Use of verb-noun collocations in spoken and written discourse of foreign learners in Iran (original) (raw)
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Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners
When native speakers of English write, they employ both grammatical rules and collocations. Collocations are words that are present in the memory of native speakers as ready-made prefabricated chunks. Non-native speakers who wish to acquire native-like fluency should give appropriate attention to collocations in writing in order not to produce sentences that native speakers may consider odd. The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) among Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. To measure the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse, there was a 60-minute task of writing story based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year which indicate substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. The vital implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of writing.
Verb-Noun Collocations in Spoken Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners
As English speakers speak, they utilize not only grammatical rules but also collocations. Collocations are ready-made prefabricated chunks that are present in the memory of native speakers. Non-native speakers who would like to attain native-like fluency should pay attention to collocations in speaking so that they might not produce sentences that seems odd to native speakers. The current study aims to discover the use of verb-noun collocations in spoken discourse of English among Iranian college students from one academic year to the next in Iran. To gauge the use of verb-noun collocations in spoken discourse, there was a task of 60-minutes of telling stories based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were gauged. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question denoted that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in spoken discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests verified that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year that designate considerable growth in the use of verb-noun collocations. The essential inference can be the college students are able to implement verb-noun collocations in productive skill of speaking.
An important aspect of native speakers' communicative competence is collocational competence which involves knowing which words usually come together and which do not. This paper investigates the possible relationship between knowledge of collocations and the use of verb noun collocation in writing stories because collocational knowledge distinguishes native speakers and foreign language learners and is a significant factor in productive skills especially writing. This study examined the correlation between knowledge of verb noun collocations and their use in written essays. The participants in the study were 27 PhD Iranian students in a Malaysian university. A specially constructed C-test measured the subjects' collocational knowledge and the use of collocations was measured by the number of collocations used in essays written by the subjects. For this purpose, participants wrote six different stories in six weeks based on a writing task designed to illicit verb noun collations. The statistical results demonstrate that there exists a strong positive relationship between knowledge of collocations and the use of verb noun collocation in the writing stories.
The Use of Verb Noun Collocations in Writing Stories among Iranian EFL Learners
English Language Teaching, 2011
An important aspect of native speakers' communicative competence is collocational competence which involves knowing which words usually come together and which do not. This paper investigates the possible relationship between knowledge of collocations and the use of verb noun collocation in writing stories because collocational knowledge distinguishes native speakers and foreign language learners and is a significant factor in productive skills especially writing. This study examined the correlation between knowledge of verb noun collocations and their use in written essays. The participants in the study were 27 PhD Iranian students in a Malaysian university. A specially constructed C-test measured the subjects' collocational knowledge and the use of collocations was measured by the number of collocations used in essays written by the subjects. For this purpose, participants wrote six different stories in six weeks based on a writing task designed to illicit verb noun collations. The statistical results demonstrate that there exists a strong positive relationship between knowledge of collocations and the use of verb noun collocation in the writing stories.
An Analysis of the Frequency of Acceptable and Unacceptable Collocations Among Iranian Efl Learners
International Journal of Education and Social Science Research, 2021
Although it is broadly recognized that collocations are vital features of second language acquisition, some of previous studies have reported Iranian EFL learners like other EFL students having difficulties to learn and use the English language collocations. This study is carried out to analyze the frequency of acceptable and unacceptable collocations among Iranian EFL learners. 107 students majoring in English and literature in Qazvin, Iran were selected as participants for this study. Their age ranged from 19 to 25 years both male and female, selected through convenience sampling. In this study, a questionnaire that involves 30 multiple-choice items, which was made up according to Benson's collocational approach (lexical and grammatical collocation), was used. All the collocations were selected from Oxford collocation dictionary. The data was analyzed by SPSS. The results showed that the most unacceptable lexical collocations are produced by Iranian EFL learners is in Noun + Verb 73.6% and the most acceptable lexical collocations which they can produce is in Verb + Noun 84.9%. In addition, the most unacceptable grammatical collocations used is in Noun + preposition 56.6% and the most acceptable grammatical collocations which they used is in Noun + To-Infinitive 79.6%. The result of the study suggest that learners are most likely to face difficulties producing acceptable collocations comprising of Noun + To-Infinitive and Verb + Noun respectively.
The nature of lexical collocational errors committed by advanced Iranian learners of English
Journal of Languages and Culture, 2017
Collocations are among the pervasive features of languages, and English seems to be particularly rich in such multi-word lexemes. Since they have not received due attention pedagogically, this research aimed at identifying problems facing advanced Iranian learners of English in producing collocations. Over 100 pages of materials written by 30 participants were carefully studied and a list of lexical collocations was extracted. The list was then analyzed and different types of correct and incorrect lexical collocations were determined. Results showed that Iranian advanced learners of English do have serious problems with English collocations. The problematic collocations were identified and assigned to six types of collocations. The most problematic type was Adjective + Noun combinations and the least problematic ones were those of Adverb + Adjective and Noun +of + Noun. The results of the study can have theoretical and pedagogical implications for syllabus designers, translators, material writers and, of course, teachers of the English language.
Verb‐Noun Collocations in Second Language Writing: A Corpus Analysis of Learners’ English
Language Learning, 2011
The present study investigates the use of English verb‐noun collocations in the writing of native speakers of Hebrew at three proficiency levels. For this purpose, we compiled a learner corpus that consists of about 300,000 words of argumentative and descriptive essays. For comparison purposes, we selected LOCNESS, a corpus of young adult native speakers of English. We retrieved the 220 most frequently occurring nouns in the LOCNESS corpus and in the learner corpus, created concordances for them, and extracted verb‐noun collocations. Subsequently, we performed two types of comparisons: learners were compared with native speakers on the frequency of collocation use and learners were compared with other learners of different second‐language proficiencies on the frequency and correctness of collocations. The data revealed that learners at all three proficiency levels produced far fewer collocations than native speakers, that the number of collocations increased only at the advanced lev...
To investigate the effect of different patterns of lexical collocations on the recognition and production of Iranian upper-intermediate learners of English, 34 participants at Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU) in Qazvin were presented with receptive and productive tests of English collocations. To compare the participants' recognition of various patterns of lexical collocations, a one-way ANOVA procedure was used. Results indicated that the participants performed relatively better on 'adjective + noun' and 'noun + noun' patterns of lexical collocations, although the differences among the scores of the participants on the different patterns were not statistically significant. Another one-way ANOVA procedure was used to compare the participants' production of the same patterns. Analysis showed that of the seven patterns of lexical collocations investigated, the participants' performance on the 'noun + verb' pattern was significantly poorer than the other patterns.
This study was carried out to comprehensively investigate into the knowledge of lexical collocations of Iranian EFL learners, and to find out whether there was any relationship between this knowledge and the students' writing and speaking abilities. A total of 43 students of Chabahar Maritime University English Department participated in this study. They took three tests during this study. First, they took a 50-item fill in the blank test of collocation at the beginning of the term to measure their knowledge of lexical collocations. One week later, they took the speaking test which consisted of an interview with the examiner, lasting about 12 minutes. Finally, they were asked to write three essays on different topics in three consecutive weeks. The three writing topics were taken from the Book TOEFL Test Strategies. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Co-efficient results revealed that there was a significant positive correlation between the writing of the students and their scores on the lexical collocation test. However, no significant correlation was found between the students' scores on the speaking test and their scores on the collocation test. The study also indicated that Iranian university students are weak in lexical collocations; they could answer just more than half of the questions related to lexical collocations. The study concludes with some suggestions for teachers and material designers about how to teach and incorporate the necessary lexical collocations in their classes and course books.
Collocational Knowledge versus General Linguistic Knowledge among Iranian
2010
This study has a twofold purpose. The first and foremost is to see whether there exists any correlation between the collocational knowledge and general linguistic knowledge of EFL learners. The second is to reveal which type(s) of collocation is or are more difficult for EFL learners. To this end, 35 subjects, screened by a proficiency test, were given a 90-item multiple-choice test including lexical collocations (noun+noun, noun+verb, verb+noun, and adjective+noun), and grammatical collocations (noun+preposition and preposition+noun). A native speaker checked the final version of the data and necessary corrections were made. The results showed that a) there was no significant correlation between general linguistic knowledge and collocational knowledge of EFL learners, and b) the grammatical collocations were more difficult than the lexical collocations for learners and from among all subcategories, noun+preposition was the most difficult and noun+verb was the easiest.