Similarities and Differences Between Native and Non-native Speakers’ Processing of Formulaic Sequences: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Study

The present study reported an experiment examining whether both native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) give formulaic sequences (FSs) priority over novel phrases in processing, as the dual route model has postulated. In this experiment, NSs and NNSs were asked to read Japanese versions of semi-transparent restricted collocations (e.g., kenka-o uru ‘pick a fight (acc)’), novel phrases (e.g., tomato-o uru ‘sell tomatoes (acc)’), and violated phrases (e.g., kenka-o sagasu ‘find out a fight (acc)’); and they judged the naturalness of these sequences. Participants’ reaction times were measured, as well as their cortical activation. The results revealed that, for the NSs, collocations required shorter reaction times and elicited less cortical activation than the novel stimuli. For NNSs, collocations similarly required shorter reaction times, but they elicited greater cortical activation than novel phrases. These results support the dual route model, both for NSs and NNSs.