Testing Controlled Productive Knowledge of Adverb-Verb Collocations in Junior Researchers Using English as a Foreign Language (original) (raw)
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Revue des Sciences Humaines, 2017
'Pseudo-native speaker' is the term given to a foreign language learner who has reached a high level of proficiency. Such level of proficiency is characterised by the mastery of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Consequently, a distinction must be drawn between grammatical proficiency and the idiomatic one. Idiomaticity has three basic levels of compositionality: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. The present research work investigates the mastery of Verb+Noun lexical collocations by Algerian EFL learners in Frères Mentouri university. It is hypothesised that Algerian EFL learnershave a low level of mastery in the usage and comprehension of Verb+Noun collocations.It is also hypothesised that the essays of Algerian EFL learners lack the use of appropriate Verb+Noun collocations. An online corpus (BNC) and two other online websites (Collocation Checker & O.O.C.D) were used as tools to measure learners' collocational competence. Examined collocations were extracted from the learners' examination essays. The analysis was done manually through identification and corpus usage. The findings of the study indicate that Algerian EFL learners have a low competence in dealing with Verb+Noun collocations. Thus, focus on collocational knowledge is required. Teachers must raise their students' awareness on the importance of collocations in improving the oral and written quality of production. Learners have to, deliberately, be able to identify collocations, and memorise them within their contexts.
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...
The dominance of syntactic studies in linguistics has caused lexis and grammar to be perceived as two distinct categories. With introduction of the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, the studies in syntax have been replaced by those in lexis and concepts. Semantics has come to the fore through the studies in cognitive linguistics, and there has been a trend from syntactic studies to lexical ones. In addition to research in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar has also emphasized the continuum between lexis and grammar. With the emergence of corpus linguistics, the studies regarding the continuum between lexis and grammar have gained momentum, and thus studies of collocations have been theorized. Early studies of collocations have focused on only lexis and disregarded grammar. However, in the process, the studies have also incorporated grammar as well, and this view supports the idea that each word has its own grammatical properties. Therefore, lexis and grammar should be studied on the same continuum because there is a continuum between these two categories rather than a discontinuum. Within the framework of this paradigm, this study focused on verb+noun lexical collocations across the health, physical and social sciences in the written academic genre and analyzed these lexical collocations through the frequency and chi-square analysis. The study aimed to search for commonalities and differences between the verbs with their collocations. The results showed that there were more similarities and relationship between the health and physical sciences, while the social sciences indicated a significant difference compared to the other two. The study found 165 common verbs used across the three sciences. 12 verbs among the 165 verbs were found to be candidate's verb+noun lexical collocations as prototypes.
Verb-Noun Collocations in L2 Writing in an English-Medium Instruction Program
2019
Teaching subject-matter courses using English as a medium of instruction (EMI) is gaining popularity in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. In such courses, students usually have lower proficiency than international or English as a second language (ESL) learners studying in an English-speaking country. Additionally, EFL learners do not have as much exposure to English as ESL students have outside of the classroom, making the subject matter of EMI courses a greater challenge for them. Acquiring a large enough English vocabulary and basic grammar is a prerequisite to study successfully in such courses. Furthermore, knowledge of multi-word units, in addition to that of single words, is helpful because these “improve the quality and fluency of spoken and written language” (Laufer & Waldman, 2011, p. 648). Multi-word units have also been referred to as formulaic expressions, chunks, prefabricated patterns, collocations, and so forth. The importance and difficulty of acquirin...
A Comparative Corpus Based Analysis of Lexical Collocations Used in EFL Textbooks
As collocations play an important role in second language learning, especially at intermediate-advanced levels, the present study not only seeks to examine distribution of Lexical collocations in three selected series of general English textbooks, Interchange Third Edition by (Jack C. Richards and Jonathan Hull, 2005), American Headway by (Liz and John Soars, 2003), American File by (Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham Koeing, 2008),through analyzing, face to face and telephone conversation scripts collected from intermediate and upper-intermediate level books of the aforementioned series, but also employs Open American National Corpus (OANC) available online and AntConc 3.2.1concordancer program to compare Lexical collocations from textbook to their real use by native-speakers. The findings of present research suggested that especial attention has been paid to specific types of lexical collocations noun + verb and adjective + noun while the frequency of collocations in series could not be affective on learners collocations learning and on the other hand comparing textbooks collocations to reference corpus (OANC) showed choice of collocations in these series did not have big refers to real use of language by native speakers.
This explanatory research analyzes previous studies that have explored the benefits of using a corpus-based approach to teach English idiomatic expressions to lower-level students, namely verb + noun collocations. Secondary data, as well as collocational data extracted from online corpora was analyzed in order to discuss the advantages of using corpus and Data Driven Learning activities. A corpus-based approach has proven beneficial to increase students’ linguistic awareness and exposure to authentic language and real-life usage of collocations. Moreover, the extraction of the most frequent noun collocates for the verbs shed light to important pedagogical implications that are useful in the design of teaching material.
Verb-Noun Collocation Proficiency and Academic Years
Generally vocabulary and collocations in particular have significant roles in language proficiency. A collocation includes two words that are frequently joined concurrently in the memory of native speakers. There have been many linguistic studies trying to define, to describe, and to categorise English collocations. It contains grammatical collocations and lexical collocations which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverb. In the context of a foreign language environment such as Iran, collocational proficiency can be useful because it helps the students improve their language proficiency. This paper investigates the possible relationship between verb-noun collocation proficiency among students from one academic year to the next. To reach this goal, a test of verb-noun collocations was administered to Iranian learners. The participants in the study were 212 Iranian students in an Iranian university. They were selected from the second term of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. The students' age ranged from 18 to 35.The results of ANOVA showed there was variability in the verb-noun collocations proficiency within each academic year and between the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests demonstrated that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, and between the third and the fourth academic year; however, students require at least two years to show significant development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. These findings provided a vital implication that lexical collocations are learnt and developed through four academic years of university, but requires at least two years showing significant development in the language proficiency.
Lexical Verbs in Verb-Noun Collocations: Empirical Evidence from a Malay ESL Learner Corpus
3L The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 2021
Previous studies have shown that verbs are indeed one of the essential lexical items that seem to dominate a text. At tertiary levels, learners are often presented with a list of verbs that are essential for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses such as academic writing. However, it is believed that the learning and teaching of these verbs goes far beyond the lists of EAP verbs. This is because knowledge of lexical verbs entails not only the knowledge of grammatical structures, but also the knowledge of semantic and syntactic structures. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how commonly used lexical verbs are used in learner writing in the perspectives of grammatical, semantic and syntactic features of verb-noun collocations. To achieve this, a corpus-based study using WordSmith Tools was employed on a learner corpus of Malay ESL learners to identify most-commonly used lexical verbs. These verbs were further given a linguistic analysis using a phraseological-based approach. The findings revealed that the use of transitive verbs led to several occurrences of verb-noun collocations and that the phraseological patterns of these verbs are bound by both lexical and grammatical patterns. This leads to the conclusion that the teaching of lexical verbs, specifically Verb-Noun collocations in academic writing should not only include the semantic elements, but also the syntactical elements of the verbs. It is then recommended that a lesson on lexical verbs should incorporate the teaching and learning of both lexis and grammar.
Explicit Instruction of Collocations: An Impact on Learners’ Use and Perceptions
2015
As a part of vocabulary, the correct use of collocations can reflect English language proficiency (Richards, 2008), and explicit instruction is effective for vocabulary learning (Conzett, 2000 and Schmitt, 2000). This study aims to investigate English major students’ use of collocations and their perceptions on explicit learning of collocations after a year of instruction. A test of collocations and an open-ended questionnaire were administered to the fourth year English major students at Khon Kaen University, who were explicitly instructed in the use of some collocations. The mean and Analysis of Variance were utilized to analyze the data from the test scores. A content analysis and the percentage was used to analyze the data from the questionnaire. The test scores revealed that the students used some collocations correctly, and they could use everyday verbs, synonyms and confusable words more accurately than intensifying adverbs. The students perceived that the instruction of coll...
LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS (VERB + NOUN) ACROSS WRITTEN ACADEMIC GENRES IN ENGLISH
The dominance of syntactic studies in linguistics has caused lexis and grammar to be perceived as two distinct categories. With introduction of the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, the studies in syntax have been replaced by those in lexis and concepts. Semantics has come to the fore through the studies in cognitive linguistics, and there has been a trend from syntactic studies to lexical ones. In addition to research in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar has also emphasized the continuum between lexis and grammar. With the emergence of corpus linguistics, the studies regarding the continuum between lexis and grammar have gained momentum, and thus studies of collocations have been theorized. Early studies of collocations have focused on only lexis and disregarded grammar. However, in the process, the studies have also incorporated grammar as well, and this view supports the idea that each word has its own grammatical properties. Therefore, lexis and grammar should be studied on the same continuum because there is a continuum between these two categories rather than a discontinuum. Within the framework of this paradigm, this study focused on verb+noun lexical collocations across the health, physical and social sciences in the written academic genre and analyzed these lexical collocations through the frequency and chi-square analysis. The study aimed to search for commonalities and differences between the verbs with their collocations. The results showed that there were more similarities and relationship between the health and physical sciences, while the social sciences indicated a significant difference compared to the other two. The study found 165 common verbs used across the three sciences. 12 verbs among the 165 verbs were found to be candidatees verb+noun lexical collocations as prototypes.