this volume to Pawley, or to Wray (2002), Cowie (ed.) (1998), 
Moon (1998) or Stubbs (2001), to take some major recent publications, also 
suggests perhaps that the research has not primarily been conceptualized as 
located within the larger field of inquiry encompassed by the volume as a 
whole and, beyond it, the broader field represented by these publications. 
It is a natural thing for sub-fields to proliferate in any science, especially 
in today’s academic climate. The reasons include demands by university 
managers for demonstrations of international leadership that can often only 
be met by establishing a research profile in a small, distinctively delimited 
area. Pressures generated by other academic responsibilities also limit indi-
viduals’ opportunities to develop the depth and breadth of knowledge needed 
to support theory building across extensive bodies of scholarship. How big, 
after all, does a “big picture” view of one’s field need to be to provide a 
viable context for one’s own research focus? Insularity is fine if one’s goal 
is to achieve excellence in a narrowly defined field, leaving synthesis (and 
big picture theorizing) for others. Nevertheless, although the significance of 
repetition and analogical patterning in the use of conventional expressions 
continues to remain out of focus for many linguists, a substantial base of 
relevant description is now in place and growing all the time, while theory 
building and methodological refinements help to ensure that the role of for-
mulaic language in both linguistic competence and performance cannot much 
longer remain out of the contents lists of foundational texts. 
This volume builds on the pioneering work outlined by Pawley in this 
book’s prologue and the developments since the 1970s that he describes. In