Chapter 1 the study of collocations

6.2  Directions for Further Research 
 
 
This study used syntactic structures in defining and operationalising 
collocational knowledge, which is traditionally considered an area of lexical 
acquisition.  The results suggest that defining collocational types syntactically is a 
valid approach in the examination of collocational development, especially with 
grammatical collocations.  The description of the acquisition of lexical collocations, 
however, requires further refinement using semantic information.  As it has 
already been mentioned in the discussion of the results (Chapter 5), lexical 
collocations are syntactically simple, i.e. they are usually combinations of two 
words such as Verb Noun, Adjective Prep, Noun Prep, Verb Adverb, but their 
acquisition is influenced by other factors.  For example, lexical collocations that 
belonged to the same collocation type were found to vary in difficulty, e.g. subjects 
had more difficulties with the collocation ’think highly’ than with ’work hard’ even 
though both collocations belonged to the same collocation type, Verb Adverb.  
’Think highly’ is more idiomatic than ’work hard’ and as such it was more difficult 
for the ESL learners in this study.  Future researchers should be aware that the 
acquisition of syntactic forms is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the 
development of collocational knowledge, especially with regard to lexical 
collocations. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The translation test revealed strong differences in the development of 
collocational knowledge between and within proficiency levels.  One of the 
advantages of translation, as opposed to a blank-filling test, is that it enables the 
testing of grammatical collocations as well as lexical ones.  However, translation 
has proved to be difficult for both beginning and more advanced L2 learners.  
Furthermore, there is evidence that it promotes L1 interference in the students' 
production.  Future research on collocations should take the above limitations into 
account before deciding on the use of a translation test. 
 
The blank-filling test for this study contained more lexical than grammatical 
collocations, mainly because grammatical collocations are more difficult to test in a 
blank-filling test.  For example, testing SVO to O collocations in a blank-filling test 
creates the problem of where to put the blank space without making the 
collocation too general or too obvious.  Even though the blank-filling test showed 
that most of the differences in accuracy reflect language proficiency, the accuracy 
orders were weak.  This could be due to the fact that the majority of the test items 
tested lexical collocations.  Lexical collocations, as already discussed above, are 
influenced by semantic factors as well as syntactic ones.  Therefore, the students' 
performance on the blank-filling test was not consistent enough to produce a 
reliable accuracy order, as the students' accuracy of responses reflected not only 
their knowledge of the particular collocational type, but also which particular 
words were required for the particular lexical collocations.  Research on 
collocations is in need of a reliable instrument to elicit information on a wider 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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range of collocational knowledge.  For example, future research might examine the 
development of collocational knowledge in a two-fold way, i.e. development with 
respect to lexical collocations, controlling collocations for formality, frequency of 
occurrence and idiomaticity, and development with respect to grammatical 
collocations, controlling for grammatical complexity.  
 
Although the present study did not set out to determine the extent to which 
syllabuses influence the acquisition and the rate of  acquisition of collocations, it 
has provided evidence that the frequency of occurrence of collocations in L2 
textbooks influences their acquisition (see Long 1988).  That is, the more students 
were exposed to a particular collocation type, the more they used it accurately.  
Future research can test this result by controlling for number of exposures to given 
collocations in an experimental condition.  One question of interest is how much 
exposure to collocations accounts for acquisition orders.  This would help identify 
the optimal instruction conditions leading to the acquisition of collocations (see 
also Chaudron 1988; Sheen 1994).  Also, it will be useful to determine whether 
instruction can change the order of acquisition, i.e. whether emphasis of exposure 
on some types of collocation will produce a change in the acquisition orders 
obtained in this study, or whether classroom instruction affects only the rate of 
acquisition but not the order of acquisition of collocations (see also Ellis 1989).  
Long (1988) also underscores the need for research on collocational ability 
achievable with and without instruction. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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In this study, essay writing revealed a number of interesting results with 
respect to the use of collocations.  Subjects were controlled with respect to 
variables such as age, formal education, English proficiency, first language 
background, and knowledge of vocabulary.  Unlike previous studies on 
collocations, subjects in the present study were tested on their knowledge of 
collocations already taught to them.  The collocations included in the translation 
and the blank-filling tests were taken from the subjects' textbooks.  This ensured 
that the subjects were tested on knowledge of collocations already presented to 
them.  The topics of the essays were also chosen with the subjects' textbooks in 
mind.  This ensured that subjects from all proficiency levels could perform 
successfully in the essay composition and produce those collocations that they had 
acquired and felt comfortable with using.  However, the use of specific topics has 
been shown to promote the use of specific collocation types, such as a large 
number of SVc and Adjective Noun constructions in the essays by subjects in Group 
1.  Future research could investigate the performance of different proficiency levels 
in essay writing, using the same topic for all proficiency levels.  In this way, any 
influences of the essay topic on the use of collocations would be equal for all levels. 
 
The present study has concentrated on accuracy in the use and knowledge 
of collocations.  The analysis of collocational errors was not part of this study.  
However, future research could investigate the misuse of collocations by L2 
learners, the possible causes leading to collocational errors, and ways to remedy 
them.  The use of a corpus-based dictionary could also provide future researchers 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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with information as to whether collocational misuse is greater with infrequent 
collocations or not.  Note that the BBI does not provide frequency information. 
 
Further research is also needed on how collocational knowledge develops in 
native speakers of English.  Such information can be used to compare the routes of 
development by L2 learners and native speakers in the acquisition of English 
collocations.  Also, research in the development of collocational knowledge by 
learners from different L1 backgrounds would reveal whether the accuracy orders 
found in this study are L1-neutral.  A comparison of the collocational errors would 
yield important information about the extent of the influence of L1 in the 
development of collocational knowledge in L2 learners.  
 
The classification system used in this study has proved to be useful for a 
systematic categorisation of the collocations found in the students' essays.  Some 
types, though, need some fine-tuning.  For example, Type 15. SVO to Infinitive , as 
it is used in the BBI, implies that the object of the main verb is the subject of the 
infinitive, e.g. 'she told him to leave'.  There can be cases, though, in which the 
subject of the main verb is also the subject of the infinitive, e.g. 'she used the knife 
to cut the bread'.  In the present study both examples would be classified under the 
same type.  However, future research could use a different type of collocation for 
the second example, e.g. 'SVO to Inf O' or 'SVO to Inf NP' (NP = Noun Phrase).  
Such fine-tuning may yield more sensitive differences in collocational performance 
among learners from different language proficiency levels. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Studies on collocations to date have concentrated on written data.  It would 
be interesting also to investigate L2 learners' use of collocations in oral production. 
 By using the classification system employed by the present study, L2 learners' oral 
production data could be analysed in a similar way to reveal acquisition orders 
and development of collocational knowledge.  These orders could then be 
compared with the ones found in this study and reveal helpful information as to 
whether collocational knowledge in L2 writing and speech develop in similar or 
different ways. 
 
The above are selected directions for future research on collocations.  The 
development of collocational knowledge in L2 learners is far from being 
exhaustively described.  More work is needed in the area of lexical acquisition both 
for theoretical and pedagogical reasons as it has proved to be a profitable avenue 
for inquiry in the study of L2 acquisition.