Chapter 1 the study of collocations

5.4  Factors Affecting the Development of Collocational Knowledge 
 
 
In previous developmental studies, frequency in the input has been 
considered a determinant of the sequence of acquisition of morphemes (Larsen-
Freeman 1976a, 1976b).  In this study too, frequency of input seemed to affect the 
development of collocational knowledge.  The results from the translation and the 
blank-filling tests suggest that the more frequently students are exposed to a 
particular collocation type, the more likely they are to know it.  There is also 
evidence that the amount of exposure to a particular collocation via textbooks can 
influence the acquisition of that particular collocation, irrespective of how 
frequently that particular collocation occurs in everyday speech, e.g. 'curriculum 
vitae'.  The results of the essay data strongly suggest that the production of English 
collocations by the subjects in the present study was influenced by the frequency of 
occurrence of English collocations in their textbooks.  Greater frequency could 
have made certain collocations more salient and noticeable, supporting the 
argument that 'noticing' the form of input leads to learning (Doughty 1991; 
Robinson 1995; Schmidt 1990, 1995).  Palmberg (1987), (1988) also found that the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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vocabulary L2 learners produced consisted mainly of textbook vocabulary.  
Instruction has been found to influence the rate of acquisition in other studies too 
(Olshtain 1987; Doughty 1991).  However, given the fact that the subjects in this 
study were tested on collocations already taught to them, their overall low 
accuracy in both the translation and the blank-filling tests suggests that mere 
exposure to collocations is not enough to facilitate recall.  This conclusion is also in 
line with past research (Marton 1977:47; Bardovi-Harlig 1992b:272). 
 
Complexity was also considered as another factor influencing the 
development of collocational knowledge in ESL learners.  With regard to 
grammatical collocations, for specific pairs of collocational structures, the type that 
was grammatically more complex was also more difficult for L2 learners.  For 
example, learners were more accurate in SV Inf collocations than in SVO Inf 
collocations, and their use of SV Inf collocations increased later than the use of SV 
to Inf collocations.  Also, grammatically complex and infrequent collocation types 
were avoided by the L2 learners in this study, e.g. students showed no evidence of 
acquisition of SV Possessive V-ing collocations.  With regard to lexical collocations, 
'complexity' in terms of arbitrariness, unpredictability and idiomaticity seemed to 
influence their acquisition by L2 learners, e.g. subjects were less accurate with fixed 
(not free), arbitrary, and unpredictable Verb Noun lexical collocations.  Idiomaticity 
and arbitrariness have been previously found to affect the acquisition of individual 
words too (for a review see Laufer 1990b).  Also, in this study, those collocation 
types, grammatical and lexical, that were early acquired, i.e. SVc and Adjective 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Noun, represent collocations that are structurally 'salient' and need to be produced 
correctly for effective communication due to their high frequency in every day 
speech.  Similar results with respect to these two structures were reported by 
Fathman (1977) in her study of the acquisition of grammatical structures.  
 
Also, there has been suggestive evidence that the order in which the parts of 
a certain collocation type combine can influence the degree of regularity of the 
collocations represented by that particular type.  This has also been found to affect 
the degree of difficulty of acquisition for that particular type.  For example, Prep 
Noun collocations, 'on Sundays', 'at 7:06', have been found to be more regular (i.e. 
rule-governed) and hence easier to acquire than Noun Prep collocations, e.g. 'degree 
in', 'attitude towards', 'skills in', which are unpredictable (i.e. associative). 
 
There is also evidence that the degree of L1-L2 difference influences the 
salience and consequently the acquisition of certain collocation types.  For 
example, collocation types that were structurally different from the subjects' L1 
were more difficult to translate, e.g. Type 5. Adjective Prep collocations that were 
'Verb Determiner Noun' collocations in Greek were more difficult to translate, e.g. 
the Greek equivalent of 'I am bored with school' is ‘Barie;mai to scolei;o’ 
[bore[Middle Voice Verb] the school]. 
 
Finally, for a number of collocation types, knowledge develops as overall 
language proficiency increases, i.e. the subjects' accuracy and production of 
collocations was influenced by their overall language proficiency, and the most 
proficient students performed with greater accuracy in the translation and the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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blank-filling tests than the other two groups.  By and large, the greatest difference 
in performance appeared to be between Groups 1 and 3, which also suggests that 
maturation, in terms of language proficiency and age, affects the development of 
collocational knowledge. 
 
The following model summarises schematically the factors affecting the 
development of collocational knowledge: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Language Proficiency 
  Maturation 
 
  Instruction 
  Saliency 
  L1-L2 Difference 
  Fixed/Arbitrary 
  Unpredictable 
  Lexical Collocations 
  Regular/Salient 
    Collocational Knowledge 
   Complex 
  Grammatical Collocations 
   Salient