COLLOCATIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS IN TEACHING ENGLISH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

FINAL ASSIGNMENT OF SEMANTICS

COLLOCATIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS IN TEACHING
ENGLISH

Instructor:

Dr. Ha Cam Tam

Trainee:

Duong Thi Nhan

Group :

K18-C

Ha Noi, June 2010


1. Introduction
Communicative competence in learning English has become the primary concerns and the
requisite of learning English for decades. One of many factors affecting this is lexical
collocations which were referred to by several researchers such as Brown (1974), Nattinger
(1980), Channel (1981),… They pointed out the benefits of learning collocations such as
increasing learners’ language competence, being toward native-like fluency.
Teaching and learning English is not only a long and difficult period, but some

collocational knowledge is also essential for EFL learners. In fact,many learners often make a lot
of mistakes during their language acquisition. Previous studies indicated that EFL learners made
collocational errors in their writing and speaking for lack of collocational competence in English.
For example, learners often use “make exercises” instead of “do exercises” because they mistake
between “make” and “do”. Thus, several researchers proposed that teachers should increase EFL
learners’ collocational knowledge through raising EFL learners’ awareness of collocations.
Therefore, In order to know more about collocations and help learners avoid some errors
during their learning periods, this article is aimed to review some knowledge relating to
collocations, some difficulties of learning collocations as well as give out some implications for
learning and teaching English.
2. Development
2.1. Definitions of collocations
According to Longman Advanced American Dictionary, collocation is the way in which
some words are often used together. A collocation is a particular combination of words used in
this way: "Commit a crime" is a typical collocation in English.
In order to define lexical collocations, Patesan (1997) showed that “lexical collocations
are word associations where one word recurrently co-occurs with one or more other words as the
only or one of few possible lexical choices.” As Sinclair (1991) pointed out, it is obvious that
words do not appear at random in texts, and people could not produce natural sentences simply
by operating in the principle of grammar. Rather, words seem to be selected in pairs or groups
and language users are considered to have available to them “ a large number of semireconstructed phrases that constitute single choice.” (p.1191). Moreover, Halliday & Hasan
(1976) showed that “collocation is the co-occurrence of two words, independent of grammatical
types and likely to take place over sentence boundaries.”
To sum up, collocations are the combinations of words which are fluent and natural
English. These combinations are natural to native speakers, but students of English have to make
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a special effort to learn them since simple guessing is not enough. Therefore, collocations are
always considered a very difficult problem for all learners of English.

2.2. Types of collocations
About the classification of collocations, Benson et all (1986b) divided into two major
groups: lexical collocations and grammatical collocations. Lexical collocations are further
classified into seven types and the later with eight types. Lexical collocations consist of nouns,
adjectives, verbs and adverbs such as acquire knowledge, bad temper, etc. On the other hand,
grammatical collocations are phrases containing a dominant word such as a noun, an adjective, or
a verb, a preposition or grammatical structure like an infinitive or clause such as listen to music,
specialize in, and so on. Here are the tables for more illustrations of these two categories.
Table 1: Lexical Collocations categorized by Benson et al.
Type
L1
L2
L3
L4
L5
L6
L7

Pattern
V + N/P
V+N
Adj + N
N+V
N1 + of + N2
Adv + Adj
V + Adv

Example
Compose music
Reject an appeal

Strong tea
Bombs explode
A pride of lions
Deeply absorbed
Argue heartedly

Table 2: Grammatical Collocations categorized by Benson et al.
Type
L1
L2

Pattern
N + Prep
N + to + Inf

L3

N + that – clause

L4
L5
L6

Prep + N
Adj + Prep
Adj + to + Inf

L7

Adj + That – clause

L8

V + Direct O + to + Indirect O
= V + Indirect O + Direct O

Example
Blockade against
An attempt to do it
He took an oath that he would do his
duty
On somebody’s advice
They were angry at him
She is ready to go
She was afraid that she would fail
the exam
She sent him the book
= She sent the book to him

Lewis (1998) proposes the following categories for collocations:
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1. Strong: A large number of collocations are strong or very strong. For example, we most
commonly talk of rancid butter, but that does not mean that other things cannot be rancid.
We often have ulterior motives or harbor grudges while being reduced to tears or even
moved to tears. Such strong collocations are not unique, but it is clear that any knowledge
of the words trenchant, rancid, motive, grudge, or tears would be incomplete without
some idea of their strong collocates. The new corpus-based dictionaries often contain
information about strong collocations, but they remain patchy in the quantity and quality

of that information
2. Weak: These are words which co-occur with a greater than random frequency. Many
things can be long or short, cheap or expensive, good or bad. However, some things are
more predictable, which could be called collocation; for example, white wine or red wine.
3. Medium strength: The main learning load for all language users is not at the strong or
weak ends of the collocational spectrum, but in the middle - those many thousands of
collocations which make up the greater part of what we say and write. Most intermediate
students will know the words hold and conversation, but may not know that you can hold
a conversation. They know the words make and mistake, but have not stored make a
mistake in their mental lexicons as a single item. These are words that go together with a
greater frequency than weak collocations. Some examples are: hold a meeting; carry out
a study.
To sum up, collocations are various in their types as they can easily collocate with the
other words such nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, or prepositions. Therefore, the more
collocations with the other words there are, there more difficult they are for all learners of
English. Some learners even do not know the importance of collocations in their understanding.
Moreover, there are many types of collocations which always make learners distracted or mad
about chunks of words.
2.3. Importance of learning Collocations
Many researchers have focused on the importance of collocation in language learning for a
long time. Brown (1974) suggested that learning collocations improves the learners’ oral
proficiency, listening comprehension and reading speed. In addition, she argues that we speak and
write in chunks and learning collocations helps learners observe how native speakers in both
spoken and written contexts use language chunks.
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In fact, our brain tends to store language in chunks, rather than individual words. Thus,
when we speak or write, it is more efficient for us to remember and use phrases as chunks rather
than constructing them one word at a time, which promotes fluency of learning English. In

addition, native English speakers will unconsciously predict what is going to be said based on
their own use of these phrases. This increases the efficiency with which they are able to listen or
read. Thus, if a speaker or writer uses uncommon phrasing patterns, a native English speaker may
find him or her harder to understand. Conversely, if a non-native speaker of English uses
frequently used phrasing patterns, this may make it easier for native speakers to guess what the
non-native speaker is saying and may help compensate for other language issues such as
pronunciation. Therefore, learning collocations will play an important role because they increase
a non-native speaker’ efficiency as a listener or reader.
According to Kjellner (1987), he showed that “ In all kinds of texts collocations are
essential, indispensable elements….with which our utterances are very largely made” (p.140).
“Even very advance learners often make inappropriate or unacceptable collocations” (McCarthy,
1990: 13). These make two points relevant to the EFL learner. “First, that collocations relations
are an important part of the language to be mastered. Second, that it is an area which ‘resiss’
tuition and, therefore, requires special systematic attention.” (Gabrielatos, 1990)
Pawley and Syder (1983) pointed out that collocations play a significant role in language
learning. They lead to the improvement of language competence. Therefore, Pawley and Syder
argued that the more fixed expressions, including collocations, language learners use in useful
basic chunks, the more they produce native- like language structures. Ellis (2001) argued that
direct instruction for collocations is important in language learning because they represent an
important aspect of L2 vocabulary development. On the other hand, Nattinger (1988) claimed
that collocations can aid learners in committing these words to memory and defining the semantic
area of a word and can permit learners to know and to predict what kinds of words would be
found together.
Patesan (1997) showed in his study that there are main reasons for learning collocations
as the following:
+ Give you the most natural way to say something; smoking is strictly forbidden is more
natural than smoking is strongly forbidden.
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+ Give you alternative ways of saying something which may be more expressive or more
precise: instead of repeating It was very cold and very dark, we can say: It was bitterly cold
and pitch dark.
+ Improve your writing style, for example instead of poverty causes crimes you can write
poverty breeds crimes as they can make your text better
It can be concluded that many researchers have paid attention to the importance of
collocations from different perspectives consisting memorization, fluency, word knowledge, or
teaching effectiveness. All of these things are very important for language learners.
2.4. Learners’ difficulties with learning collocations
Tanju Deveci in “why and how to teach collocations” showed that learners often
memorize isolated words and can not understand words in phrases. He also pointed more that
such surface level knowledge inhibits meaningful learning and creates collocation-related
problems such as the following:
i. Learners may have intralingual problems. For example, instead of many thanks, they
might incorrectly use several thanks.
ii. Learners may make negative transfer from their mother tongue. For example, some
Turkish learners tend to say become lovers instead of fall in love.
iii. Learners may look for general rules for collocations that do not work for all collocations.
For example, they might over-generalize rules of collocation, for example, the use of
prepositions in phrasal verbs. They could think that put off your coat is the opposite of put
on your coat.
iv. When students learn words through definitions or in isolation, their chances of using
appropriate collocations or remembering the words decrease.
v. Students may fail to make sense of an idiom. To illustrate, the English idiom It is raining
cats and dogs does not make sense to Turkish learners of English because this idiom does
not exist in their culture. To communicate the same idea, Turkish learners would say It is
raining out of the glass, which does not make sense in English.
vi. When students read texts, they may not recognize collocations as meaningful phrases,
which would inhibit their understanding of the text.
Normally, learners have a lot of difficulties in writing and speaking with collocations.

They don’t know whether they are collocations or single words. Even they misunderstand them in
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context and have a great effect on their understanding. Moreover, they use their mother tongue
while learning collocations. After that, they make negative transfer from their mother tongue.
Furthermore, finding out some learners’ difficulties is very important and it will lead researchers
to give out some implications for teaching collocations as the following part.
2.5. Implications in teaching English collocations
Having found collocations very important for language learning, many researchers
planned some researches and gave out some ideas about the ways to teaching effective
collocations.
Chia- Chuan Li (2005,p.82-84) gave out four solutions In order to solve some difficulties
of collocations such as:
1. Raising learners’ awareness of collocations
2. Reinforcing learners’ concept of collocations
3. Increasing learners’ collocational competence in L2
4. Avoiding literal translation
First, the teachers should raise learners’ consciousness in collocations. In other words, the
teachers need encourage learners to notice the importance of collocations during the process of
acquiring language. Like Ellis (1997) claimed that acquisition of skills related to the correct use
of collocations can be hastened “as a result of explicit instruction or consciousness-raising.” That
is to say, when teaching a new word, teachers need to teach other words which collocate with a
new word. Furthermore, designing more exercises relating to collocations is also a good way to
raise learners’ awareness of collocations.
Second, to reinforce learners’ concept of collocations, EFL teachers need to recommend
dictionaries to their students which consist of common collocations and corpora such as Collins
COBUILD English dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Dictionary…. They are
very practical and useful to learners because they not only help them aware of collocations but
they also enable them to understand usage and put this understanding to productive use.

Third, learners often face with the problems of collocational competence. Hill (2000)
suggested that EFL teacher should make students more collocationally competent with words
regardless of the difficulties. Only spending more time exploring words and their collocates and
recording them systematically, learners can be more skilled at producing acceptable collocations.

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Forth, learners are often affected by their mother tongue and this lead them to wrong
translation. Therefore, teachers need guide them to translate chunk to chunk or collocations to
collocations.
More importantly, Hill (2000) asserts that when teaching collocation, teachers need to pay
close attention to pronunciation, intonation, stress, and grammar. He lists topics to consider when
teaching collocations:
1. Make students aware of collocations. Students need to know that learning collocations is
crucial for learning English, and noticing collocations is an important stage in learning.
2. Teaching individual collocations. We should present collocations as we would present
individual words. At higher levels, when students learn less common vocabulary items,
they need to be made aware that some words are used in a very restricted number of
collocations. Students also need to know how to use new vocabulary items, which makes
it necessary to know about their collocational field and contexts in which they are used.
3. Storing collocations. Students need to have an organized vocabulary journal to record
collocations. They can organize their journals in different ways: grammatically, by
common key word, by topic, etc. They can also make use of tables or spider-grams, which
work well with visual learners. For example, students can record certain collocations
under headings such as have/take/do or make.
According to Hill, when teaching collocations, we cannot ignore reading and listening
skills, which help learners notice collocations. Writing and speaking skills, on the other hand,
give them the opportunity to practice collocations. One can easily resort to teaching collocations
in isolation as well. However, this kind of teaching is no better than teaching single words in

isolation. Unless students are taught in context-based classes, collocations will not make sense to
learners, and meaningful learning will probably not take place.
3. Conclusion
The common belief that words should be learned in contexts emphasizes the importance
of collocations in second language acquisition. Therefore, it is true that the use of collocations is
somewhat subjective and little empirical evidence of collocational frequencies in English is
available (Cowie, 1981). For learners of English, collocations are essential when they want to
speak or write naturally. They play an important role in their communicative competence, fluency
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or word knowledge. Moreover, when learning collocations, learners necessarily pay attention to
chunks of words, but not single ones so that they can easily practise their language in any
situations.
All in all, taking care of collocations in learning English is very important for learners.
Especially, Vietnamese learners often make a lot of mistakes about collocations such using wrong
words, or literal translation, and so on. These are some reasons why teachers of English need help
learners overcome these difficulties by guiding them to look up collocations in necessary
dictionaries, enforcing learners’ communicative competence, or lead them translate chunks to
chunks or collocations to collocations.
With a little information about definitions, types and implications in teaching
collocations, this article is a small support for teaching and learning English collocations in
general and in Vietnam in particular.

REFERENCES

1. Beson, M., Benson, E. & Ilson, P. (1986b). The BBI combinatory dictionary of English: A
guide to word combinations. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
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2. Chia- Chuan Li. (2005). A study of collocational error types in EFL/ ESL college learners’
writing. A Thesis in Applied Linguistics. Ming Chuan University.
3. Deveci, T. (2010). Why and how to teach collocations.s
4. Ellis, N.C. (2001). Memory for language. In P. Robinson (eds.). Cognition and second
language instruction (pp. 33-68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. Gabrielators, C. (1994). Collocations: Pedagogical implications and their treatment in
pedagogical materials. Unpublished essay. Research Centre for English and Applied
Linguistics. University of Cambridge.
6. Hill, J. (2000). Revising priorities: From grammatical failure to collocational success in
teaching collocation. Ed. Michael Lewis, 47-70. Hove, England: Language Teaching
Publications.
7. Halliday, M.A.K & Hason, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman
8. McCathy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9. Lewis, N. (1998). Implementing the lexical approach. London: Language teaching
publications
10. Pawley, A & Syder, F.H. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistics theory. New York: Longman.
11. Pateson, M. (1997). Collocations in English.
12. Sinclair. (1991). Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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