Chapter 1 the study of collocations

5.1.2  Within-Group Differences 
 
 
Differences in the use of collocations were also sought in the writing 
performance of each group of subjects.  The following types were used most 
frequently in each of the three groups. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Table 42.  Collocation types used most frequently in the students' essays 
Group 
1 
   Group 
2 
  Group 
3 
26. SVc    26. 
SVc   26. 
SVc 
29. Adjective Noun  
29. 
Adjective Noun 13. 
SV Inf 
11. SV(O) Prep O      
            12. SV to Inf   
            12. SV to Inf 
 
 
 
 
            11. SV(O) Prep O 
 
 
 
 
            36. Prep Det Noun 
 
 
 
It appears that Type 26. SVc collocations were used significantly more than 
the other types in all three groups.  Given that Type 26. SVc constructions are basic 
and frequent in everyday speech, e.g. 'I am a student', 'I am happy, 'She became a 
teacher', it is not surprising that subjects in all levels of proficiency used 
collocations of this type more than any other type.  Zhang's (1993) study also 
showed that more SVc collocations were used by all learners, more and less 
proficient, in their essays (Zhang 1993:125).  These results are also in line with 
previous research in the sequence of acquisition of grammatical structures by 
Fathman (1977).  She found that structures that needed to be produced correctly for 
effective communication, such as SVc constructions, were learned early.  Also, 
according to Pienemann's Processability Model, copula sentences such as 'I am a 
student' belong to Stage 1 (basic sentence structures and basic categories) of second 
language acquisition (Pienemann 1996).  Evidence from Japanese as a second 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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language have also shown copula sentences to be a Stage 1 structure (Huter 1996).  
This collocation type may then be considered a 'core' type in the acquisition of 
collocations.   
 
Groups 1 and 2 also used Type 29. Adjective Noun and 11. SV(O) Prep O 
collocations significantly more than the other types.  As already mentioned above, 
it is possible that the topic of the essay for these two groups (see Appendix B) 
could have influenced the frequency of use of Type 29. Adjective Noun collocations. 
 As far as Type 11. SV(O) Prep O collocations are concerned, TWE1 and TWE2 
contain more collocations of this type than TWE3. 
 
The implicational scaling for the essay data between groups (see Figure 3) 
shows that Types 26, 29 and 11 are also the first three items on the implicational 
scale for all groups.  Since, Group 1 is the lowest proficiency group investigated by 
this study, it is understandable that the subjects in this group use the easiest 
collocation types more than the others.  Therefore, it can be concluded that Types 
26, 29 and 11 are early acquired collocation types, as their use was measured in the 
writing performance of L2 learners in this study. 
 Types 
12. 
SV to Inf and 13. SV Inf are also used more than the others by 
higher level students, Groups 2 and 3.  Both these types are still among the first six 
items on the implicational scale of the essay data for all groups (see Figure 3), i.e. 
they are among the most frequently used types of collocation, but their use 
increases significantly in Groups 2 and 3.  Zhang (1993) also reports that these two 
types of collocation were used frequently by the L2 learners in his study (Zhang 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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1993:126).  The textbook analysis reveals a few tokens of these two types in TWE1 
(19 tokens for Type 12, and 26 tokens for Type 13) and a considerable increase in 
TWE2 and TWE3 (TWE2: 234 tokens for Type 12, and 230 tokens for Type 13; 
TWE3: 285 tokens for Type 12, and 347 tokens for Type 13).  From a linguistic point 
of view, the fact that Type 13. SV Inf collocations are acquired later than Type 12.