Sử dụng CAP (quá trình áp dụng cụm từ kết hợp) để phát triển việc sử dụng cụm từ kết hợp trong các bài viết của 1 nhóm sinh viên năm thứ 2 hệ đào tạo chuẩn

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




NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG


UTILIZING THE CAP (COLLOCATION-APPLYING PROCESS) TO
IMPROVE A GROUP OF SECOND-YEAR MAINSTREAM
STUDENTS’ USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN THEIR WRITINGS

SỬ DỤNG CAP (QUÁ TRÌNH ÁP DỤNG CỤM TỪ KẾT HỢP) ĐỂ
PHÁT TRIỂN VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CỤM TỪ KẾT HỢP TRONG CÁC BÀI
VIẾT CỦA 1 NHÓM SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 HỆ ĐÀO TẠO CHUẨN


M.A. Combined Program Thesis


Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2013

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



NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG


UTILIZING THE CAP (COLLOCATION-APPLYING PROCESS) TO
IMPROVE A GROUP OF SECOND-YEAR MAINSTREAM
STUDENTS’ USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN THEIR WRITINGS

SỬ DỤNG CAP (QUÁ TRÌNH ÁP DỤNG CỤM TỪ KẾT HỢP) ĐỂ
PHÁT TRIỂN VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CỤM TỪ KẾT HỢP TRONG CÁC BÀI
VIẾT CỦA 1 NHÓM SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 HỆ ĐÀO TẠO CHUẨN


M.A. Combined Program Thesis

Field : English Language Teaching Methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor : Ms. Đinh Hải Yến (M.A.)

Hanoi - 2013
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1
2. Research aims and research questions 3
3. Scope of the study 3
4. Methods of the study 4
5. Significance of the study 4
4. Organization of the study 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
1.1. Collocation(s) 6
1.1.1. Definitions of collocation(s) 6
1.1.2. Characteristics of collocations 9
1.1.3. Types of collocations 10

1.1.4. Causes of collocational errors 16
1.1.5. The importance of learning collocations 18
1.1.6. Consideration when teaching collocations 21
1.2. Language awareness 28
1.2.1. What is awareness? 28
1.2.2. What is language awareness? 29
1.2.3. Levels of language awareness 30
v

1.2.4. The role of language awareness 30
1.2.5. How to increase students‟ language awareness in teaching writing 31
1.3. The CAR Process by Ying and Hendricks (2002) 33
1.4. Related studies 35

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 37
2.1. Rationale for action research design 37
2.1.1. Defintion of action research 37
2.1.2. The action research process 38
2.1.3. The reasons for choosing action research for this study 41
2.2. Participants 41
2.2.1. Background information about the participants 41
2.2.2. Sampling methods 30
2.3. Research design 44
2.3.1. The CAR Process in this study 44
2.3.2. Research design 46
2.4. Data collection instruments 50
2.4.1. Tests 50
2.4.2. Questionnaire 51
2.4.3. Interviews 52
2.5. Data collection procedures 53

2.6. Data analysis 54

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 56
3.1. Results 56
3.1.1. Research question 1 56
3.1.2. Research question 2 70
3.2. Recommendations 75

PART C: CONCLUSION 77
1. Conclusion 77
2. Contributions of the study 78
vi

3. Limitations of the study 79
4. Recommendations for further studies 80

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………… 81
APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………………… I

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: A summary of the participants‟ demographic features
Table 2: A summary of the interviewees‟ profile
Table 3: The CAR Process in this study and its differences from Ying and
Hendricks‟ model

Table 4: Research design
Table 5: Results of the pre-test (production test) – first versions
Table 6: Results of the pre-test (production test) – second versions
Table 7: Pre-test results: Recognition test
Table 8: Post-test results: Recognition test
Table 9: Results of the post-test (production test) – first drafts
Table 10: Results of the post-test (production test) – second versions
Table 11: Results of part A of the questionnaire
Table 12: Difficulties related to knowledge of collocation perceived by
participants
Table 13: Difficulties related to collocation awareness perceived by
participants
Table 14: Difficulties with collocation-related skills perceived by participants












viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Ferrance’s action research process (2000)

Figure 2: Kemmis‟ action research process (1988)
Figure 3: McNiff and Whitehead‟s action research process (2006)
Figure 4: Action research in phases of teaching by Stringer et al. (2010)























ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language
























1

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Writing is deemed to be difficult because it involves employing a variety
of skills from generating ideas, being grammatically correct to using
appropriate language to express opinions in the process of writing (Ross, 1968,
p. 253). Students do not seem to have difficulty forming a central idea and
using correct grammar. What is challenging to them is how to use the target
language appropriately to convey a message precisely and add more meaning
to what they express. It is difficult to solve this problem, especially for low-
level students, despite teachers‟ search for materials suitable for teaching
writing, commitment to correcting students‟ written work, and adoption of
many methods to teach vocabulary (Hsueh, 1994, p. 1). In his opinion, the
utilization of collocations may help to address this difficult problem because it
enhances not only accuracy but also fluency. Besides, “giving students
collocations of words newly or previously met will widen their understanding
of what those words mean and, more importantly, how they are used” (Lewis,
2000, pp. 13 – 14). The importance of collocation in improving learners‟
writing skills is borne out by Conzett‟s study (2000, quoted in Hsueh, 1994, p.
2). More specifically, once familiarized with the concept of collocation, his
students are able to produce more accurate language. In addition, Sonomura
also argues that “writing in English for academic purpose demands access to an
infinite store of common collocations, combined in ways that have become
stabilized and are the familiar expected, and recognized ways of saying things
in written English” (1997, quoted in Hsueh, 1994, p. 13). This view is also
shared by McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p. 6), who believe that using
collocations helps “improve your style in writing.”
2

However, there is a lack of emphasis on teaching collocations to learners
of English as a second language. According to Marton (1977) and Briskup
(1992) (quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002, p. 53), the major cause for this
phenomenon is that collocations do not create difficulty in comprehending a

text as they are mostly made up of familiar and simple words. That is why
language teachers do not draw students‟ attention to the collocations in a text,
thereby causing students not to notice collocations and learn them. To tackle
this problem, Lewis (2001, quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002) proposes that
language teachers should increase learners‟ awareness of collocation by
helping them to pay more attention to words and their combinations in reading.
“This does not mean finding rare words but rather finding relatively common
words which intermediate students already know (or half-know) and pointing
out the words they occur with.”

Besides, having been a writing teacher of 2
nd
-year students for two years,
I myself have come to realize that most of the students I have taught during
those two years are generally unconscious of the issue of collocation, lack the
ability to notice collocations in a text and do not make an effort to learn them.

The majority of students in class K45E17 are also confronted with the
above-mentioned problems when it comes to collocation. According to the
findings of the pre-test (the production test), those students made a lot of
mistakes about collocation in the first version, which were not corrected in the
second one. This was particularly true for the two following types of
collocation: verb + noun and adjective + noun. Besides, they did not score
highly in the pre-test (recognition test) and chose the wrong collocate of even
familiar words. For example, they chose careful instead of good as a collocate
3

of care. More importantly, after the test was over, they answered that the test
was on vocabulary without being able to specify that its focus was on
collocation and that they had never learned collocations as a way to widen their

vocabulary.

For all the aforementioned reasons, I have decided to conduct an action
research on raising second-year students‟ awareness of collocation in writing
English through the CAR (Collocation Awareness Raising) Process, which is
based on the CAR Process originally invented by Ying and Hendricks (2002).

2. Research aims and research questions
Conducting the present study, the researcher aimed to accomplish the
following purposes. First, the extent to which the CAR process could help to
raise the learners‟ awareness of collocation in writing English would be
examined. Second, on completion, the study would yield insights into the
difficulties perceived by the students as they went through the CAR process.
These aims were formulated into the following research questions:
1. To what extent does the CAR Process help to raise the participants‟
awareness of collocation in writing English?
2. What difficulties are perceived by the participants when they went
through the CAR Process?

3. Scope of the study
First, the researcher chose to investigate the effectiveness of one specific
process – the CAR process that aims to raise students‟ awareness of collocation
in writing English.
4

Second, the participants of this study were twenty 2
nd
-year students in
class K45E17, which the researcher is teaching writing this semester.

4. Methods of the study
Given that the current study was carried out in an attempt to improve the
participants‟ awareness of collocation in writing English, the researcher
decided to adopt the action research approach because this type of research is
aimed at improving a situation. In order to achieve this goal, the following
instruments were utilized:
A pre-test and post-test (production test) were targeted at investigating
the students‟ use of collocations in their writings before and after the CAR
Process.
Another pre-test and post-test (recognition test) tried to find out the
learners‟ ability to recognize correct collocations before and after the CAR
Process.
Between the pre-tests and the post-tests, the intervention – the CAR
Process – was introduced and applied to see whether it helped raise the
participants‟ awareness of collocation in writing English.
Besides, a survey questionnaire was administered to further explore the
participants‟ opinions on the benefits of the CAR Process and find out the
difficulties perceived by them as they went through the CAR Process.
Finally, semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face with
eight participants to clarify and supplement the data collected from the
questionnaire.

5

5. Significance of the study
As the study is finished, it is expected to benefit the target population,
their teachers, and other researchers interested in the topic. First, because
current research on raising students‟ awareness of collocation in writing
English, especially in Vietnam, is limited, this study will partly fill the gap in
the literature and serve as a source of reference for other researchers who share

an interest in related issues. Second, the researcher hopes that this study can, to
some extent, raise the students‟ awareness of collocation in writing English as
well as in other English skills. Besides, the researcher also hopes that the
participants can perceive their own difficulties during the CAR Process and be
able to come up with solutions to deal with the difficulties.

6. Organization of the study
The rest of the paper includes two other parts as follows:
Part B consists of three following chapters:
Chapter 1 – Literature Review – provides the background of the study,
including definitions of key concepts (collocation and language awareness) and
review of related studies.
Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments of
the study, as well as the procedure employed to conduct the research.
Chapter 3 – Results and Recommendations – presents and analyzes the
findings according to the two research questions. Besides, the participants‟
suggestions on solving the difficulties perceived by them as they went through
the CAR Process were mentioned.
Part C - Conclusion – summarizes the main issues discussed in the
paper, the limitations and contributions of the research, as well as some
suggestions for further studies.
6

PART B - DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Collocation(s)
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (7
th
edition), the

term collocation has two meanings. First, it is an uncountable noun when used
to refer to the fact of two or more words often being used together. Second, it is
countable when used to refer to a specific combination of words that are often
used together. Therefore, in this chapter, the word collocation will be used if it
has the first meaning and the word collocations will be used in case it has the
second meaning.

1.1.1. Definitions of collocation(s)
The term “collocation” was first coined by Firth (1957, quoted in
Martynska, 2004, p. 2) to refer to a combination of words associated with each
other, for example make a decision. It derives from the Latin word collocare,
which means “to set in order/ to arrange.” However, since the issue of
collocation in second language teaching and learning was brought into focus, a
large number of researchers have done studies on it, causing a variety of
definitions to be offered. Those definitions can be categorized into several
groups.

First, some common dictionary definitions of this term are as follows.
According to the Long Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics (2002, p. 87), collocation is “the way in which words are used
together regularly.” As defined in the American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language (2004), it is an “arrangement or juxtaposition of words or
7

other elements, especially those that commonly co-occur, as rancid butter,
bosom buddy or dead serious.” Meanwhile, it is described as “the association
between two words that are typically or frequently used together” in Encarta
World English Dictionary (2006). Finally, in the Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English (1992), collocation is referred to as “a habitual
combination of words that sounds natural.” As can be seen from the above

definitions of collocation, despite being differently worded, all of them have
those elements in common: combination of words (demonstrated by the
phrases used together, juxtaposition of words, and combination of words) and
regular use (demonstrated by the words regularly, commonly and habitual),
which makes them sound natural.

Second, collocation is defined by a lot of researchers. Below are some
typical ones. As Kasuya (2008, p. 2) put it, “Collocation can be defined as the
restrictions on how words can be used together, for example, which
prepositions and verbs are used together, or which nouns appear with particular
verbs.” According to McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p. 3), “A collocation is a
pair or group of words that are often used together.” In the words of Manning
& Schutze (1999, p. 142), “A collocation is an expression consisting of two or
more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things.” For
instance, it is normal to say broad daylight, but saying bright daylight is
considered unconventional. From Finegan‟s point of view, collocation refers to
the way words “can be assembled … [in] different, meaningful ways” (2004, p.
348). Another noted researcher, Hill (2000, p. 51), believes that, “A collocation
is a predictable combination of words: get lost, make up for lost time, speak
your mind.” Nattinger and DeCarrio (1997, p. 36, quoted in Boonyasaquan,
2009, p. 100) defined collocations as “strings of specific lexical items that co-
8

occur with a mutual expectancy greater than chance, such as rancid butter and
curry favor.” For James (1998, p. 152, quoted in Boonyasaquan, 2009, p. 100),
collocations are “the other words any particular word normally keeps company
with.” It is apparent that although the above definitions are expressed
differently, they all include the following ideas: combination of words
(demonstrated by the phrases two or more words, used together, co-occur and
so on) and/ or conformity to convention (illustrated by the words normally,

conventional, predictable, to name but a few).

Third, collocation is defined based on a number of different perspectives.
For example, Mitchell (1971, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 5) considered each
collocation a lexico-grammatical unit, which “brings morphology and syntax
back into the center of lexical matters.” From the lexical aspect, Firth (1975,
quoted in Li, 2005, p. 6) regarded collocations as part of the meaning of a
word. In light of the discourse perspective, collocation is defined by Halliday
and Hasan (1976, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 5) as “the co-occurrence of two words,
independent of grammatical types and likely to take place over sentence
boundaries.” From a cross-linguistic perspective, Finegan (2004, p. 354) states
that collocation, which refers to words‟ ability to co-occur, is not “simple
reflections of conceptual distinctions.” It is obvious that the above definitions
are mostly concerned with the grammatical and lexical aspects of collocation to
the exclusion of other respects.

As can be seen, there are numerous definitions of collocation(s).
However, the dictionary ones as well as those given by various researchers are
mostly about the ability of words to co-occur in accordance with convention,
whereas the perspective-based counterparts typically discuss different aspects,
9

especially grammar and lexis, related to collocation. However, those
definitions are not really comprehensive. To be more specific, collocation can
“contain some element of grammatical or lexical unpredictability or
inflexibility” (Nation, 2001, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 15). For example, its
combination can be several words apart like in I made him some tea (the
collocation is make tea). In other words, considering a collocation as a
combination of two or more words that often co-occur is sometimes not
sufficient. Besides, in many cases immediately adjacent words do not

collocate, for instance although he, but if, and so on. That means it is necessary
to take both grammar and meaning into consideration in order to produce a
correct collocation. That is why the researcher hopes to be provided with a
definition that covers all the following elements: conventional combination of
words, attention to grammar, and a focus on meaning. Nevertheless, a
collocation in this research will be used to simply refer to a group of two or
three words that frequently occur together to make a meaningful chunk.


1.1.2. Characteristics of collocations
According to Manning & Schutze (1999), collocations have the
following characteristics:
The first characteristic is non-compositionality. A phrase is
compositional if it is possible to predict its meaning from the meaning of the
parts. A typical example is a young mother. Meanwhile, the meaning of a non-
compositional phrase is unpredictable from its parts. Collocations like strong
tea are non-compositional. However, they are not entirely non-compositional
because the literal meaning of strong can somehow enable learners to have
some ideas in their mind about its figurative meaning in that context.
10

Second, collocations are characterized by non-substitutability. That
means one word in the combination is irreplaceable. Obviously, it can be
substituted by other collocates having a similar meaning in the same
collocational field. For example, both lovely and beautiful can be used with
weather. However, it is unlikely to replace it with one not being a collocate of
the headword no matter how appropriate it may sound. By way of illustration,
even though yellow accurately describes the color of wine, it cannot take the
place of white in white wine.
Finally, it is typical of collocations to be non-modifiable by means of

additional lexical material or through grammatical transformations. A case in
point is strong tea. More specifically, it is impossible for us to say stronger tea.
Given the above-mentioned characteristics of collocations, it is
understandable that learning and using collocations create difficulties for
learners. To make it clearer, as the meaning of a collocation is unpredictable
from its parts, it is rather unlikely for students to translate directly from their
first language into the target language. Additionally, it is impossible to replace
a collocate with one not being a collocate of the headword no matter how
appropriate it may sound. Therefore, students may easily make mistakes when
using a word that is not a collocate of a word but sounds reasonable. In short, it
is important for learners to understand clearly the characteristics of collocations
in order to pay attention to learning them and using them correctly.

1.1.3. Types of collocations
The concept collocation is defined in a variety of ways by different
researchers. This in turn makes it hard to provide an accurate categorization of
collocations.
11

First, collocations are divided into two types: lexical collocations and
grammatical collocations by many researchers. According to Le (2010, p. 5),
the former refers to the “recurrent combinations of two lexical content words/
open class words commonly found together.” Lexical content words/ open
class words are often nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Some examples of
the first type are:
 verb-noun combinations (commit a crime)
 adjective-noun combinations (an acquired taste)
 noun-verb combinations (disaster strikes)
Meanwhile, the latter refers to the “recurrent combinations of one lexical
content word/open class word and a grammar function word/ closed class

word” (Le, 2010, p. 5). A grammar function word/ closed class word in this
case is often a preposition. Therefore, collocations of the second type usually
consist of combinations like:
 a noun + preposition (advisor to)
 a preposition + noun (in advance)
 adjective + preposition (proud of)

The classification of Benson, Benson and Ilson (1997) and Mahmoud
(2004) is the same as Le‟s despite their use of different wording to express
their ideas. To be more specific, in their words, “grammatical collocation is a
phrase consisting of a dominant word (noun, adjective, and verb) and a
preposition or grammatical structure such as an infinitive or clause” (quoted in
Parastuti, 2009, p. 1). Meanwhile, lexical collocations are combinations of
words which belong to two or three word classes.

12

Based on the examples given by McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p. 12) of
the types of collocation, it can be inferred that their classification also includes
the two above-mentioned big groups even though they do not explicitly
identify them. In fact, they regard each way in which words are combined as a
type of collocations. Therefore, they state that there are many types of
collocation and the most typical ones are the following:
 adjective + noun (key issue)
 noun + verb (economy boomed)
 noun + noun (a sense of humor)
 verb + adverb (smile proudly)
 adverb + adjective (fully aware)

Like McCarthy and O‟Dell, Hill (2000, p. 51) only lists all the ways in

which words can collocate, regarding each combination as a type of
collocation. Some of the most common combinations are noun + verb
(lightning flashes or disasters strike), adjective + noun (key moments or
sensible decisions), verb + adverb (walk quickly or breathe heavily), verb +
noun (reach agreement or provide information) and so on. However, what
distinguishes Hill from McCarthy and O‟Dell is that he stresses that a
collocation may be a three-word combination. For instance, it can be a
combination of verb + adjective + noun as in learn a foreign language or noun
+ verb + adverb as in rain fell steadily. It may even be a longer combination of
adverb + verb + article + adjective + noun + preposition + noun as in
seriously affect the political situation in Bosnia.

Sinclair (1991, quoted in Martynska, 2004, p. 2) divides them into two
categories: “upward” and “downward” collocations. The first type is composed
13

of words that often co-occur with “words more frequently used in English than
they are themselves ” For instance, back is a collocate of down, at, and from,
all of which are more frequent words than back. In contrast, the second group
is comprised of words which typically collocate with “words that are less
frequent than they are”. By way of illustration, arrive is a less frequently
occurring collocate of back. Apparently, despite carrying different names,
“upward” collocations are actually grammatical ones, and “downward”
collocations are lexical ones as defined by the aforementioned scholars.

The second way in which collocations are categorized is based on the
degree of fixedness and restriction, which is used by the following researchers:
Cowie and Mackin (1975, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 11) grouped
collocations into four types: pure idioms, figurative idioms, restricted
collocations, and open collocations. Of these, pure idioms are the most fixed.

As a matter of fact, the degree of fixedness decreases gradually towards the last
type. According to Wood (1981, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 11), these types of
collocations are best shown in the below spectrum:

Pure idioms Figurative idioms … Restricted collocations …. Open collocations

On the same basis, Hill (2000, p. 63) lists the following types of
collocations. First, unique collocations refer to words that can collocate with
only one word. For example, it is only possible to say foot the bill, not foot the
charge or foot the fare. Similarly, shoulders is the only word related to body
parts that can co-occur with shrug. Second, strong collocations are those that
can be used in combination with a limited number of words, for example two
or three of them. By way of illustration, the phrases with tears are limited to
14

moved to tears/ reduced to tears. Third, weak collocations comprise words that
can be combined with a large number of other words. For example, we can
replace lovely with many different adjectives having a similar meaning to
describe the weather. The final type is medium-strength collocations, which lie
in the middle of the spectrum with regard to a word‟s ability to collocate.

A detailed classification of verb-noun collocations alone on the basis of
two criteria, namely the number of elements restricted and the degree of
restriction is introduced by Howarth (quoted in Nesselhauf, 2005, p. 23), as
follows:
 The noun is freely substituted, but there is some restriction on the choice
of verb from a small number of synonymous ones. A case in point is
adopt/accept/agree to a proposal/suggestion/recommendation/plan.
More specifically, the nouns in the example can be replaced with many
other nouns, whereas the verbs can only be substituted by some others

having the same meaning.
 There is some substitution in both elements. That means a small number
of nouns can be used with the verb in that sense and there are several
synonymous verbs to choose from. A typical example is
introduce/table/bring forward a bill/an amendment. It can be seen that in
this example, the choice of noun is not as wide as in the first one.
 There is some substitution in the verb but complete restriction on the
choice of the noun. In other words, no other noun can be used with the
verb in that sense and the number of synonymous verbs is small, for
instance pay/take heed. More specifically, apart from heed, no other
noun can be used with take to refer to the act of paying attention.
Besides, only pay can replace take to convey the same meaning.
15

 There is complete restriction on the choice of the verb, but some
substitution of the noun. That is to say, only one verb can co-occur with
several nouns in that sense, like in give the appearance/impression.
 There is complete restriction on the choice of both elements. This means
no other noun can be used with the verb in the given sense and there are
no verbs synonymous with the one provided. A classic example is curry
favor.

The third way in which collocations are classified is based on several
criteria:
Lewis (1997, quoted in Li, 2005, p. 11) identified four types of
collocations, which are strong, weak, frequent and infrequent collocations. The
criteria based on which the first two types are classified are fixedness and
restriction. More specifically, strong collocations are usually non-substitutable
to some extent, thereby being restricted in terms of meaning. This stands in
contrast to weak ones, a component of which can be replaced easily by another

word. The criterion according to which the last two types are categorized are
how frequently they can co-occur in a corpus. This means frequent collocations
refer to words that collocate with high frequency, whereas infrequent ones are
those used together with low frequency.

Wei (1995, quoted in Boonyasaquan, 2009, p. 100) classified
collocations into three types, namely lexical collocations, grammatical
collocations and idiomatic expressions. Explanations about the first two types
can be said to be the same as those in the classification of Le (2010). The last
type actually refers to idioms which are utterly characteristic of collocations as
discussed in the previous part. To be more specific, they are entirely non-
16

compositional, non-substitutable and non-modifiable. A classic example is the
idiom have butterflies in one’s stomach.

All things considered, collocations are classified by different scholars in
various ways. However, three trends are noticeable. First, they are categorized
into lexical and grammatical ones. Second, they are grouped on the basis of
fixedness and restriction into different types. Third, they are classified in
accordance with a combination of different criteria. However, within the scope
of this study, participants were required to record and learn only collocations of
two types: verb + noun and adjective + noun.

1.1.4. Causes of collocational errors
Several researcher have discussed the causes of collocational errors.
However, so far the most comprehensive list is based on the synthesis of Liu‟s
studies (quoted in Hsueh, 1994, pp. 16-19). According to him, there are twelve
main causes of collocational errors, which are as follows:
 Lack of collocational concept: Some students understand only the basic

meaning of a word, without knowing its collocates. Therefore, they are
not able to produce correct collocations.
 Direct translation: Some learners take it for granted that there is an
equivalent in their mother tongue to every English word/ phrase.
Consequently, they often translate the first language into the target one
directly to produce collocations. This results in collocational errors being
unavoidable.
 Ignorance of rule restrictions: Some students fail to pay attention to
grammar rules while writing due to focusing on expressing their ideas.
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That is the reason why they sometimes produce grammatically wrong
collocations like few knowledge or much hours.
 Lack of knowledge of collocational properties: Many students do not
have an understanding of the collocational properties of a word. To
make it clearer, they do not know which words it can co-occur with.
Take the word lovely for example. A lot of students have no trouble
using it with girl but may be unsure whether it can collocate with
weather or garden.
 False conception: Students‟ misconceptions about such verbs as make,
do, and take cause them to replace one with another freely. By way of
illustration, they are likely to say do a plan instead of make a plan.
 Overgeneralization: Students may create “one deviant structure in place
of two regular [ones] on the basis of [their] experience of the target
language.” For instance, they may construct am used to take as a
combination of am used to something and used to take.
 Use of synonyms: Learners might substitute the right collocate with its
synonym, which results in their producing the wrong collocation. For
example, knowing that get and receive are synonymous, some students
are likely to say receive a job instead of get a job even though only the

latter is acceptable.
 Word coinage: Students try to make up a new word so as to convey their
idea precisely by paraphrasing. For example, they formulate see sun-up
instead of see the sunrise. Nevertheless, given the arbitrariness and
unpredictability of collocations, there is a strong possibility that they will
make mistakes in their attempt to do so.
 Approximation: Learners use an incorrect vocabulary item or structure,
which has some “semantic features in common with the desired item to