Abstract：Abstract: This research applied a component word decision task to investigate the advanced and elementary Chinese EFL learners’ mental representation of English formulae. The results showed: 1) the advanced group recognized the component words in formulae more slowly and less accurately than they did for those in non-formulae, which indicates that formulae are represented holistically; 2) no significant difference was found in the elementary group when they recognized the component words in both formulae and non-formulae, which can be explained by the fact that the elementary group have not built up the holistic representation of formulae, but represent them in an analytic way. The findings indicate that as the development of L2 proficiency advances, the formulae acquired by Chinese EFL learners progress from analytic representation to holistic representation.
