The use of formulaic language seems to be an important phenomenon
in learner language. There is evidence that both early learners and
more advanced learners use this kind of routinised formulaic speech segments
for a variety of reasons. Often the learner uses these almost automatic
phrases to “buy” time for decisions on other areas of language use
(Nattinger and De Carrico 1992, Raupach 1984). From Mc Laughlin’s
(1987) perspective from cognitive psychology, acquisition is the passage
from controlled processes to automatised ones. Raupach (1987) has argued
that the quantitative difference between performance before and after the
stay in France can be attributed to procedural learning and automatization
resulting from practice.