nghiên cứu những lỗi thường gặp trong việc dung quán ngữ chứa động từ do và make của sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại trường đai học kinh tế & quản trị kinh doanh thái nguyên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES




PHẠM THỊ NGÀ



A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE
USAGE OF DO AND MAKE COLLOCATIONS BY ENGLISH
NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIỆC DÙNG QUÁN NGỮ
CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ DO VÀ MAKE CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH
Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN)


M.A. MINOR THESIS





FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15

Hanoi - 2012


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES




PHẠM THỊ NGÀ



A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE
USAGE OF DO AND MAKE COLLOCATIONS BY ENGLISH
NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION


(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIỆC DÙNG QUÁN NGỮ
CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ DO VÀ MAKE CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH
Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN)

M.A. MINOR THESIS




FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15
SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. PROF. DR. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG






Ha noi - 2012
iv

TABLE OF CONTENT


Page
Part A: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………
1. Rationale of the study ………………………………………………… …
2. Aims and objectives of the study …………………………………….………
3. Scope of the study …………………………………………………… …… …
4. Significance of the study ………………………………… ………… …
5. Structure of the study ……………………….…………… ………… …
Part B: DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………… ……….……

Chapter 1: Literature Review
1.1. Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis …
1.1.1 Related research 1……………………………………………………… …
1.1.2 Related research 2 …………………………………………………………
1.1.3 Related research 3 ………………………………………………………
1.1.4 Related research 4 …………………………………………………………
1.1.5 Related research 5 ………………………………………………………
1.1.6 Related research 6 …………………………………………………………
1.1.7 Related research 7 ………………………………………………………
1.1.8 Related research 8 ………………………………………………… ……
1.1.9 Related research 9 ………………………………………………………
1.1.10 Related research 10 ……………………………………………………
2. Theoretical background ………………………………………………… ……
2.1. Collocations ………………………………………………………………
2.2. Types of collocations …………………………………………… …… …
2.3. Characteristics of collocations …………………………………… ………….
2.4. Collocations, free compounds, and idioms ………………
2.5. Collocations with Do and Make …………………… ………………………
1
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v

3. Summary ………………………………………………………………………
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1. Research – governing principles……………………… …………… … …
2.1.1. Research questions …………………………………….………….…………
2.1.2. Sampling …………………………………………………… ………………
2.1.3. Research setting…………………………………………………….…… …
2.1.4. Research types…………………………………………………….…… …
2.1.5. Research approaches ……………………………………………… ……….
2.1.6. Principle/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis …………….
2.2. Research methods……………………………………………………………
2.2.1. Major methods and supporting methods …………………………………
2.2.2. Research procedure ………………………………………………………….
2.2.3. Data collection instruments ………………………………………….………
2.2.4. Data analysis techniques ……………………………………………………
2.3. Summary ……………………………………………………………….……

Chapter 3: Analysis, Findings and Discussion …………………………… …
3.1. Criteria for classification of the findings……………………………….…
3.2. Finding 1 & Discussion on this finding………………………………… ….
3.3. Finding 2 & Discussion on this finding…………………………… ….…….
3.4. Finding 3 & Discussion on this finding………………………………… ….
3.5. Summary ……………………………………………….………………….…
Part C: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………….……….
1. Recapitulation…………………………………………………………… …….
2. Concluding remarks…………………………………………………… ……
2.1. Concluding remarks on objective 1…………………………………… …
2.1.1. Objective 1 restated
2.1.2. Remarks …………………………………………… ……………………
2.2. Concluding remarks on objective 2…………………………………………
2.2.1. Objective 2 restated……………………………………………… …….…
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vi

2.2.2. Remarks………………………………………………………………… …
2.3. Concluding remarks on objective 3…………………………………….……
2.3.1. Objective 3 restated…………………………………………………… …
2.3.2. Remarks…………………………………………………………….………
3. Limitations of the study ……………………………………………….…….…
4. Suggestions for further studies ……………………………………….……
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………… …… ….
APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………………
Appendix 1: Test 1………………………………………………………… …
Appendix 2: Test 2……………………………………………………… … …
Appendix 3: Test 3………………………………………………… ……….…
Appendix 4: Tables of the collocations under investigation …….… … …


43

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I
II
VI
VIII
XI











1

List of abbreviations
CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary
CUP: Cambridge University Press
OCD: Oxford Collocations Dictionary
OCU: Oxford Collocations in Use
OUP: Oxford University Press

TUEBA: Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration














2

List of Tables
Table 1: Collocations under investigation in the thesis
Table 2: Nouns as object constituent in DO collocations
Table 3: Nouns as object constituent in MAKE collocations
Table 4: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of DO
meanings
Table 5: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of MAKE
meanings
Table 6: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as
object constituent in DO collocations
Table 7: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as
object constituent in MAKE collocations
Table 8: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ use of both DO and

MAKE











3

Definition of key technical terms
In this thesis, the key technical terms are to be employed in the senses as stated
below:
i. Error = Misuse or breach of the code arising from incompetence in the target
language
ii. Context = the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or
idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood (Oxford Dictionary)
iii. Pragmatic meaning = Meaning in context
iv. Collocation= a group of words or phrase which is frequently used with
another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have
spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the
meaning (CALD, 2005)

4







Part A: INTRODUCTION

5

1. Rationale of the study
“No piece of natural spoken or written English is totally free of collocation” (OCD,
2009). Therefore, learning collocation is important for EFL learners. For students,
choosing the right collocation will make his/her speech and writing sound much
more natural, more native-speaker-like. Poor collocation in exams is also likely to
lead to lower marks. However, during the time working as a teacher of English at
Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA), I
have found out that English non- major students at different levels often make
mistakes in using DO and MAKE collocations. For this reason, I decided to choose
this as the theme for my MA thesis.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
The ultimate purposes of the research are:
i. To help English non-major students gain an insight into DO and MAKE
collocations.
ii. To examine the influenced factors to possible errors made by the students
iii. To improve my own teaching of English at TUEBA
To achieve these aims, the following objectives are pursued forward:
 Establishing the types of errors related to DO and MAKE collocations
commonly committed by English non-major students at TUEBA
 Finding out the causes of students‟ errors related to the usage of DO and
MAKE collocations.
 Working out possible solutions to the problems encountered by students in
using collocations with DO and MAKE.
3. Scope of the study
The survey was conducted at TUEBA. The population was not large, only 300

Accounting students who were at pre-intermediate level of English. Only errors
related to the uses of DO and MAKE collocations in the form of “verb + noun”
pattern were taken into consideration.
6

4. Significance of the study
It is much to the author‟s expectation that the research results will help students
gain a more insightful look into English MAKE and DO collocations. And, on
account of this, well-formed utterances containing DO and MAKE collocations
might be produced. And, this constitutes the practical value of the research.
5. Structure of the thesis
The thesis consists of three main parts: Part A, B and C. Part A is an introduction
that gives a rationale behind the study. It also presents the aims, objectives, the
significance as well as scope of the study. Part B is divided into three chapters;
chapter 1 both reviewed some previous studies related to the research area of the
thesis and provides theoretical background to the concerning matters. In chapter 2,
the methodology of the thesis including research-governing principles and research
methods are introduced. Chapter 3 analyzes data collected from the students‟ tests.
Additionally, some significant findings of the study are written up and discussed.
Part C concludes the main issues which dealt with in the previous parts.
Accordingly, some concluding remarks are drawn out.

7






Part B: DEVELOPMENT











8

CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis
Prior to this thesis, there have been the following related studies:
1.1.1. Related research 1
- Title of the research: Applying semantic theory into vocabulary teaching
- Issue raised: The researcher carried out the study to examine collocational
knowledge of eight advanced EFL learners of English.

- Contribution: The results showed that these students did not succeed in completing
a collocational grid that included adjective-noun collocations although vocabulary
was not a problematic matter. The researcher emphazised that presenting highly
frequent collocates for learners when they start is really important.
1.1.2. Related research 2
- Title of the research: The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of
English
- Issues raised: The findings were based on two types of analyses; a corpus-based
analysis to identify basic collocations and an empirical analysis to examine how
Japanese learners develop knowledge of collocation.
- Contribution: The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a
significant positive relationship between learners‟ general knowledge of vocabulary
and their knowledge of collocations. The knowledge of the learners‟ on receptive
collocation tasks of was better than their productive ones, and the learner had
difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in
comparison with others
1.1.3. Related research 3
- Title of the research: Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating
diversity with quantitative & qualitative approaches
9

- Issues raised: By using two instruments: pretreatment and post-treatment
translation tests, Marton investigated Polish learners‟ knowledge of collocations and
their abilities to use them.
- Contribution: The researcher found that there were no significant differences in
the participants‟ scores on the two translation tests, which confirmed learners‟ poor
productive knowledge of collocations. Marton, therefore, concluded that learners‟
limited exposure to collocation could not improve their productive knowledge of
those structures.
1.1.4. Related research 4

- Title of the research: The Acquisition of Basic Collocations by Japanese Learners
of English
-Issues raised: In Matsuno and Sugiura‟s study, the researcher probed the question
of whether the collocational expressions of L1 Japanese learners of English
resemble those of native speakers. Two types of corpora were used to compare the
performance of the two groups. The Japanese learners were asked to write about a
certain topic as fast as possible and they were allowed to use dictionaries.
- Contribution: The researcher‟s conclusions also confirmed that Japanese learners
of English were poor at collocational knowledge.
1.1.5. Related research 5
- Title of the research: Should we teach EFL students collocations
- Issues raised: The pretreatment and post-treatment translation tests, consisting of a
translation task and a gap-filling task were conducted among advanced learners of
English with German as a native language
- Contribution: The study showed that the students‟ knowledge of collocations had
not developed at the same rate as their knowledge of vocabulary in general.
1.1.6. Related research 6
- Title of the research: Prefabricated patterns in Advanced EFL writing:
collocations and formulae in A. P. Cowie (ed.): Phraeology. Theory, analysis and
applications
10

- Issues raised: The researcher investigated the role of the first language and
acquisition of collocations among French learners of English
- Contribution: Granger‟s study confirmed the important role that learners‟ L1 plays
in the use and acquisition of collocations. In this study, the researcher studied the
difference between native speakers of English and French learners of English in
producing English collocations, in particular adjective amplifiers, such as totally
and highly. It was found that amplifiers with direct translation equivalents in French
were the most frequent ones. She attributed that finding to the L1 positive transfer

that facilitated learners‟ acquisition of the similar amplifiers to their L1 (French).
1.1.7. Related research 7
- Title of the research: Do English language learners know collocations?
- Issues raised: Martynska conducted the study of English collocation competencies
among intermediate high school Polish students. To collect data, the researcher used
different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct
option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined parts of sentences.
- Contribution: The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks.
One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the
length of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short
time performed better on the English tests than those who studied English for longer
time. Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some
students got higher scores on the multiple-choice tasks but lower scores on the
completion tasks. This confirmed that the production of collocation among the
students was much lower than their receptive skills. Therefore, more attention to
collocations when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning
process.
1.1.8. Related research 8
- Title of the research: The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners.
- Issues raised: Elyildirm examined the comprehension and production of the target
collocations of the first language (L1) Turkish learners of English. By using three
11

collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test
including two collocation categories, i.e. verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun
collocations,
- Contribution: The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the
production of collocations was quite clear. In fact, participants tended to generalize
unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently
encountered in the textbook. Learners also have a tendency to incorrectly

overgeneralize their L1 collocational knowledge with unknown collocations, which
resulted in L1 negative transfer. The researcher also confirmed that acquiring
collocations that have L1 equivalent was easier than that of acquiring collocations
that have no L1 equivalents. Additionally, comparing two types of test it was
observed that the participants performed better on the adjective-noun collocation
test than verb-noun-collocation test, which they found to be more difficult. The
researcher recommended the teaching of common collocations and suggested
learners to spend much time reading and listening to improve their knowledge of
collocations instead of avoiding them.
1.1.9. Related research 9
- Title of the research: The use of collocations by advanced learners of English and
some implications for teaching
- Issues raised: Nesslhauf carried out an exploratory study about the use of verb-
noun collocations by advanced learners of English and some implications for
teaching The researcher pointed out the types of mistakes that learners make and the
influence of the degree of restriction of a combination and the influence of the
learners‟ L1 on the production of collocations.
- Contribution: The research showed that the highest rate of mistakes occurs in
combination with a medium degree of restriction in combination where the verb
only takes a few nouns, they are less aware of restrictions in combination where the
verb takes a wider range of nouns. And, in free combinations and idioms, only a
few minor types of mistakes that were not observed in the analysis of collocation
12

were identified. The findings pointed out that the major types of mistakes that
occurred were the same as in collocation. The degree of restriction does not have a
major influence on the types and amount of mistakes learners make, except that
collocations with a low degree of restriction are the most difficult kind of
combination for the learners. In short, the results showed that almost a quarter of the
combinations contained one or several mistakes with non-lexical elements like the

articles and prepositions belonging to a combination, not only verb-noun
mismatches. However, the most common type of mistake was the wrong choice of
verbs. Therefore, the researcher recommended that teachers should focus on the
verb in the teaching of verb-noun collocations.
1.1.10. Related research 10
- Title of the research: A study of collocation behaviors on lexical pragmatics
- Issues raised: The study described how collocation behaviors of near synonyms
can be recognized from contextual usage data in corpora to improve L2 lexical
meaning. Concordance and computational techniques were used to analyze
collocates in corpora. Three transitive verb; cause, promote and commit in students‟
corpus were analyzed to explore the potential of lexical collocation information, and
to observe their collocation behaviors and pragmatic implications.
- Contribution: The study showed that the use of collocation profile as an effective
instrument in recognizing and learning semantic meaning and pragmatic
implications of lexical items was necessary. The findings suggested that it could be
beneficial for L2 learners to observe the collocates of near synonyms so that
recognition of pragmatic characteristics could help improve their lexical usage.
Taken together, these studies focused on studying collocations in use, and examined
learners‟ competence of using English collocations. The instruments used to collect
results were mainly the application of different tests. It could be said that the use of
tests was effective for researchers to evaluate learners‟ errors on using collocations.
Most of the researchers reached conclusions that collocation knowledge of learners
studying English as foreign language was insufficient and teaching or learning
13

collocations should be paid more attention due to the assumption that collocation
teaching and learners‟ development of their collocation competence are necessary
and important in order to achieve the globalized standards of English.
My research differs from these previous studies in the following ways;
- First, its scale was much narrower and more specific and limited in a small piece

of language use, but directly relevant to students‟ collocation learning.
- Second, the research was carried out in the real EFL classroom where Vietnamese
is the learners‟ native language.
- Finally, the study investigated errors related to the usage of collocations by
examining the use of each element.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Definitions of “collocation”
Forming a precise definition of collocation is not easy, though there is a vast
literature on this subject because there are both conflicting definitions and
conflicting terminologies: „Regrettably, collocation is a term which is used and
understood in many different ways‟. (Bahns, 1993:57)
There have been a lot of ideas when considering the term „collocation‟. Different
linguists have their own ways to define what a collocation is. A collocation is
mainly considered as a lexical relationship between words. It is assumed that words
receive their meanings from words they occur with. One of the works should be
noticed is Second Interim Report on English Collocation (1933) by H.E.Palmer who
is considered the first linguist to use the term Collocation in the present-day sense.
According to Palmer, collocation is defined as word combinations containing one or
more words having meanings only in that collocation. According to Halliday
(1966:152), collocation is one of the main components and central part in his
lexico-grammatical system. He defines collocation as syntagmatic relation of words
which is linear co-occurrence together with some measure of significant proximity
14

It is a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected
by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a
phraseological collocation, given by Michael Halliday, is the expression „strong
tea‟. Although the expression „powerful tea‟ could be roughly conveyed the same
meaning, it is considered incorrect by English speakers. Or the corresponding
expression for computer, „powerful computers‟ is widely used rather than „strong

computers‟.
In his study, Greenbaum approaches collocation as an integration between lexis and
grammar which are different in lexical and syntactic patterning but interrelated.
“Collocation meaning is changed according to different syntactic patterning”
(Greenbaum, 1960:12). The term „collocation‟ introduced by Firth (1957) is often
defined as a characteristic word combination whose lexical constituents developed
an idiomatic relation based on their frequent co-occurrence. According to Cruse,
1984 a collocation, along with a lexeme and an idiom, is a kind of lexical item and
is “Sequences of lexical items, which habitually co-occur, but which are
nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a
semantic constituent” (Cruse, 1986:40). Although there are a variety of views on the
concept of collocation, variously defining it as a lexical, grammatical or research
phenomenon, all contain a focus on the co-occurrence of words. According to
Micheal Mc Carthy and Felicity O‟Dell (2005:4)
“a collocation is a pair or group of words that are often used together.
These combinations sound natural to native speakers, but students of English
have to make a special effort to learn them because they are often difficult to
guess. Some combinations just sound 'wrong to native speakers of English.
For example, the adjective fast collocates with cars, but not with a glance.”
Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (CALD, 2005) defines collocation as
„a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a
way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their
lives, but might not be expected from the meaning. In the phrase 'a hard
15

frost', 'hard' is a collocation of 'frost' and 'strong' would not sound natural‟
or „the combination of words formed when two or more words are frequently
used together in a way that sounds correct but difficult to guess.‟
Here are some different definitions given by Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009)
(OCD)

“- The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or
words with frequency greater than chance
- A pair or group of words that are juxtaposed in such a way
- the action of placing things side by side or in position”
- A grouping of words in a sentence
- Juxtaposition: the act of positioning close together (or side by side); "it is
the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors"
- (Collocate) have a strong tendency to occur side by side; "The words 'new'
and 'world' collocate"
- (Collocate) group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side
- Within the area of corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of
words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance.
- Collocation is a procedure used in remote sensing to match measurements
from two or more different instruments.
- The grouping or juxtaposition of things especially words or sounds
- The tendency for words to occur regularly with others: sit/chair,
house/garage.
- The phenomenon of words/lexical items tending to co-occur in close
proximity to one another in spoken/written discourse (i.e. habitual or
greater-than-chance co-selection of words).
- The likelihood that a particular word will occur in the neighborhood of
another word.
- The action of setting in place, especially arranging in relation to others.
- Group of words associated together as an expression in the lexicon. Our
16

class has decided "in this particular case" is a collocation in McGowan's
idiolect.
- A collocation consists of two or more words that are commonly associated
in a particular language, such as „read about‟ or „white lies‟. A word may

take on a specific meaning when collocated with certain other words.
- Refers to how words occur together regularly and in a restricted way – e.g.
blonde hair, lean meat, etc.
Although there are different ways to define what collocation is, these definitions
share a common view that a collocation is a word or phrase used frequently in a
combination but it is not easy for learners to guess.
2.2. Types of collocations
There is general agreement in the literature on the division of collocates into lexical
or grammatical categories.
 Lexical collocations
Lexical collocation is defined by Lewis & Hill (1998) as having five main
categories: adjective/noun, verb/noun, noun/verb, adverb/adjective and verb/adverb.
Gitsaki (1996:23) is able to define 37 categories of collocation, eight of which could
be considered as lexical collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepts
the structural view of collocation). A lexical collocation is a type of construction
where a verb, noun, adjective or adverb forms a predictable connection with another
word, as in:
Adverb + Adjective: e.g. completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)
Adjective + Noun: e.g. excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)
Noun + Verb: e.g. lions roar (NOT lions shout)
Verb + Noun: e.g. commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)
 Grammatical collocations
17

A grammatical collocation is a type of construction where, for example, a verb or an
adjective must be followed by a particular preposition, or a noun must be followed
by a particular form of the verb, as in:
Verb + Preposition: e.g. depend on (NOT depend of)
Adjective + Preposition: e.g. afraid of (NOT afraid at)
Noun + Particular form of verb: e.g. strength to lift it (not strength lifting it)

By Michael Mc Carthy and Felicity O‟Dell (2005: 9-12), collocations are classified
as following;
- Adjectives and nouns
Some adjectives are typically used with particular nouns.
“Jean always wears red or yellow or some other bright colour.”
“We had a brief chat about the exams but didn't have time to discuss them
properly.”
- Nouns and verbs
Some nouns and verbs often go together. The following examples are all to do with
economics and business.
“The economy boomed in the 1990s.” [the economy was very strong]
“The company has grown and now employs 50 more people than last year.”
“The company has expanded and now has branches in most major cities.”
“The two companies merged in 2003 and now form one very large
corporation.”
“The company launched the product in 2002. [introduced the product]”
“The price increase poses a problem for us. [is a problem]”
“The Internet has created opportunities for our business, [brought new
opportunities]” Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Noun + noun
There are a lot of collocations with the pattern a of
“As Sam read the lies about him, he felt a surge of anger, [literary: a sudden
angry feeling]”
18

“Every parent feels a sense of pride when their child does well or wins
something.”
“I felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the old photos of the village where I
grew up.”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)

- Verbs and expressions with prepositions
Some verbs collocate with particular prepositional expressions.
“As Jack went on stage to receive his gold medal for the judo competition
you could see his parents swelling with pride, [looking extremely proud]”
“I was filled with horror when I read the newspaper report of the
explosion.”
“When she spilt juice on her new skirt the little girl burst into tears,
[suddenly started crying]”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Verbs and adverbs
Some verbs have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them.
“She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety, [pulled firmly and
evenly]”
“He placed the beautiful vase gently on the window ledge.”
„I love you and want to marry you,' Derek whispered softly to Marsha.
“She smiled proudly as she looked at the photos of her new grandson.”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Adverbs and adjectives
Adjectives often have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them.
“They are happily married.”
“I am fully aware that there are serious problems. [I know well]”
19

“Harry was blissfully unaware that he was in danger. [Harry had no idea at
all, often used about something unpleasant]”
Mc Carthy, M. & O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
2.3. Characteristics of collocations
Collocations can be described in a number of ways. The ways of thinking about
them can be in terms of “degree of fixedness” or “degree of predictability”.
Degree of fixedness

Degree of fixedness is the degree to which you can vary the basic pattern and still
have a collocation. We can only define the fixedness or unfixedness of collocations
in terms of a continuum. Some are more fixed than others but we can't make a neat
dividing line between "fixed" and "unfixed".
- A very fixed collocation is one in which the pattern has very few expected
variations. So, for example, the phrase "kick the bucket" is an idiom, a relatively
fixed collocation meaning "to die". While we could substitute nouns and verbs in
this sentence and get other meaningful sentences (e.g. "kick the door", "lift the
bucket"), the word combinations in these other sentences are no longer cohesive
patterns in the way that "kick the bucket" is. Like "kick the bucket", most
collocations which are very fixed form a particular expected meaning rather than a
structure.
- A less fixed collocation is often a more structural - common pattern that helps
structure a sentence but don't carry as much specific meaning by itself. For
example, this is a commonly used structural pattern into which you can insert a
variety of words and still have commonly used patterns:
 Let's move on to the next point.
 Let's go back to the last chapter.
 Let's move away from this paragraph
 Let's look at tomorrow's homework.
 Let's go on to the main point.
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Another example is “take a photo”, where no word other than take collocates with
photo to give the same meaning. Some collocations are more open, where several
different words may be used to give a similar meaning, for example, “keep to/stick
to the rules.”
On the other hand, there are some less fixed collocations which are not as clearly
structural. Words that are commonly used with other words are examples of less
fixed collocations which are not as structural in nature. So for example, we use

"bus" and "car" with only certain sets of other words:
We say "get on a bus"/"climb on a bus" but usually not "enter a bus" or "get in a
bus". However, we say "get in a car".
We say "take the bus"/"ride the bus"/"go there on the bus" but usually not "We can
drive there on the bus". However we say "We can drive there in her car."
Degree of predictability
According to J. R. Firth, collocation can be classified as strong or weak due to the
degree of predictability in their association. If we look deeper into collocations, we
find that not only do the words "go together" but there is a degree of predictability
in their association. Generally, in any collocation, one word will "call up" another
word in the mind of a native speaker. In other words, if one word appears, we can
predict the other word, with varying degrees of success. This predictability is not
perfectly understandable, but it is always much higher than with non-collocates.
The predictability may be strong: for example "auspicious" collocates with very few
words, as in: auspicious occasion, auspicious moment, and auspicious event. Or the
predictability may be weak: for example, "circuit" collocates with a lot of words, as
in: racing circuit, lecture circuit, talk-show circuit, short circuit, closed circuit…
2.4. Collocations, free compounds, and idioms
In order to determine learners‟ difficulties with collocations, it is necessary to
delimitate collocations from other types of word combination. In his book, a
practical guide to lexicography, Piet Van Sterkenburg assumed that if the user
wants to look up a multiple-word item and his general- purpose dictionary does not