Phraseology and Culture in English

4. Formulaicity in speech registers 
The papers by Melina Magdalena and Peter Mühlhäusler, Andrea Gerbig 
and Angela Shek, and Karin Aijmer in this volume provide interesting in-
sights into the role of conventionalized language patterns as markers of reg-
ister and participant identity as integral to the construction of identifiable 
fields of cultural activity. In all three studies, attention to changes over time 
in patterns of use helps to clarify the significance of current patterns, either 
in terms of their ideological implications or, in the case of Aijmer’s study 
of messages left on telephone answering machines, in terms of the functional 
refinement of routines over time, as the technology involved became more 
familiar to users. 
Magdalena and Mühlhäusler investigate the relatively new semantic do-
main of “eco-speak” or “green-speak”. They identify, among other things, 
typical construction patterns of high frequency terms, the emergence, both 
planned and unplanned, of new multiword units, the shortening of word 
bases over time as words become emotively charged or central in discourse 
within the register, sub-register use and user contrasts between alternative 
forms of terms (e.g. eco- versus ecological in compound units), the wide-
spread use (and more recent subversion by corporate advertising in some 
cases) of slogans and catch cries, and so on, generating some intriguing in-
sights in the process. One example, the substitution of malestream for main-
stream among some users, throws the key concept into “conceptual relief”. 
We saw similar word play in examples documented by Pam Peters. In both 
cases, Hockett’s (1987) discussion of the power of resonances of all kinds 
in the internalized linguistic system helps us to understand how this con-

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Penny Lee
ceptual highlighting is achieved (see also Lee 1996 for discussion of Hock-
ett’s theory). 
The high frequency of abstract compound nouns in the register (e.g. re-
source development, management strategies, etc.) where verbal constructions 
(e.g. develop the resources, plan ways to manage, etc.) would provide al-
ternative construals focusing on human agency and responsibility for out-
comes is described in terms of “language calming” and “thingification”. 
We might recall that Halliday and his associates (e.g. Halliday and Martin 
1993) have a long tradition of referring to this phenomenon as “grammati-
cal metaphor”, arguing that it deserves careful metalinguistic attention in the 
interest of ensuring that we, as speakers and writers, are not unwittingly hi-
jacked into implying attitudes that we do not consciously subscribe to. The 
nominalizing process is highly efficient in compressing concepts into com-
pact linguistic packages and has its place in many discourse contexts, espe-
cially in written scientific reports. For skilled users of registers who rely 
heavily on it, it promotes fluency, especially when the compounds are highly 
conventionalized. Its downside is that it backgrounds or totally obscures 
agency. To do so, as Magdalena and Mühlhäusler stress, may be to harbour 
an ideology that may or may not be in line with users’ expressed convic-
tions.
One tends to forget that spoken language corpora have now been around 
for over 30 years. That they can be put to excellent use to track register 
changes is demonstrated by the other two papers in this section of the vol-
ume. Aijmer’s 1970s data reveal the uncertainty many of us faced when 
first requested to leave messages for people who had failed to respond to 
our telephone calls. Formulaic phrases used in letter writing or person-to-
person interactions make their appearance in the data, as do indications of 
confusion or concern. By contrast, data from the 1990s show more stable 
configurations of conversational routines using predictable and functionally 
efficient formulae suited to the task of communicating with someone who 
is not there as we speak. 
Bearing in mind Wray’s (2002) reservations and cautions about what 
corpus linguistics can and may not be able to deliver with regard to better 
understanding of formulaic sequences, the paper by Gerbig and Shek is 
exemplary in methodological terms. Key theoretical concepts are explained, 
a brief background section on the topic of the research (tourism) provides 
historical context in general terms, and findings from corpora from differ-
ent periods of time (again ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s) are system-
atically compared as a means of tracking specific changes over time. A 

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