Chapter 1 the study of collocations

Table 48.  Accuracy order for the collocation types included in the blank-filling 
test - Group 2 
Type  
24. SV(O) wh-word 
23. SV(O) Adverbial 
34. Noun Noun 
31. Noun1 of Noun2 
4. Prep Noun 
5. Adjective Prep 
36. Prep Det Noun 
37. Phrasal Verb 
27. Verb Noun (creation) 
11. SV(O) Prep O 
33. Verb Adverb 
1. Noun Prep 
 
 
The accuracy order for Group 2 is statistically significant and reveals that as 
the level of proficiency increases, subjects become more accurate in their responses 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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to grammatical collocations that were initially difficult to produce (see scale for 
Group 1 subjects), i.e. SV(O) wh-word, SV(O) Adverbial. 
 
With regard to SV(O) wh-word collocations, the subjects' accuracy could be 
due to the systematic appearance of this type of collocation in their textbook, 
TWE2.  SV(O) wh-word collocations are mainly used in the TWE series to give 
instructions for the various tasks in the textbooks, e.g. "ask what the area code for 
Liverpool is" (TWE2:56), "find out why Sam went back to his home town" 
(TWE2:100).  TWE1, because it was designed for beginner levels, gives task 
instructions in Greek.  It is in TWE2 that instructions are given in English and a 
large amount of SV(O) wh-word collocations are included in the textbook.  Hence, 
the subjects in Group 2 had more exposure to SV(O) wh-word collocations 
compared with Group 1 students. 
 
Group 3 
 
 
After the 80% accuracy criterion was applied on the data for the 
implicational scaling analysis, the following accuracy order was evident for 
subjects in Group 3: