An analysis of errors related to adjective noun collocations made by 3rd year english majored students at ussh and implications for teaching translation m a

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE


AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS RELATED TO
ADJECTIVE–NOUN COLLOCATIONS MADE BY 3rd
YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT USSH
AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING TRANSLATION

A thesis submitted to the
Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By
NGUYỄN LÊ BÁ TỊNG

Supervised by

LÊ HỒNG DŨNG, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MAY 2017


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS RELATED TO ADJECTIVE–NOUN
COLLOCATIONS MADE BY 3rd YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED
STUDENTS AT USSH AND IMPLICATIONS

FOR TEACHING TRANSLATION
in terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued
by the Higher Degree Committee. The thesis has not been submitted for the award of
any degree or diploma in any other situation.

Ho Chi Minh City, _____ 2017

Nguyễn Lê Bá Tòng

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RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Lê Bá Tòng, being the candidate for the degree of Master
in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use
of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the
Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research in accordance with
the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of
the thesis.
Ho Chi Minh City, _____ 2017

Nguyễn Lê Bá Tòng

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratefulness to my teacher and
supervisor, Dr. Lê Hoàng Dũng, for all of his invaluable guidance, encouragement and
dedication. Without his wholehearted support and valuable advice, the completion of
this thesis would have been impossible.
I am greatly indebted to all teachers who taught me invaluable knowledge, which was
essential for the fulfilment of this thesis. Specially, I would like to extend my gratitude
to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tô Minh Thanh, who inspired me to choose the thesis topic and
helped me form the very first ideas to carry out the study.
My sincerest thanks also go to the Board of Administrators and other members of the
Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, who directly or indirectly contributed to
the implementation of this thesis.
I am deeply thankful to my colleagues and friends, especially Ms. Vân Di, Mr. Thiên
Lộc, Mr. Khôi Nguyên and Ms. Bảo Ngọc, whose constant support and valuable
experience have led me through times of difficulty.
Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my family, my loving mother, my
dedicated father, my aunts and uncles, and my beloved one, whose unconditional love
and care have been the very reason for every achievement I have had. Without them,
this thesis would have never been completed.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ....................................................................................................... i
RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ........................................................................................ ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................ iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................ vii
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................ viii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................. ix

ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Background to the study ........................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Rationale for the study .............................................................................................................. 3
1.3. Aim of the study........................................................................................................................ 4
1.4. Research questions .................................................................................................................... 4
1.5. Significance of the study ........................................................................................................... 4
1.6. Scope of the study ..................................................................................................................... 5
1.7. Overall structure of the study .................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 7
2.1. Collocation ................................................................................................................................ 7
2.1.1. Definition of collocation ................................................................................................. 7
2.1.2. Categorization of collocations ....................................................................................... 11
2.1.3. Components of collocations .......................................................................................... 13
2.2. Collocation and translation ..................................................................................................... 14
2.2.1. The significance of collocations in translation .............................................................. 14
2.2.2. Difficulties in translating collocations .......................................................................... 15
2.2.3. Influences of L1 on learners’ use of collocations.......................................................... 17
2.2.3.1. English collocations vs. Vietnamese counterparts.............................................. 17
2.2.3.2. Congruent and incongruent collocations ............................................................ 18
2.2.4. Strategies in translating collocations ............................................................................. 20
2.3. Collocation and error analysis................................................................................................. 21
2.3.1. Theory of error analysis ................................................................................................ 21
2.3.2. Types of errors related to adjective-noun collocations ................................................. 23
2.3.3. Causes of collocational errors ....................................................................................... 25
2.4. Collocation and language teaching ......................................................................................... 28
2.5. Methods for testing collocational knowledge ......................................................................... 33
2.6. Conceptual framework ............................................................................................................ 35
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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 39
3.1. Research questions .................................................................................................................. 39
3.2. Research design ...................................................................................................................... 39
3.2.1. Context of the study ...................................................................................................... 39
3.2.2. Participants .................................................................................................................... 40
3.2.2.1. Student participants ............................................................................................ 41
3.2.2.2. Teacher participants............................................................................................ 42
3.2.3. COCA ............................................................................................................................ 42
3.2.4. Research instruments .................................................................................................... 44
3.2.4.1. Students’ midterm exam papers in Basic Translation ........................................ 44
3.2.4.2. Translation test ................................................................................................... 45
3.2.4.3. COLLEX test ...................................................................................................... 48
3.2.4.4. Interview ............................................................................................................. 49
3.2.4.5. Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 50
3.2.5. Pilot study...................................................................................................................... 53
3.3. Data collection procedure ....................................................................................................... 54
3.3.1. Collection of adjective-noun collocational errors ......................................................... 54
3.3.1.1. Collection of errors from students’ midterm exam papers ................................. 55
3.3.1.2. Collection of errors from the translation test ...................................................... 57
3.3.2. Collection of additional data ......................................................................................... 58
3.3.2.1. Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 58
3.3.2.2. COLLEX test ...................................................................................................... 58
3.3.2.3. Interviews to the teachers ................................................................................... 59
3.4. Data analysis procedure .......................................................................................................... 59
3.4.1. Analysis of adjective-noun collocational errors ............................................................ 59
3.4.2. Questionnaire ................................................................................................................ 60
3.4.3. COLLEX test ................................................................................................................ 60
3.4.4. Interview ....................................................................................................................... 61
3.5. Summary ................................................................................................................................. 61

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................. 62
4.1. Data analysis and discussion ................................................................................................... 62
4.1.1. Analysis of collocational errors from students’ exam papers ....................................... 62
4.1.1.1. Types of errors .................................................................................................... 64
4.1.1.2. Causes of errors .................................................................................................. 66
4.1.2. Analysis of collocational errors from the translation test .............................................. 73
4.1.2.1. Types of errors .................................................................................................... 75
4.1.2.1. Causes of errors .................................................................................................. 77
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4.1.3. Summary of the error analyses ...................................................................................... 84
4.1.4. Learners’ receptive knowledge of collocations ............................................................. 86
4.1.5. The teaching and learning of collocations in Basic Translation.................................... 89
4.1.5.1. The teaching of collocations ............................................................................... 90
4.1.5.2. The learning of collocations ............................................................................... 93
4.2. Major findings ....................................................................................................................... 100
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................... 108
5.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 108
5.2. Suggestions and recommendations ....................................................................................... 110
5.2.1. Suggestions to teachers ............................................................................................... 110
5.2.2. Suggestions to students ............................................................................................... 116
5.2.3. Recommendations for future research......................................................................... 118
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 119
APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................................... 126
APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................................................... 129
APPENDIX 3 ................................................................................................................................... 130
APPENDIX 4 ................................................................................................................................... 131
APPENDIX 5 ................................................................................................................................... 134
APPENDIX 6 ................................................................................................................................... 135

APPENDIX 7 ................................................................................................................................... 140

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BNC

the British National Corpus

COCA

the Corpus of Contemporary American English

EF

the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

EFL/ESL

English as a Second/Foreign Language

FREQ

Frequency

LA

the Lexical Approach

L1

First Language

L2

Second Language

MI

Mutual Information

Ss’

Students’

SV

Subject – Verb

SVO

Subject – Verb – Object

TESOL

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Ts’

Teachers’

USSH

University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Ho Chi Minh City

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Seven types of lexical collocations (Farrokh, 2012) ................................ 12
Table 2.2: The revised six types of lexical collocations ............................................ 12
Table 2.3: Types of collocational errors (Nesselhauf, 2003) ..................................... 23
Table 2.4: Useful collocations to teach students (Hodne, 2009) ............................... 30
Table 3.1: Description of the questionnaire items ..................................................... 52
Table 3.2: Summary of the research instruments....................................................... 52
Table 3.3: Reliability statistics of the translation test ................................................ 53
Table 4.1: Lexical combinations from the midterm-exam papers ............................. 63
Table 4.2: Types of collocational errors from the midterm-exam papers ................. 65
Table 4.3: Causes of collocational errors from the midterm-exam papers ................ 66
Table 4.4: Summary of students’ responses to the translation test ............................ 74
Table 4.5: Types of collocational errors from the translation test ............................. 75
Table 4.6: Causes of collocational errors from the translation test ........................... 77
Table 4.7: Comparison between productive test and receptive test ........................... 87
Table 4.8: Students’ performance on each item of the two tests ............................... 88
Table 4.9: Student’s statement about the teaching of collocations in basic translation
.................................................................................................................................... 91
Table 4.10: Strategies used by the teachers to teach collocations ............................. 92
Table 4.11: Sources of students’ knowledge about collocations ............................... 94

Table 4.12: Students’ opinions on the roles of collocations in translation ................ 94
Table 4.13: Students’ strategies to broaden knowledge about collocations .............. 95
Table 4.14: Students’ strategies to deal with difficulties in translating collocations 97
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework of the study ........................................................ 38
Figure 3.1: The COCA search interface .................................................................... 55
Figure 3.2: The COCA result interface ...................................................................... 56
Figure 4.1: Summary of types of collocational errors ............................................... 85
Figure 4.2: Summary of causes of collocational errors ............................................. 85
Figure 4.3: Students’ responses to Q6, Q7 and Q8 .................................................... 96
Figure 4.4: Summary of the major findings ............................................................. 106

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ABSTRACT
Collocation is an important concept in language teaching. Learning and using
collocations are believed to boost learners’ communicative competence. However,
collocations also bring many problems to learners due to their arbitrariness as well as
linguistic and cultural differences. Although quite a few studies on collocations have
been conducted, there are still gaps for further research when certain types of
collocations and other influential factors such as translation are taken into account. In
order to fill some of these gaps, the present study was conducted, which focused on
adjective-noun collocational errors in Vietnamese – English translation. Multiple
research methods and tools, including (1) error analysis, (2) questionnaire and (3)
interview, were employed to thoroughly investigate the errors, their possible causes

and to find out appropriate solutions to the addressed issue.
The study revealed that the student participants, in spite of their high level of
proficiency as English-majored juniors, still made a considerable number of
collocational errors. The majority of the said errors were caused by incorrect choices
of adjectives, which could be explained by the fact that the choices of adjective, as the
collocate, in a collocation is restricted by the noun – the node. Regarding the causes
of errors, approximation and L1 transfer were the two major ones. The study also
directed attention to some other causes, which had been usually neglected in previous
studies, such as formal confusion and inappropriate use of dictionaries. Upon further
investigation, it was pointed out that the learners’ lack of knowledge about collocation
was the major implying factor accounting for most of the observed errors. This was
probably resulted from the fact that the teaching of collocations was mostly integrated
in other tasks. Such implicit instruction, though useful, may not be effective enough
to attract their attention. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations on the
teaching and learning of collocations in translation were presented. Firstly, it is
necessary to raise learners’ awareness of the concept of collocations. Secondly, the
teaching of collocations in translation should be more explicit to attract their attention.
Finally, it is advised that students should put more effort in improving their knowledge
of collocations.

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter provides an introduction to the study, including (1) background to the
study, (2) rationale for the study, (3) aim and objectives of the study, (4) research
questions, (5) significance of the study, (6) scope of the study and (7) its overall
structure.

1.1. Background to the study
Among recently developed approaches to language teaching, the Lexical Approach
(LA) is one that lays emphasis on teaching prefabricated chunks instead of separate
words. LA was built from the belief that acquiring and using lexical units as chunks
can effectively improve learners’ communicative competence, an idea which has been
supported by a number of scholars. Pawley & Syder (1983), for example, have
remarked that a large part of human speech is “multiword units” which function as
“chunks” or memorized patterns. Harmer (2001), sharing the same view, wrote that
oral fluency requires a spontaneous process of language and information, which “is
marked by the use of a number of common lexical phrases” (p. 269). These ideas were,
again, affirmed by Jiang & Nekrasova (2007) who have recently found that formulaic
sequences are processed more quickly and more accurately than non-formulaic
sequences.
One important concept in LA is collocation, which can be understood as the regular
co-occurrence of words in a language. Since it shows how words in a language work
together, or that is to say how formulaic sequences (or chunks) are formed, the use of
the aforementioned approach is hardly possible without thorough understanding of the
concept. Collocation, therefore, “is thought to play a central role in learning and in
communication” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 133).
While collocation is important, it is also problematic for EFL/ESL learners due to
several factors. Firstly, while native speakers can produce these prefabricated chunks,
including collocations, quite effortlessly, most learners cannot acquire them without a
great amount of time and effort. As a matter of fact, they are not exposed to L2 as

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much as native speakers do, and thus the chances for them to practice using these
chunks are quite limited. As a result, they usually resort to rote-learning, which seems
to be an ineffective method to memorize a huge amount of lexical items. Especially

with collocations, the memorizing process is even more challenging due to their
arbitrary combination rules. One cannot explain, for instance, why tea has to go with
strong as in strong tea but not with powerful – a synonym of strong. Being confused
by such rules, learners may find it difficult to remember and use collocations correctly.
Another factor making the acquisition of collocations even more difficult is the
influence of learners’ L1. In many circumstances, learners usually resort to their
mother tongue and try to express their ideas through word-for-word translation from
their L1. Nevertheless, this strategy does not assure the efficiency and accuracy in
communication, since even if two words in a language are collocations of each other,
their equivalents in the other language do not necessarily have the same relationship.
Word-for-word translation may, therefore, lead to the violation of collocational rules
in L2, and thus make the speakers sound awkward, not to mention the negative
influence on their fluency caused by such a process.
Given the difficulties above, it seems inevitable for learners to make errors in using
collocations. Indeed, it is a proven fact that even students of high level of English still
make collocational errors due to large amount of complicated lexical items they have
to memorize and produce, not to mention the arbitrariness of collocations and
differences between languages. However, collocational errors, according to
researchers such as Bahns & Eldaw (1993), Li (2005), Darvishi (2011), can be reduced
by improving learners’ knowledge of collocations through multiple teaching methods
including identification and correction of collocational errors, introduction of certain
target collocations, etc. Although these methods have proved their effectiveness, it is
an undeniable fact that collocation is still a constant challenge to EFL learners, which
emphasizes the necessity to have more research into the issue.
Along with the increasing popularity of LA, collocation and teaching of collocations
have attracted much attention from scholars and researchers, such as Bahns & Eldaw
(1993), Fan (2009), Farrokh (2012) and Lubis (2013), etc. Most of these studies have
focused either on analyzing learners’ collocational errors to figure out the causes of
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and remedies for the errors or on looking for new methods for effectively teaching
collocations to learners. There were also studies that had both foci, in which the latter
was usually done on the basis of the former.

1.2. Rationale for the study
Although a great number of studies into collocation have been conducted, most of
them focused on one type of collocation, namely verb-noun, since this type collocation
occurs very frequently and causes considerable difficulty for learners of English.
However, among other types of collocation, adjective-noun also has high frequency
of occurrence and high level of difficulty, which have been confirmed in several
studies. Trinh (2001) conducted a contrastive analysis between English and
Vietnamese collocations to find out “particular lexico-semantic features which are
alien, unfamiliar, or unpredictable, from the point of view of a Vietnamese translator
of English” (p. 59). The study revealed that, among the categories, adjective-noun
collocation was the broadest one with about 1700 instances, accounting for 56.6
percent of the collected data. Other researchers, including Channell (1981), Koya
(2005), Shehata (2008) and Kurosaki (2012), have come to the same conclusion that
adjective-noun collocation caused great difficulties for learners.
In the context of Vietnam, the attention towards collocations has been increased with
several studies being conducted in the recent years. Nguyen (2006) studied the
importance of collocational knowledge in language use. In 2008, Mai investigated
learners’ use of lexical collocation in Vietnamese – English translation. More recently,
two studies have been completed by Dang (2014) and Nguyen (2014). The former was
a survey into the teaching of lexical collocations in academic writing, whereas the
latter investigated learners’ competence in producing and recognizing verb-noun
collocations. However, similar to many foreign studies in the field, none of the
aforementioned works specifically focused on adjective-noun collocation.
Moreover, while most of the studies above aimed to find solutions for problems related
to collocations in language teaching in general, few of them had implication

specifically for teaching translation although translation is a context where
collocation-related difficulties are likely to arise as it requires good command of

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collocations in both source and target languages. Given the fact that translation by its
nature is complicated and translating collocation is among the biggest challenges to
even professional translators let alone learners of English, it is necessary to have more
studies that specifically deal with collocations in translation.
The aforementioned issues altogether became the research gap that drove the
researcher to conduct the present study that aimed at adjective-noun collocations in
translation and sought relevant implications for teaching translation at University of
Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) where translation is a subject being taught to
students of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature (EF).

1.3. Aim of the study
It is apparent that collocational errors are made by even students with high level of
proficiency. This fact encouraged the researcher to conduct the present study, which
mainly focuses on collocational errors made by 3rd year EF students at USSH.
Precisely, the study aims at analyzing errors related to attributive adjective-noun
collocations in the students’ translations in order to have a comprehensive and detailed
look into (1) the common types of errors and (2) their possible causes. Also, based on
the result of the error analysis, some useful and applicable solutions are expected to
be found to help the students overcome difficulties in learning and using collocations
and particularly in translating collocations.

1.4. Research questions
In order to accomplish the aforementioned aims, the two research questions were given
as follow:

1. What are the common types of adjective-noun collocational errors made by 3rd
year EF students at USSH in their translations?
2. What are the possible causes of adjective-noun collocational errors made by 3rd
year EF students at USSH in their translations?

1.5. Significance of the study
With those aims accomplished by answering the two research questions, the present
study has its own significance as follow.
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Firstly, in terms of theoretical values, the study provided a thorough review of
literature on relevant aspects of collocation and collocational errors. Especially, the
review of literature presented a comprehensive list of error types and hypothetical
causes of collocational errors, which was later confirmed through the error analysis.
In addition to them, the analysis revealed some other causes of errors which were
scarcely mentioned in previous studies. Besides, the practical teaching and learning of
collocation in translation classes at EF, USSH were also investigated, which revealed
possible connections to learners’ deficiency in collocational knowledge.
Secondly, the study had some practical contributions to the teaching and learning of
collocations, especially in translation. With a detailed analysis of types and causes of
errors, the study was expected to provide teachers and learners with valuable
information on how collocational errors are made and thus would help learners avoid
committing such errors. Moreover, basing on the findings, the study suggested some
recommendations for the teaching and learning of collocation in translation at EF,
USSH in order to further improve the students’ collocational knowledge and help them
overcome difficulties in translating collocations.

1.6. Scope of the study
The present study focused on adjective-noun collocational errors in translation of 3rd

year EF students at USSH. The scope of the study, however, still needs clarification.
First of all, it was mentioned that the present study focused on adjective-noun
collocational errors. This type of collocation includes combinations in which the
adjective may come either before or after the noun. However, in the present study,
adjective-noun collocation strictly refers to combinations in which the adjective
precedes the noun. To put it differently, the study took into account only attributive
adjective-noun collocations and their related errors.
Secondly, the present study was said to deal with collocational errors in translation. It
is commonly known that translation involves two directions: either from learners’ L1
to L2 or vice versa. To avoid unnecessary complication, the researcher directed his
attention only to Vietnamese – English translation since translating from L1 to L2
seems more challenging and thus collocational errors are more likely to occur.
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To sum up, the present study focused on errors related to attributive adjective-noun
collocations found in Vietnamese – English translations of 3rd year EF students at
USSH. Such limited scope might result in the relatively weak generalizability of the
study. However, it is expected to have some contributions to translation teaching at
EF, USSH and provide theoretical and practical background for further research.

1.7. Overall structure of the study
This thesis consists of five main chapters (1) Introduction, (2) Literature Review, (3)
Methodology, (4) Findings and Discussion and (5) Conclusion and Recommendations,
apart from the Acknowledgements, Abstract, References and Appendixes.
The first chapter, namely Introduction, provides the background information of the
study and gives the rationale for carrying out the research. The aims, the significance
and the scope of the study are also presented in this chapter.
The second chapter, Literature Review, can be divided into two major parts. The first
one sets up the theoretical background for the study with a detailed review of theories

and concepts relevant to collocation and collocational errors. The second one is the
review of previous studies in the field. Based on this theoretical background, the
conceptual framework is established as a guideline for the research design and the
collection and analysis of data.
The third chapter, Methodology, describes the methods used to conduct the study. In
this chapter, the research questions are further elaborated. In addition, descriptions of
research designs and procedures for collecting and analyzing data are also presented.
The next chapter, entitled Findings and Discussion, presents the analysis and
discussion of the collected data, as well as the major findings of the studies. This
chapter not only gives the answers to the aforementioned research questions but also
serves as the basis for the recommendations presented in chapter five.
The final chapter entitled Conclusion and Recommendations provides a brief
summary of the study, pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of
collocations in translation, as well as recommendations for further research.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter presents and discusses the major theories and literature necessary for
constructing the theoretical and conceptual framework of the study. Firstly, the
concepts related to collocation, including definition and typology are presented.
Secondly, the relationship between collocations and translation is discussed. Thirdly,
the literature related to error analysis is considered. Fourthly, as the present study aims
to find out some solutions to the learners’ errors, the literature concerning the teaching
of collocations is reviewed. Subsequently, some common types of collocation testing
method are presented in order to figure out the most appropriate methods for the
present study. Finally, based on that theoretical framework, the conceptual framework
is established as the guideline for the research.

2.1. Collocation
2.1.1. Definition of collocation
The term collocation, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, has
two different meanings. Collocation, as a countable noun, refers to “a combination of
words in a language that happens very often and more frequently than would happen
by chance”. As an uncountable noun, it refers to “the fact of two or more words often
being used together, in a way that happens more frequently than would happen by
chance”. Therefore, collocation in this study may be used to address either the concept
of collocation or certain combinations.
The term was made popular by Firth (1957) who used it to refer to “the habitual or
characteristic associations of words in texts” (cited in Ibrahim, 2003, p. 3). Firth was
considered the pioneer of the frequency-based approach – one of the two major schools
of thought in studying collocation. Following this approach, several definitions of
collocation have been provided. For example, Jones & Sinclair (1974) viewed a
collocation as “the co-occurrence of two items in a text within a specified
environment” (cited in Ibrahim, 2003, p. 4). Later, Cruse (1986) described collocations
as “sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur”. More recently, Sinclair

7


defined collocation as “the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of
each other in a text” (1991, p. 70). In general, most of the definitions based on this
school of thought have taken frequency of occurrence as the criterion to define
collocation.
However, a group of frequently co-occurred words is not necessarily a collocation.
This was proven by Kjellmer (1982) who studied Brown Corpus and found the
frequent occurrences of some adjacent two-word sequences such as “of the”,
“although he”, and “but too” (cited in Kurosaki, 2012). Although these words

frequently co-occurred in the corpus, most native speakers would probably not
consider them as collocations, since they did not make meaningful lexical sequences.
To put it differently, frequency of occurrence alone is not sufficient to define
collocation.
The phraseology approach is another school of thought regarding collocation.
Followers of this approach have made efforts to distinguish collocations from other
types of formulaic sequence and from free combinations. Howarth (1998), for
example, differentiated restricted collocations from free combinations, figurative
idioms, and pure idioms using two criteria (1) the degree of restriction on substitution
and (2) the meaning of words in a combination (literal or figurative). Howart’s idea
was based on Cowie’s (1981), one of the pioneers of the phraseological approach, who
suggested that collocations were found in the “fuzzy” area on a continuum between
free combinations and idioms. Cowie also proposed two criteria to distinguish them
from each other, which are: combinability and transparency. The former refers not
only to co-occurrence but also to restriction in combination. The degree of restriction
varies from free substitution, which allows one word to combine with an open set of
words, to complete restriction, which allows one word to go with only one specific
word (or very few options) in a specific combination. The latter refers to the meaning
of the words in combinations, whether they have literal meaning [+transparency] or
figurative meaning [-transparency].
The two approaches above have provided important criteria to define collocation.
However, both of them had their own strengths and weaknesses. The frequency-based
approach, with its theory about frequency of occurrence, laid the foundation for
8


defining collocation. However, it failed to provide a comprehensive method to
distinguish collocations from other formulaic sequences, not to mention meaningless
strings of words that frequently co-occurred. The phraseological approach, with the
two concepts “combinability” and “transparency”, gave a solution to the mentioned

problem. However, definitions based on this approach would be incomplete without
the criterion set by the other one. Therefore, Kurosaki (2012) combined the
aforementioned ideas and came up with his own definition as follow:
A collocation is a type of word combination in a certain grammatical pattern, and
they refer to an abstract unit of language that occurs frequently. Collocations are
characterized by two criteria: (1) combinability of words within a collocation; and
(2) semantic transparency of words in a collocation. (p. 30).
Kurosaki’s definition embraced the essence of the two major approaches. Moreover,
by pointing out that collocations follow certain grammatical patterns he also excluded
the cases of adjacent two-word sequences described in Kjellmer (1982) as these
meaningless strings of words do not adhere to these grammatical patterns.
This definition, nevertheless, had certain limitations. Firstly, it did not state the
frequency of occurrence, at which a combination could be considered a collocation.
Secondly, the use of transparency as a criterion proposed by Cowie (1981) was
critiqued by Hodne (2009) for not having a clear-cut boundary between the two
extremes literal and figurative. Taking two combinations “constitutional monarchy”
and “customs agents” as examples, she argued that it was hard to determine whether
they are free combinations or restricted collocations, and to tell which element in each
of the combinations is used with its literal sense if they are restricted collocations.
Hodne, therefore, proposed a definition of her own:
Collocation are arbitrarily restricted lexeme combinations that are syntactically
fixed to a certain degree, are included in the collocation dictionary, present an MI
score [Mutual Information] higher than 3.0, and have a raw frequency [or FREQ
for short] of more than three tokens in COCA [the Corpus of Contemporary
American English]. (p. 8)

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Although the definition above provided reliable criteria for identifying collocations,

the use of both corpora and dictionaries was unnecessarily complicated. In fact, it is
suggested that using corpora alone would suffice as they provide a much larger and
more comprehensive database.
In addition to the aforementioned issue, there is another point in the definition that
need consideration. In fact, Hodne was not the first person to use frequency of
occurrence in a corpus as a criterion to determine collocations. Prior to her, Nesselhauf
(2005) had applied this to his research. Later on, it was adopted in Hong et al. (2011).
Both studies had set the FREQ of at least five tokens in BNC (the British National
Corpus) as the standard threshold for a combination to be considered a collocation.
Given the fact that COCA has a much bigger database than BNC, the FREQ of more
than three tokens set by Hodne (2009) may not be representative enough. Therefore,
the present study will adopt the standard FREQ of at least five tokens proposed by
Nesselhauf (2005) and Hong et al. (2011).
Based on the definition of Hodne (2009) and the aforementioned recommendations,
the operational definition for the present study is formed as follow: Collocations are
arbitrarily restricted lexeme combinations that are syntactically fixed to a certain
degree, present a minimum Mutual Information (MI) score of 3.0, and have a raw
frequency (FREQ) of at least five tokens in COCA.
According to this definition, the FREQ and the MI score of a combination in COCA
are the main criteria to determine whether the combination is a collocation or not.
Detailed descriptions of FREQ and MI will be given later in Chapter 3. However, it
can be briefly explained here that the former shows how frequently the combination
is used by native speakers while the latter indicates how strong the combination is.
With these criteria taken into account, there are four possibilities to consider.
(1) If both criteria are satisfied (FREQ ≥ 5; MI ≥ 3), meaning that the combination is
frequently used and has a strong combination between the words, it is considered a
collocation.
(2) If neither criterion is satisfied (FREQ < 5; MI < 3), the combination is neither
frequently used nor strong enough and thus it is considered an erroneous one.
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(3) If only the FREQ meets the standard requirement (FREQ ≥ 5; MI < 3), which
means that the combination is frequently used by native speakers but is not strong
enough to be a collocation, it is considered a free combination.
The last possibility – (4) only the MI meets the requirement (FREQ < 5; MI ≥ 3) – is
a little complicated. In her study, Dang (2014) considered these as free combinations.
However, there are several issues that need consideration. First of all, a low frequency
of occurrence means that the combination is not commonly used. In other words, it is
possibly not recognized or accepted by the majority of native speakers regardless how
high its MI score is. Moreover, according to Clear (1995), the MI score is high and
unreliable when the frequency of occurrence is low. Therefore, in the present study,
combinations with only the MI meeting the requirement will be also considered as
erroneous ones.
This operational definition and the four possibilities resulted from it provide important
criteria for the data collection and analysis procedures, which will be discussed later
in Chapter 3.

2.1.2. Categorization of collocations
From different perspectives, collocations can be categorized differently. However,
most scholars agreed with the idea of Benson et al. (1986) who categorized
collocations into grammatical collocations and lexical ones. The former, according to
Fontenelle (1994), “involves one element from an open class and an element from a
closed class, typically, but not necessarily, a preposition” (p. 4). The latter, on the
contrary, consists of “two items belonging to open (non-finite) classes, for instance a
verb and a noun or an adjective and a noun” (ibid.)
The present study, however, only focuses on the second type: lexical collocations,
since they are more challenging and demanding to learners in a way that they require
a more selective and precise use of vocabularies. This type of collocation, again, is
classified into different subtypes. Farrokh (2012), basing on Benson et al. (1986),

proposed 7 sub types of lexical collocation, which are shown in Table 2.1 below.

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Table 2.1: Seven types of lexical collocations (Farrokh, 2012, p. 59)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Types
verb (creation/activation) + noun
verb (eradication/nullification) + noun
adjective + noun
noun + verb
noun1 (+of) + noun2
adjective + adverb/ adverb + adjective
verb + adverb

Examples
compose music; make an impression
revoke a license, demolish a house
strong tea, a rough estimate
bees buzz, bombs explode
pack of dog, a herd of buffalo
sound asleep, hopelessly addictive

anchor firmly, argue heatedly

However, according to Benson et al. (1986), “in English, nouns are often used as
adjectives. Nouns used attributively may enter into … the category of adjective-noun
collocations.” To put it differently, the third category may include combinations
consisting of two nouns, the first one of which functions as an adjective modifying the
second one. This category, therefore, should be renamed: adjective/noun + noun.
Moreover, it is noticeable that the first and the second categories are similar in terms
of components: verb + noun. Since verb-noun collocation is not the focus of the
present study, categorizing verbs into different types is unnecessarily complicated.
The two categories, therefore, will be grouped into one, namely verb + noun, resulted
in six types of lexical collocation shown in Table 2.2 below
Table 2.2: The revised six types of lexical collocations
Types

Examples
revoke a license, make an impression
strong tea, jet engine, aptitude test
bees buzz, bombs explode
pack of dog, a herd of buffalo
sound asleep, hopelessly addictive
anchor firmly, argue heatedly

1. verb + noun
2. adjective/noun + noun
3. noun + verb
4. noun1 (+ prep) + noun2
5. adjective + adverb/ adverb + adjective
6. verb + adverb

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the present study only focuses on one type of lexical
collocation: adjective-noun, due to the difficulties this type of collocation causes for
learners and the small number of studies concerning it. Although this type of
collocation involves both adjective + noun and noun + noun combinations, for the sake
of simplicity and consistency, both of them will be addressed as adjective-noun
collocation since the first noun in the combination plays the role of an adjective.

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2.1.3. Components of collocations
Since the present study involves identifying collocations in texts and checking them
using a corpus (COCA), it is necessary to have some basic knowledge about the
components of a collocation, among which are three important terms that need
consideration: “node”, “collocate” and “span” (Ibrahim, 2003).
Node was defined by Jones & Sinclair (1974) as “an item whose total pattern of cooccurrence with other words is under examination” (cited in Ibrahim, 2003, p. 20);
while collocate was defined as “any item which appears with the node within a
specified environment” (ibid.). Jones & Sinclair (1947) have also made clear that
“there is no difference in status between node and collocate; if word A is a node and
word B is one of its collocates, when word B is studied as a node, word A will be one
of its collocates” (ibid.).
However, Kurosaki (2012) suggested that for each specific study, node and collocate
should be identified at the beginning to ensure accuracy and consistency of the study.
Stubbs (2001) also stated that “a node predicts that a preceding or following word also
occurs” (cited in Kurosaki, 2012, p.28). That is to say, in a collocation, the node is the
one that determines the choice of collocates. Since the present study deals with
English adjective-noun collocations which are basically noun phrases, and since in a
noun phrase the head noun is the pivotal element, the noun will be considered as the
node and the adjective will be considered as the collocate.
The last factor to be considered is span. According to Jones & Sinclair (1974), “span

is the amount of text within which collocation between items is said to occur” (cited
in Ibrahim, 2003, p. 20). Phillips (1985), sharing the same view, remarked that
“collocation is recognised within an environment of a number of words preceding
and/or succeeding the node, for example, the five preceding and the five following
words. This environment is termed the span” (ibid.). Let us consider the following
examples: “He is telling the truth” and “He is telling only half of the truth.” Both
sentences have tell as the node and truth as the collocate of the collocation; however
their spans are obviously different. The span of a collocation, according to Ibrahim,
can be even “above phrase level” (2003, p. 21). However, with respect to attributive

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adjective-noun collocations, by nature the adjective usually adjacently precedes the
noun, or sometimes it precedes the noun within a span of three or four words when
multiple adjectives/nouns pre-modify the same head noun.
To sum up, in this study, the node of an adjective-noun collocation is the noun, the
collocate is the adjective (or the noun functioning as an attributive adjective in the
case of noun + noun) and the span being considered is within five words preceding
the node. These components and relevant rules mentioned above play important roles
in the data collection and analysis, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3.

2.2. Collocation and translation
2.2.1. The significance of collocations in translation
This section is dedicated to discussing the relationship between collocations and
translation. The former, indeed, has considerable influence upon the latter.
One factor determining a translator’s performance is his lexical knowledge; the
broader it is, the better his performance is likely to be. A translator, therefore, must
always enrich his vocabulary. However, the acquisition and retention of vocabulary
prove to be a big challenge for most non-native speakers of any language (McCarten,

2007). Moreover, that learners know a word does not mean that they can use it in
communication, let alone in translation. The major cause for this is their inability to
determine in which contexts and with which words a lexical item may occur. To put
it differently, it is their lack of collocational knowledge that accounts for the issue.
Many authors, including Pawley & Syder (1983) and Harmer (2001), have suggested
learning vocabulary as chunks as a solution to the aforementioned problem. Instead
of learning separate words, learners should put them in specific contexts where they
can be learned together with other words that habitually co-occur with them. This
learning strategy has certain advantages. First of all, it helps learners memorize words
more easily since “collocational association can … act as memory aids” (Rahimi &
Sahragard., 2008, p. 15). Moreover, as Firth claimed that one “shall know a word by
the company it keeps” (cited in Gyllstad, 2007, p.7), collocations provide learners
with better understanding of vocabularies. For example, learners can realize the
differences in meaning between two synonyms (e.g. injury and wound) by looking at
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