What are Formulaic Genres?

Abstract

This book is about becoming a proficient native speaker of a language, that is, becoming someone who is both a native speaker of a language and who is communicatively competent in the language(s) they have acquired. There are many elements to such proficiency. One significant element in being a proficient native speaker is acquiring and being able to utilize the formulaic genres of the speech communities in which you live and work. Formulaic genres are at the interface between knowing a language and being able to use a language appropriately since such genres integrate these two capacities. The first section of this book will examine the stable features of a set of formulaic genres and thereby illustrate something of their nature. The second section will look at how formulaic genres vary and change.

All ritual has a notable tendency to reduce itself to a rehearsal of formulae.

Veblen (1994:75)