a study on the collocations of lexical verb do with vietnamese equivalents = nghiên cứu các kết hợp từ của động từ do và tương dương trong tiếng việt

1
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************



ĐỖ THỊ NGỌC LAN

A STUDY ON THE COLLOCATIONS OF LEXICAL
VERB „DO‟ WITH VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(Nghiên cứu các kết hợp từ của động từ „do‟ và
tương đương trong tiếng Việt)


M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2010

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

INTRODUCTION 1

1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methods of the study 3
5. Design of the study 3

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS AND
LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. English collocation 5
1.1.1. The origin of the word „collocation‟ 5
1.1.2. Definitions of collocation 5
1.1.3. The distinction between free compounds, idioms and collocations 6
1.1.4. Classification of collocation 8
1.1.4.1. In terms of frequent use 8
1.1.4.2. In terms of structure 8
1.1.4.3. In terms of strength 10

iv
1.1.5. Characteristics of collocation 10
1.1.5.1. Collocations are arbitrary 10
1.1.5.2. Collocations are language-specific 11
1.1.5.3. Collocations are not necessarily adjacent 12
1.2. Theory of verbs 13
1.2.1. Definition 13
1.2.2. Classification 13
1.2.2.1. Auxiliary verbs 14
1.2.2.2. Semi-auxiliary verbs 15
1.2.2.3. Lexical verbs (full verbs) 15
1.2.3. The verb „Do‟ in English 15
1.2.3.1. The auxiliary „do‟ 15

1.2.3.2. The lexical „do‟ 16
1.3. Review of some previous studies of collocations 17

CHAPTER 2: COLLOCATIONS OF LEXICAL VERB “DO” WITH
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 20
2.1. Collocations of lexical verb „do‟ with Vietnamese equivalents 20
2.1.1. Form 21
2.1.2. Meanings 22
2.1.2.1. 'Do' for general ideas 22
2.1.2.2. 'Do' for –ing activities 23
2.1.2.3. „Do‟ for „an activity or a task‟ 24

v
2.1.2.4. „Do‟ for „business‟ 27
2.1.2.5. „Do‟ for „sport‟ 27
2.1.2.6. „Do‟ for „subjects of study‟ 29
2.1.2.7. „Do‟ in other cases 29
2.2. Summary 31

CONCLUSION 33
1. Recapitulation 33
2. Limitations of the study 33
3. Suggestions for further studies 34

REFERENCES 35

SOURCES OF DATA 38

1
PART I
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Vocabulary in general plays an important role in any language as we cannot communicate
without words. British linguist Wilkins (1972:111) once stated “without vocabulary nothing
can be conveyed”. There is a common assumption that the more words a learner knows, the
larger the learner‟s vocabulary knowledge is. However, words are not used alone and
separately but go with each other and depend on each other. Words are combined into phrases.
There are free phrases and fixed phrases. The latter often confuse learners because there are
not any fixed rules for all the combinations. English-as-a-second-language learners often have
difficulties treating fixed phrases in their learning process. That is why many learners cannot
communicate fluently although they know a lot of words. Therefore, the possible
combinations of words or collocations have to be taken into consideration.
Although collocation has become the subject of a linguistic study only recently, it arouses a
growing interest in numerous linguists and is defined in various ways. Accordingly, there is no
exhaustive and uniform definition or categorization of collocation. Therefore, it tends to be
one of the most problematic and important area of vocabulary, especially for second language
learners. Hill (1999:5) goes so far as to suggest: “We are familiar with the concept of
communicative competence, but perhaps we should add the concept of collocational
competence to our thinking”. He also claims that non-native speakers have problems “not
because of faulty grammar but a lack of collocations”. Along with Hill, McCarthy (1990:12)

claims that “collocation deserves to be a central aspect of vocabulary study.” These pieces of
evidence done can show the great importance of collocation in acquisition of a language. The
author would like to investigate the possibility of combining words into fixed expressions.
As mentioned above, phrases are formed by words together. Words in English are classified
into different classes in which verbs have always been one of the most complex classes of
words because verb, or rather, phrasal verb is the central to the structure of the sentence.

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According to Palmer (1965:1), “learning a language is, to a very large degree, how to operate
the verbal forms, the pattern and the structure of the verb in that language”. There is a question
which need to be answer is that how verbs collocate with other classes of word. A verb can
collocate with a noun, a preposition, an adjective or even another verb. Verb phrases are then
created. Investigating the combinations of verbs must be necessary for improving the students‟
knowledge and lessening their difficulties.
As can be seen from the discussion above, collocation is a big area in linguistics. Due to the
constraints of time, the focus of this study is only on the collocations with the lexical verb
„do‟, a rather special and complex verb in English. Since the research is carried out against the
Vietnamese backgrounds, the corresponding Vietnamese equivalents are also provided. The
research is so entitled “A study on collocations of lexical verb „do‟ with Vietnamese
equivalents”.
2. Aims of the study
This study aims at investigating the collocations the lexical verb „do‟ in English. This study is
carried out to serve three major purposes:
- To give an overview of the concept of collocation with its main features,
properties and classification.
- To conduct an investigation into the collocations of lexical verb „do‟
- To give Vietnamese equivalents of collocations of „do‟.
In order to get the above-aims, the following questions need to be addressed:
1. What are the meanings of „do‟ in a number of English collocations?
2. What are the Vietnamese equivalents of collocations with lexical verb „do‟ in

corresponding contexts?
3. Scope of the study
This study is confined to the investigation into a very small aspect of vocabulary issue - the
collocations of the lexical verb „do‟ in English. The lexical „do‟ is chosen because „do‟ as an

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auxiliary verb is limited in use for performing negative and interrogative sentences, or
avoiding repetition or having emphasis function. Meanwhile „do‟ as lexical verb has a number
of meanings when it collocate with other classes of word. In other words, the lexical „do‟ can
be in different collocations with different meanings. „Do‟ as a lexical verb can collocate with a
noun, a preposition, an adjective or an adverb, etc. Within the framework of an M.A. minor
programme thesis, the author has no ambition to cover all the kinds of collocation with the
lexical verb „do‟, but only „do + noun‟ collocations, based on the common assumption that this
is the most frequent collocation of „do‟ and other kinds are less frequent in use and more often
found in dictionaries. Vietnamese equivalents of collocations of „do‟ will be later discussed
through analyzing English – Vietnamese examples in different contexts.
4. Methods of the study
In order to obtain the above-said aims, the study is carried out basically through the
descriptive and qualitative methods. The descriptive method is employed to give in depth and
detailed description of collocations of lexical verb „do‟ in English. The work starts with a
review of existing study results on collocations to provide a better understanding of the topic.
Then different meanings of collocations of lexical verb „do‟ are described, and then examples
are provided to illustrate the description. The qualitative method is used in collecting data.
Collocations with the lexical verb „do‟ will be collected from different sources such as stories,
books, magazines, journals, etc… then analyzed systematically to generalize the uses of these
collocations. In addition, a comparative and contrastive view is used to compare and contrast
collocations of „do‟ and their equivalents in Vietnamese. The method is, overall, both
deductive and inductive.
5. Design of the study
This study is composed of three main parts:

The first part, Introduction, states reasons for choosing the topic, the aims of the study with
the detailed methodology to gain these aims, the scope of the study and the organization of the
study.

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The second part, Development, includes two chapters:
Chapter 1: features the review of related literature and the theoretical backgrounds for
the study, in which the collocation and the theory of verbs will be discussed. The verb
„do‟ will be also identified in terms of grammatical characteristics in structures related
to „do‟.
Chapter 2: presents and describes concrete cases of collocations with the lexical verb
„do‟ with their Vietnamese equivalents in corresponding contexts.
The third part is the Conclusion summarizing the main ideas discussed in the previous parts,
showing the limitations of the study and providing the suggestions for further studies.

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PART II
CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS AND LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. English collocation
1.1.1. The origin of the word „collocation‟
The term „collocation‟ was first introduced by Firth (1957), a British linguist. He was the first
person to look lexis at its syntagmatic, left-to-right unfolding of language. According to Firth
(1957), the collocation is defined as a combination of words associated with each other, for
example to take a photo, to do homework, to play football The term „collocation‟ has it
origin in the Latin verb „collocate‟ which means „to set in order/to arrange‟.
1.1.2. Definitions of collocation
There are various definitions of collocation. It will be noted that forming a precise definition is
difficult because different linguists have different and conflicting definitions as what Bahns
(1993:57) says: “Regrettably, collocation is a term which is used and understood in many
different ways”. Most of the researchers who define collocation agree that it is a lexical unit
consisting of a cluster of two or three words. Firth is widely regarded as the father of this term
and we can see that most of the definitions are paraphrases of Firth‟s (1957:183) definition
that collocations are “words in habitual company”. This is a quite general definition.
Collocation, then, refers to expressions in which individual words habitually go together. In
the case of verb, for instance, the verb make goes with some words and the verb do with other
words:
We made an agreement. (NOT did an agreement)
I did my homework. (NOT made my homework)
The definition of collocation will be made clearer by his followers - Sinclair (1966) and
Halliday (1966). For Halliday, collocations are examples of word combinations; he maintains

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that collocation cuts across grammar boundaries. Sinclair (1966) introduces the following
terminology: an item whose collocations are studies is called a „node‟; the number of relevant
lexical items on each side of a node is defined as a „span‟ and those items which are found
within the span are called „collocates‟.
We can also find the definition of collocation in any dictionary. In the Oxford advanced
learner‟s dictionary of current English (1995:A4), Hornby gives examples of the words „thick‟
and „dense‟. We can talk about both „thick fog‟ and „dense fog‟. The meaning is the same. But
we do not talk about a person having *‟dense hair‟. This combination just does not sound
right, even through it would easily be understood. „Dense‟ do not collocate with „hair‟. We can
only talk about somebody having thick hair. For him, collocation is the regular combination of
words.
Runcie (2002:vii) gives general definitions of collocation that collocation is the way words
combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. Benson, Benson &
Ilson (1986b:ix) understand and use this term:
“In English, as in other languages, there are many fixed, identifiable, non-idiomatic
phrases and constructions. Such groups of words are called recurrent combinations,
fixed combinations, or collocations. Collocations fall into two groups: grammatical
collocations and lexical collocations”.
Thus, for him, collocation is defined as specified, identifiable, non-idiomatic, recurrent
combinations. Two kinds of collocations: grammatical and lexical ones will be analyzed in the
near following part. This definition is clearer with some properties and types of collocation.
1.1.3. The distinction between free compounds, idioms and collocations
To attain a clearer understanding of collocations, it is helpful to try to distinguish them from
idioms on the one hand and from free combinations on the other. Apparently, collocations,
free compounds and idioms share one important feature in their form, that is to say they all
refer to combinations of words that go together very often. However, the case is that they
differ from each other in both meaning and form.

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In terms of form, McCarthy (1990:14) claims that collocational items can be separated by
several words while words of a compound are always syntactically bound to one another. Such
is the case, for example, in make a decision. We could separate make and decision with some
words:
He made an extremely important decision.
On the contrary, as for compounds, we could never make any manipulation to change its word
order as in workshop. Workshop could not be separated by a word of any kind. We can see that
compounds function as a single unit while collocations remain a combination of words even if
these words go together with very high frequency. The collocational relationship, according to
McCarthy, could appear in a variety of syntactic realizations as shown in the following
examples:
They reject my appeal.
The rejection of his appeal was a great shock.
Looking at idioms, Bolinger (1975:53) argues that some idioms are virtually unchangeable;
others follow a limited amount of manipulation. McArthur (1992:232) agrees with Bolinger
when he makes the point that idioms are often fixed in form. It can rain cats and dogs but
never *dogs and cats. According to them, collocations are looser groupings than idioms.
Collocational items can be contiguous as with head and ache in headache or proximate to
each other as with cat and purr in „The cat was purring‟.
In terms of meaning, Benson, Benson & Ilson (1986a:252-53) use combinations with the noun
murder to illustrate the main distinguishing features of the three categories. The least cohesive
type of word combination are the so-called free combinations. The noun murder, for example,
can be used with many verbs (to analyze, boast of, condemn, discuss, (etc.) a murder), and
these verbs, in turn, combine freely with other nouns. Idioms, on the other hand, are relatively
frozen expressions whose meanings do not reflect the meanings of their component parts. An
example containing the noun murder would be to scream blue murder („to complain very
loudly‟). Between idioms and free combinations are loosely fixed combinations (or
collocations) of the type to commit murder. The main characteristics of collocations are that

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their meanings reflect the meaning of their constituent parts (in contrast to idioms) and that
they are used frequently, spring to mind readily, and are psychologically salient (in contrast to
free combinations). There are, however, „transitional areas‟ (Cruse, 1986:41) between free
combinations/collocations and collocations/idioms.
1.1.4. Classification of collocation
There are many different ways to classify the collocation. The classification in terms of
frequent use, of structure and of strength is described as follows:
1.1.4.1. In terms of frequent use
Sinclair (1991) divides collocation into two categories: the „upward‟ and „downward‟
collocations. The first group consists of words more frequently used in English than they are
themselves, e.g. back collocates with at, down, from, into, on, all of which habitually collocate
with words that are less frequent than they are, e.g. words arrive, bring are less frequently
occurring collocates of back. Sinclair makes a sharp distinction between those two categories
claiming that the elements of the „upward‟ collocation (mostly prepositions, adverbs,
conjunctions, pronouns) tend to form grammatical frames while the elements of the
„downward‟ collocation (mostly nouns and verbs) by contrast give a semantic analysis of a
word. These two terms are called respectively significant and casual collocations.
1.1.4.2. In terms of structure
Benson, Benson & Ilson (1977) divide collocations into two groups: grammatical and lexical
collocations. The first category consists of the main word (a noun, an adjective, a verb) plus a
preposition or „to-infinitive‟ or „that-clause‟ and is characterized by eight basic types of
collocations:
G1 = noun + preposition
e.g. blockade against, apathy towards
G2 = noun + to-infinitive
e.g. He was a fool to do it; They felt a need to do it.
G3 = noun + that-clause

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e.g. We reached an agreement that she would represent us in court; He took an
oath that he would do his duty.
G4 = preposition + noun
e.g. by accident, in agony
G5 = adjective + preposition
e.g. fond of children, hungry of news
G6 = adjective + to-infinitive
e.g. It was necessary to work; It‟s nice to be here.
G7 = adjective + that-clause
e.g. She was afraid that she would fail, It was imperative that I be here.
G8 = 19 different verb patterns in English
e.g. verb + to-infinitive (they began to speak), verb + bare infinitive (we must
work) and other.
Lexical collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives or relative clauses but consist of
nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. This group is of seven types as follows:
L1 = verb (which means creation/action) + noun/pronoun/prepositional phrase
e.g. come to an agreement, launch a missile
L2 = verb (which means eradication/cancellation) + noun
e.g. reject an appeal, crush resistance
L3 = [adjective + noun] or [noun used in an attributive way + noun]
e.g. strong tea, a crushing defeat, house arrest, land reform
L4 = noun + verb naming the activity which is performed by a designate of this noun
e.g. bombs explode, bees sting
L5 = quantifier + noun
e.g. a swarm of bees, a piece of advice
L6 = adverb + adjective
e.g. hopelessly addicted, sound asleep
L7 = verb + adverb

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e.g. argue heatedly, apologize humbly.
1.1.4.3. In terms of strength
In terms of strength of collocation, it is worth noting that it is not reciprocal, which means that
the strength between the words is not equal on both sides, e.g. blonde and hair. Blonde
collocates only with a limited number of words describing hair colour whereas hair collocates
with many words, e.g. brown, long, short, and mousy. It happens very often that the bond
between the words in unilateral, e.g. in the phrase vested interest, vested only ever collocates
with interest but interest collocates with many other words.
According to Lewis (2000), there are very few „strong‟ collocations and he makes a distinction
between „strong‟ collocation e.g. avid reader, budding author; „common‟ collocation which
makes up numerous word combinations, e.g. fast car, have dinner, a bit tired and „medium
strong‟ one, which in his view account for the largest part of the lexis a language learner
needs, e.g. magnificent house, significantly different. Sharing the view with Lewis, Hill (1999)
adds one more category – „unique‟ collocation. In his article, Hill (1999:25) divides
collocations into four kinds: unique collocations; strong collocations; weak collocations and
medium-strength ones. To foot the bill, shrug one‟s shoulders are the examples of the unique
collocations. These are unique because foot (as a verb) and shrug are not used with any other
nouns.
1.1.5. Characteristics of collocation
In discussion of the nature of collocation, the author bases on her knowledge with reference to
the linguists‟ works to generalize what characteristics collocation has in common. Generally,
collocation has three major features as follows.
1.1.5.1. Collocations are arbitrary
A question often raised by speakers of English as a foreign language is what underlies native
speakers‟ choice of words or why they choose one word among a list of possibilities to
combine with another so often that they become collocation. Lewis (1997) points out that
collocation is not determined by logic or frequency but is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic

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convention. In the first characteristic, words are not often combined with each other at

random. Collocation cannot be invented by a second language user. A native speaker uses
them instinctively.
According to Gairns & Redman (1986:37), a statement on collocation is never absolute. As
they maintain, lexical items may co-occur simply because the combination reflects a common
real world state of affairs. Such is the case, for instance, pass and salt which collocate since
people want others to pass them the salt. However, they added, there may exist in collocation
an element of linguistic convention or native speakers‟ habitual preferences in their choice of
words among a number of possibilities. It is because lexical collocations bear linguistic
convention that joining together semantically compatible parts does not always produce a
typical collocation. A native English speaker, for example, would say „the lion roared‟ rather
than bellowed.
Sharing the point of view with Gairns & Redman, McCarthy (1990:14) states that knowledge
of collocation is “a question of typicality”. The notion of typicality is important, for without it
we could not recognize untypical collocations, which are part of the creativity and the
imaginative dimension we find in literature.
Definitely, there is no rule of collocation and it is difficult to group items by their collocational
properties. Thus, they are best dealt with isolation as they arise or depending on notion of
typicality to decide what acceptable and unacceptable collocations are.
1.1.5.2. Collocations are language-specific
As discussed earlier, the thing mat matters is that the way words are chosen to combine
together is conventional and lexical collocations in English bear their own linguistic
convention. Larson (1984:141) describes that English, like other languages, interprets the
physical worlds in its own way and has it own convention; therefore, it governs different
collocability of words. Therefore, learners have difficulties when acquiring knowledge of
collocational appropriacy “in cases where collocability is language-specific and does not seem
solely determined by universal semantic constraints” (McCarthy, 1990:13). English
collocations are therefore specific to the English language itself. The fact is that what is

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perfectly acceptable collocation in one language may be unacceptable in another. Take the

case of the verb làm in Vietnamese as an example. Vietnamese speakers say làm bánh and làm
bài tập with the same verb làm but their equivalent meanings in English are make a cake and
do the homework by using two different verbs do and make. Then, phrases such as *do a cake
and *make the homework is unacceptable. Also, instead of saying ride bicycle, Vietnamese
learners sometimes says *go bicycle because đi xe đạp is totally correct in Vietnamese.
In brief, an acceptable collocation is not always made by joining semantically compatible
parts. The ability of a word to combine with another is restricted by linguistic convention
specific to the English language itself which is highly unlikely to totally overlap with any
other languages.
1.1.5.3. Collocations are not necessarily adjacent
According to McCarthy (1990:14), collocations can be contiguous or proximate, not
necessarily adjacent. He presents that the collocational relationship still applies, even though
several words may separate the collocating items. The following extracts from a newspaper
report concerning a planning application for a new shopping centre who collocation at work
over clause-boundaries:
“The study of planning appeals for similar centres in the past, most of which were
rejected, suggests that the furniture is more hopeful for developers… Now that the
Secretary of State for the Environment has said that applications should be approved
unless there are good reasons against them, many more should succeed.”
The collocational relationship between reject and appeal; application, approve and succeed,
as he argues, is strong, despite the intervening words. The relationship could appear in a
variety of syntactic realizations:
1. They rejected my appeal.
The rejection of his appeal was a great shock.
2. My application succeeded.
She made a successful application.

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Getting our application approved took ages.
You have to submit your application for approval.

Consequently, this causes difficulty to non-native speakers of English in recognizing
collocational patterns when reading or listening.
1.2. Theory of verbs
1.2.1 Definition
In most languages, verbs are part of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence.
According to Richards et al. (1992:398), a word is a verb when it satisfies these following
criteria:
a) Occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence;
b) Caries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person,
number, and mood; and
c) Refers to an action or state.
For general definition, words that express the idea of an action or being that affirm that a
person, or a thing is, does, suffers something… are called verbs. Verb is the most important
part of the speech in the great majority of the sentences.
1.2.2. Classification
There are different ways to classify verbs. The precise classification of the verbs depends on
the total analysis. In this thesis, the classification of which verbs are divided into auxiliary and
lexical verbs shall be applied, which would be convenient to understand and distinguish „do‟
as both auxiliary and lexical verb.
According to Quirk et al. (1972:69) and Biber et al. (1999:358), there are three major classes
of verbs: auxiliary verbs, semi – auxiliary verbs, and lexical verbs (also called full verbs or
main verbs), which are shown in the diagram below:

14


These classes are distinguished by their roles as main verbs and auxiliary verbs.
1.2.2.1. Auxiliary verbs
Auxiliary verbs may be defined, as their name indicates, as “helping verbs” since they have no
independent existence as verb phrases but only help to make up verb phrases. They must

compulsorily be followed by a lexical verb and are structurally necessary for certain
constructions, especially negatives and questions. Auxiliary verbs are a small class of verbs,

15
made up of primary auxiliaries like do, have and be and modal auxiliaries (or modals) like
can, may, must, etc
E.g. I don‟t know what you mean.
Do you like football?
1.2.2.2. Semi-auxiliary verbs
Semi-auxiliary verbs are those that combine with other verbal forms with regular rules of co-
occurrence.
E.g. They have to go outside to eat.
1.2.2.3. Lexical verbs (full verbs)
Lexical verb is a verb that denotes an action or state. One verb is considered a lexical one if it
has five forms which will be detailed in the next part. Lexical verbs comprise an open class of
words that function only as main verbs. Consider the following sentences:
Tim‟s mother met his teacher at school.
What did Miss Jackson give Tim‟s mother?
He didn‟t improve his Spanish grammar.
The verbs meet, give and improve in these sentences are called lexical verbs or full verbs.
1.2.3. The verb „do‟ in English
„Do‟, like „have‟ and „be‟, can be used both as an auxiliary verb and a lexical verb. It is the
most neutral of all the auxiliaries. It has no individual meaning but serves as an operator for
the formation of the interrogative and the negative of the present simple and past simple tenses
and also for emphasis or to convey a coherent style.
There is also a lexical verb „do‟ which has the full range of forms including the present
participle doing and the past participle done.
1.2.3.1. The auxiliary „do‟
As an auxiliary verb, „do‟ is the most neutral or “auxiliary like” of all the auxiliaries and has
the following forms:

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Form
Non-negative
Full negative
Contracted negative
Present
do / does
do not / does not
don‟t / doesn‟t
Past
did
did not
didn‟t
(Quirk R. et al., 1972: 77)
The auxiliary „do‟ is used to avoid repetition of a previous ordinary verb (pro-form), to form
negative and interrogative sentences.
E.g.: He sings better than you do. (He sings better than you sing)
Many people like a cup of coffee after they get up in the morning. My
father does.
(It means “My father likes a cup of coffee after he gets up too”).
He doesn‟t answer when we call.
Do you smoke? – Yes, I do (or No, I don‟t).
„Do‟ also has the function of emphasis where the verb is simple present, simple past or
imperative.
E.g.: He does not come even though he has promised.
You do look nice today!
Do sit down! He did say he would be here at six.
Do have another cup of tea.

1.2.3.2. The lexical „do‟
As other lexical verbs, „do‟ has five forms as follows:
Form

Symbol
Base
form
-s form
Past
form
-ing
particip
le
-ed
partici
ple
examples
V

do








I do housework everyday.

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V-s

V-ed1

V-ing

V-ed2
does


did




doing






done
She often does morning
exercises.
They did all their homework.

We are doing our

homework.
I have done all my
homework.
Lexical verb „do‟ can be used to perform an activity or task.
E.g.: At the weekend, I stay at home and I did a lot of work around the house. I took down
the curtain, washed them and cleaned the windows.
You have to do all the homework the teacher assigned.
What are you doing? – I am learning English.
In most cases, „do‟ is used in fixed expressions and idioms. The later part will discuss about
the uses of lexical verb „do‟ in fixed expressions when it collocates with a noun/noun phrase.
1.3. Review of some previous studies of collocations
In deed, the term „collocation‟ is known very early, along with the language itself. At the
beginning, this issue has been neglected in teaching and learning vocabulary for English
foreign language students. The vocabulary was being learnt and taught only with the words in
isolation. However, with the development of society and that of pedagogical methodology as
well as with the learners‟ needs, there have been several studies of English collocations in the
field of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teaching. There are many linguists deal with the
notion of collocations and its importance in vocabulary acquisition and teaching process such
as Firth (1957), Gairns & Redman (1986), Halliday (1966), Sinclair (1966), McCarthy (1990),
Hill (1999)…. Studying collocations is an interesting topic, touching on the key issue of what
students really need to learn. Clearly, any student who wishes to communicate like native-
speakers will have to come to terms with the challenge of collocation. However, as you hint,

18
English as an international language may well be a somewhat simplified version of the native
varieties. Whether students actually use the collocations may be less important than their need
to understand them. Even if native-speaker proficiency is not desired, students will meet many
collocations in reading passages and when listening to English on television, radio and film,
even song.
Recently, the issue of collocation has been highly estimated. In the book “English collocations

in use”, McCarthy & O‟Dell (2005) gave simple definitions of collocation with examples as
well as exercises for learners to practice. This book had been also given with collocations in
several topics of daily conversation. Collocations of everyday verbs were introduced into table
which listed their collocations with example and also some tips to remember them, some
exercise to practice are then followed. Bahns & Eldaw (1993), in the article “Should we teach
EFL students collocations”, highlighted the importance of collocation. In their research,
German advanced EFL students' productive knowledge of English collocations consisting of a
verb and a noun were investigated in a translation task and a close task. Results suggested that
EFL students should concentrate on collocations that cannot readily be paraphrased. In his
own article, Bahns (1993) also raised the neglected aspect of vocabulary and the teaching of
lexical collocations in EFL should concentrate on items for which there is no direct
translational equivalence in English. Similarly, Farghal & Obiedat (1995) addressed the issue
of collocations as an important and neglected variable in EFL classes. Two questionnaires, in
English and Arabic, involving common collocations relating to food, color, and weather were
administered to English majors and English language teachers. Results showed both groups
deficient in collocations.
As students of other languages, Vietnamese students also meet difficulties when acquiring
English collocations. In a conference at the University of Western Sydney, Trinh (1995)
mentioned to collocation, in particular English collocation, particularly those for whom
English is their second and weaker language. The results showed that there were very few
syntactic errors, and that the examiners probably have treated syntactic and grammatical errors
as one area of error only. The author also realized that the errors being made were a result of
the candidates' lack of knowledge of English collocations, whether they are grammatical or

19
lexical. Moreover, in the frame of M.A. thesis at Vietnam National University, Hanoi –
University of Languages and International Studies, there are also studies of collocations.
Works by Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005), Lê Thanh Hà (2007) and Đào Thị Ngọc Nguyên
(2007) are some of typical examples. They are all interested in the collocation issue. They
investigated the collocation‟s definition, classification and the students‟s knowledge about

collocations. Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005) analyzed the collocations of one English textbook
on Electronics and Telecommunications. In her works, various types of collocations with
different frequency of use and their characteristics are found out. A test is followed in order to
obtain information about students‟ knowledge of collocation. Likewise, the common errors
and the causes for these errors are also drawn from the test result analysis. Lê Thanh Hà
(2007) carried out the lexical collocations and implications for the translators of English-
Vietnamese when meeting with lexical collocations. More concretely, Đào Thị Ngọc Nguyên
(2007) investigated collocations of only two adjectives (hard, happy) in English. The major
findings of this research are various distinguished senses of hard and happy in different
collocations and the students‟ restricted collocational competence on the two adjectives in
particular and on English lexemes in general. In deed, they are all great useful referential
works for researchers, teachers and students who are going to investigate the issue of
collocation in English.
However, a detailed investigation into the collocations of lexical verb „do‟ has not been taken
There has neither been any works that gave the insights to the comparison between English
collocations and Vietnamese ones. In the frame of an M.A. thesis, the author would like to
contribute a very minor investigation focusing on the collocation “Verb + noun” (lexical
collocation) with the verb “do” in order to facilitate students when dealing with these
combinations of words. Also, the Vietnamese equivalents are given to compare and contrast.




20
CHAPTER 2
COLLOCATIONS OF LEXICAL VERB “DO” WITH
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
2.1. Collocations of lexical verb „do‟ with Vietnamese equivalents
„Do‟ is a very common verb in English. It is taught at very early stage for those who learn
English such as “How do you do? What do you do? How are you doing?” For people who

are learning English as a foreign language, or even who speak it moderately well, the lexical
verb „do‟ presents difficulties when it comes to many collocations. Many of the expressions
are fixed expressions such as: do homework, do business, do someone a favour, do the
shopping… However, „do‟ do not combine with noun phrases such as a change, a choice, a
decision, , a feeling, the commitment… So they are supposed to be faced with the challenge of
using the right word combination for the lexical verb „do‟. In fact, the learners always make
doubts and errors when using this verb, mostly the low-level students, students at high schools
for example. It is common understood that lexical „do‟ is used in the sense of doing the
activity, but this verb is used irreplaceably in combination with particular actions which does
not follow any other action verbs. This part is an attempt to clear up the correct usage and
meaning of collocations of lexical „do‟ and to give you more of an idea about them.
In addition, the author has intention to present the Vietnamese equivalents of collocations of
lexical verb „do‟, specially to answer the question “How „do‟ is expressed in Vietnamese?”
Therefore, some relevant examples which are extracted from different materials are given to
illustrate the meaning of „do‟ and its collocations in Vietnamese. The researchers has no
ambition to cover the translation matter in these examples, so the translation into Vietnamese
is used only to illustrate the equivalent meanings of lexical verb „do‟. Any limitations of
translation skill will be not mentioned here.
This part will begin first with the form of „do + noun‟ collocations, then their meanings in
different contexts. All the examples are given both in English and Vietnamese equivalent in
order to make a comparative and contrastive view.

21
The lexical verb „do‟ is hereby called shortly by „do‟.
2.1.1. Form
Only the type of verb + noun phrase will be carried out, then the form is of lexical verb „do‟
followed by a noun phrase. Therefore, this type of collocations is formed by the following
structure:
„Do‟ + noun phrase
Examples:

(i) Please let me know if there is something I can do for you.
Nếu tôi có thể giúp được gì thì cứ nói nhé.
[4: 23]
(ii) Well, we can still do some window shopping, can‟t we?
Này, mình vẫn có thể đi ngắm hàng cơ mà, đúng không?
[4: 166]
(iii) I like the way you do your hair.
Tôi thích kiểu làm đầu của bà.
[18: 165]
(iv) They are doing one Shakespeare‟s play next month.
Tháng tới họ sắp diễn một vở kịch của Shakespeare.
[18: 145]
(v) The doctor did the usual things, which proved his first opinion.
Bác sĩ làm những việc thường lệ, và những việc này chứng tỏ ý kiến đầu tiên
của ông.
[15: 138]
(vi) I‟m still doing research for my thesis.
Tôi vẫn còn đang nghiên cứu để làm luận văn.
[17: no page]