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Collocations are combinations of words which frequently appear together. Using them makes your English sound more natural.
Collocations are both pervasive in language and difficult for language learners, even at an advanced level. In this book, these difficulties are for the first time comprehensively investigated. On the basis of a learner corpus, idiosyncratic collocation use by learners is uncovered, the building material of learner collocations examined, and the factors that contribute to the difficulty of certain groups of collocations identified. An extensive discussion of the implications of the results for the foreign language classroom is also presented, and the contentious issue of the relation of corpus linguistic research and language teaching is thus extended to learner corpus analysis.
Collocations are combinations of words which frequently appear together. Using them makes your English sound more natural.
The issue of differences between translational language and native-speaker language has become a topic of increasing interest in linguistics and Translation Studies (TS). One of the primary tasks in this research area is to employ a corpus approach and analyse collocations with authentic language data by comparing comparable corpora consisting of translated and native-speaker texts. Collocation in linguistics and TS refers to the relationship of co-occurrence between lexical items. The book shows that examining the use of collocations constitutes an integral part in assessing the naturalness of second language (L2) use, and therefore can be a valid measure to make a distinction between translational language and native-speaker language. Nevertheless, the role of collocation has not been given enough attention or discussed systematically in TS and, to date, there are hardly any translation theorists who have clarified the mechanism of collocation in TS, by which translators acquire receptive and productive knowledge of collocations in their L2. In addition, previous research in this area is largely confined to Indo-European languages, resulting in a lack of empirical evidence involving Asian languages. This book therefore attempts to bridge the gap in the literature and constitute an integral part in the research area.
This book highlights research that expands on our knowledge of second- language collocation acquisition. It presents original findings based on the largest collocation database to date, encompassing over 8,000 collocations: verb + noun, adjective + noun, and noun + noun. These collocations, collected from a one-million-learner corpus, were not confined to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at a particular proficiency level, but also included learners at three levels. As such, the book provides a panoramic view regarding L2 collocation acquisition, not only in terms of learners’ acquisition of different types of collocations, but in terms of the developmental patterns in L2 collocation learning. One major discovery is that there is a collocation lag as learners’ proficiency levels rise, which is associated with vocabulary increase, in particular semantic domains—a remarkable insight for second-language acquisition researchers, English teachers and EFL learners alike. The findings reported shed new light on how collocations are acquired by EFL learners, offering guidance on how they can best be taught. In closing, the book discusses pedagogical aspects that arise from considering how learners can be helped with collocation learning.
Collocations and Action Research is a thorough investigation of both the theory and practice behind improving second language learners' vocabulary and fluency through the teaching of multi-word units of language. Taking these collocations as its focus, this book provides a clear and in-depth description of the cognitive processing language learners go through when producing speech in relation to them. Using the findings of a two-year action research study into improving learners' spoken fluency, Joshua Brook Antle also explores the practical sides of collocations, explaining how the research study was constructed and conducted. Orientating the findings within the larger field of second language acquisition, especially within the L2 classroom, the practical applications of the findings are then presented through a series of pedagogical tasks all focusing on collocations and productive fluency. Providing a template for how to conduct an action research study using both qualitative and quantitative research techniques, Collocations and Action Research will appeal to researchers interested in vocabulary and spoken fluency, as well as language instructors wanting to better understand the nature of vocabulary and spoken discourse.
Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Paderborn, 19 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The following paper deals with collocation. The topic is investigated with a linguistic view, but also didactic aspects should not be completely disregarded, because collocation is a very important topic especially for teachers. They have to know which word goes together with which term and how to explain these relationships to their pupils. The collocational aspect will have its meaning explained. Then a description of how collocations are used will follow. The third part of this paper presents Benson’s understanding of collocation. He distinguishes between the collocations of different word classes. The first section is about lexical collocations, which contains collocations consisting of nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. Then the most common lexical combinations will have their meaning explained. The first given type of collocation consists of verbs and nouns; the second one deals with the collocations of adjectives and nouns and the third section examines collocations of verbs and adverbs, while the last combination consists of adverbs and adjectives. These combinations are the most common lexical collocations, so others should be disregarded. The different kinds of collocations are examined concerning their behaviour in a sentence and the possibility they suggest to be substituted. After this examination the paper summarizes the structure of grammatical collocation. In the next part, Cowie’s understanding of collocation is presented. He distinguishes between restricted and open collocations, which will be explained in this section. The next part of the paper contains some aspects one has to take account of when collocations are translated. Concerning translatability there are three different types of collocations: collocations of complete, partial and of no equivalence. These types are presented and examples are given. Finally, a few suggestions are given on how to teach collocation in school. Therefore, some different suggestions for teaching are given to make allowances for the student’s age and advancement. The paper ends with a short summary and a final reflection.
