The relevance of formulaic sequences in literary texts to readers' aesthetic response

Abstract EN

A writer's appeal, at foremost, is to make a successful transaction between the reader and his literary text, not only in terms of interpretation but also in terms of enjoyment during the reading journey.

however, EFL readers often get submerged by the ornament style of the writer who, intentionally or not, insert a variety of formal and stylistic devices like formulaic sequences to create a positive transactional-aesthetic response.

to address this issue, this qualitative study aimed to explore the extent to which formulaic sequences such as idioms and collocations can trigger EFL readers' aesthetic response.

accordingly, a Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to 53 EFL readers.

the findings revealed that EFL readers positively responded to the integration of formulaic sequences in literary texts where they reckoned that these formulas can promote their aesthetic pleasure and impression towards a literary text.