AN ANALYSIS OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY

FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

AN ANALYSIS OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY

FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

Shino KUROSAKI

DISSERTATION.COM

Boca Raton

An Analysis of the Knowledge and Use of English Collocations

by French and Japanese Learners

Copyright © 2012 Shino Kurosaki

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written

permission from the publisher.

Dissertation.com

Boca Raton, Florida

USA • 2013

ISBN-10: 1-61233-417-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-61233-417-2

Cover image by Galdzer/Bigstock.com

v

ABSTRACT

While it has been recognized that the use of collocations is significant for L2

learners, much research has not been carried out on the knowledge and use of

learner’s collocations. The present study investigated differences on the

knowledge and use of collocations between French and Japanese learners with

regard to: 1) L1 influence; and 2) combinability and transparency influence.

The test materials included four categories of the lexical collocations: 1)

verb + noun; 2) delexicalised verb + noun; 3) adjective + noun; and 4) adverb

+ adjective. The two types of tasks, Multiple Choice Question Tasks and

Translation Tasks, were performed, and the learner corpora were also investi-

gated in order to examine whether the learners from different L1 backgrounds

demonstrate different results.

Since both French and English belong to Indo-European background

languages, they share a number of cognate words. Thus, originally it was ex-

pected that L1 influence of the French learners would be higher in all of the

four lexical collocations than that of Japanese learners, who have

non-Indo-European backgrounds. Though L1 influence by both French and

Japanese learners was demonstrated, the Japanese learners showed a greater L1

influence in the [adjective + noun] category than the French learners. The

investigation also found that L1 influence does not necessarily result in accu-

racy of the collocations.

With regard to the combinability and transparency influence, the results

of the two types of tasks followed the previous remark made by Kellerman

(1978) who argues that L2 learners are unable to transfer words with figurative

meaning. However, some contrasted results were also identified in learner

corpus investigation. Thus the combinability and transparency influence were

not necessarily identified.

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

vi

The results of the present study have a potential to improve teach-

ing/learning of collocations through recognizing the learners’ tendencies of

learning collocations.

vii

CONTENTS

Abstract ........................................................................................................................ v

List of Tables ............................................................................................................ xiii

List of Figures ............................................................................................................ xv

Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations .................................................................. xvii

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. xix

Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................... 21 1.1 Background to the Study .................................................................................. 21

1.2 Aims of the Study .............................................................................................. 24

1.3 Outline of the Study .......................................................................................... 25

Chapter 2: What are Collocations?

Defining and Classifying Collocations ........................................................ 31

2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 31

2.2 Definitions and Characteristics of Collocations ............................................ 31

2.2.1 Scope of Collocations .................................................................................. 31

2.2.1.1 Frequency-based Approach ............................................................. 35

2.2.1.2 Phraseological Approach ................................................................. 37 2.2.2 Characteristics of Collocations ................................................................... 39

2.2.2.1 Combinability .................................................................................. 39

2.2.2.2 Transparency ................................................................................... 41

2.3 Collocations in the Present Study .................................................................... 46

2.3.1 Lexical and Grammatical Collocations ..................................................... 46

2.3.2 Target Collocations in the Present Study .................................................. 48

2.4 Summary ............................................................................................................. 49

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

viii

Chapter 3: Collocations in Second Language Acquisition ................... 51

3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 51

3.2 Collocations in Language Learning ................................................................. 52

3.2.1 Studies on Prefabs and Their Relevance to Collocations .......................... 52

3.2.2 Memory-based and Usage-Based Approaches .......................................... 54

3.3 Previous Research on the Use of Collocations by L2 Learners .................... 56

3.3.1 Syntactic, Lexical and Morphological Differences and

Commonalities between French/Japanese and English ..................................... 56

3.3.2 Research on French Learners of English ................................................... 60

3.3.3 Research on Japanese Learners of English ................................................ 63

3.3.4 Research on Learners with Other L1 Backgrounds ................................. 66

3.4 Summary ............................................................................................................. 74

Chapter 4: Research Questions and Data Collection Instruments ... 75

4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 75

4.2 Research Questions ........................................................................................... 75

4.3 Selection of Target Collocations ...................................................................... 77

4.3.1 Lexical Categories of Collocations ............................................................. 78

4.3.2 Collocation Types ....................................................................................... 79

4.4 Pilot Studies ........................................................................................................ 83

4.4.1 Pilot Study 1: L1 Speakers of English ....................................................... 83

4.4.2 Pilot Study 2: French L2 Learners ........................................................... 89

4.5 Participants and Procedure of MCQ and Translation Tasks ....................... 90

4.5.1 Participants ................................................................................................ 90

4.5.2 Procedure .................................................................................................... 93

4.6 Data Collection Instruments ............................................................................ 93

4.6.1 Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) Tasks ................................................. 94

4.6.2 Translation Tasks ...................................................................................... 97

4.6.3 Learner Corpus Investigation ................................................................... 99

4.7 Summary ........................................................................................................... 101

CONTENTS

ix

Chapter 5: Results and Analysis of

Multiple Choice Questions Tasks ............................................................... 103

5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 103

5.2 Overall Results of French and Japanese Learners ........................................ 104

5.3 Results of Chi Square Test ............................................................................. 106

5.4 Learners’ L1 Influence on the Collocations .................................................. 109

5.4.1 Category 1: [Verb + Noun] Collocations ............................................... 109

5.4.2 Category 2: [Delexicalised Verb + Noun] Collocations ......................... 113

5.4.3 Category 3: [Adjective + Noun] Collocations ........................................ 119

5.4.4 Category 4: [Adverb + Adjective] Collocations ..................................... 124

5.4.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 128

5.5 Combinability and Transparency Influence on the Collocations ............... 129

5.6 Summary ........................................................................................................... 131

Chapter 6: Results and Analysis of Translation Tasks ........................ 133

6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 133

6.2 Overall Results of French and Japanese Learners ........................................ 134

6.2.1 Classification of the Results ..................................................................... 134

6.2.2 Overall Results of Accuracy ..................................................................... 135

6.3 Learners’ L1 Influence on the Collocations .................................................. 138

6.3.1 Types of Errors ......................................................................................... 138

6.3.2 Category 1: [Verb + Noun] Collocations ............................................... 140

6.3.3 Category 2: [Delexicalised Verb + Noun] Collocations ......................... 144

6.3.4 Category 3: [Adjective + Noun] Collocations ........................................ 146

6.3.5 Category 4: [Adverb + Adjective] Collocations ..................................... 148

6.3.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 150

6.4 Combinability and Transparency Influence on the Collocations ............... 151

6.5 Summary ........................................................................................................... 155

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

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Chapter 7: Results and Analysis of Learner Corpora .......................... 157

7.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 157

7.2 Outline of the Learner Corpora ..................................................................... 157

7.3 Results of the Learner Corpora Investigation .............................................. 159

7.3.1 Results of the French Learner Corpus Investigation .............................. 159

7.3.2 Results of the Japanese Learner Corpus Investigation............................ 162

7.4 Analysis of the Results .................................................................................... 164

7.4.1 Learners’ L1 Influence on the Collocations ............................................ 164

7.4.2 Combinability and Transparency Influence on the Collocations ............ 167

7.5 Summary ........................................................................................................... 169

Chapter 8: Conclusion, Implications for Teaching

and Further Research ...................................................................................... 171

8.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 171

8.2 Summary of Findings ...................................................................................... 172

8.2.1 Learners’ L1 Influence on the Collocations ............................................ 172

8.2.2 Combinability and Transparency Influence on the Collocations ........... 175

8.3 Implications for Teaching Collocations ......................................................... 177

8.4 Suggestions for Further Research .................................................................. 178

8.5 Final Remarks ................................................................................................... 179

Chapter 9: Limitations of the Study .......................................................... 181

9.1 Relations of a Socio-cultural Dimension to the Linguistic Description of

Collocations ............................................................................................................. 181

9.1.1 The Diachrony of Transparency of Collocations .................................... 181

9.1.2 The Socio-cultural Dimension of Collocations ....................................... 182

9.1.3 Psycho-social Dimension of Collocation Use ........................................... 183

9.1.4 Sociolinguistic Factors Determining the Reference Corpus .................... 184

CONTENTS

xi

9.2 Relation of a Socio-cultural Dimension to the Learning Model and Learner

Profiles Presented ................................................................................................... 186

9.3 Future Directions ............................................................................................. 187

Bibliography ...............................................................................................189

Appendices

1. Selected Collocations before Pilot Study ........................................................ 209

2. Gap-Fill Questions for Native Speakers’ Pilot Study .................................... 213

3. Results of Pilot Study 1 ..................................................................................... 225

4. Multiple Choice Questions Tasks .................................................................... 241

5. Results of Multiple Choice Questions Tasks .................................................. 259

6. Translation Tasks ............................................................................................... 271

7. Results of Translation Tasks ............................................................................. 285

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Four Combinations of Lexical Collocations ........................................ 48

Table 2.2 Eight Target Groups of Collocations in the Study ............................. 49

Table 4.1 List of Collocations by Collocation Category and Criteria ................ 82

Table 4.2 Selected Collocations after Pilot Study 1 ............................................. 87

Table 5.1 Mean Scores of Overall Accuracy by Lexical Category .................... 105

Table 5.2 Comparison of Tasks No. 5: “read music” .......................................... 110

Table 5.3 Comparison of Tasks No. 13: “gain/get experiences” ........................ 111

Table 5.4 Comparison of Tasks No. 14: “meet/answer/satisfy the needs” ...... 112

Table 5.5 Comparison of Tasks No. 16: “keep records” ..................................... 114

Table 5.6 Comparison of Tasks No. 20: “do me a favour” ................................. 115

Table 5.7 Comparison of Tasks No. 21: “has the (same) effect” ....................... 116

Table 5.8 Comparison of Tasks No. 23: “keep/write a diary” ........................... 117

Table 5.9 Comparison of Tasks No. 27: “make/arrange an appointment” ...... 118

Table 5.10 Comparison of Tasks No. 29 “keeps/has good control” ................. 119

Table 5.11 Comparison of Tasks No. 34 “main meal” ........................................ 120

Table 5.12 Comparison of Tasks No. 37 “common sense”................................. 121

Table 5.13 Comparison of Tasks No. 38 “poor/bad health” ............................. 122

Table 5.14 Comparison of Tasks No. 39 “thick/heavy/dense fog” ................... 123

Table 5.15 Comparison of Tasks No. 40 “large/dense/high population” ....... 124

Table 5.16 Comparison of Tasks No. 50 “completely/entirely lost” ................. 125

Table 5.17 Comparison of Tasks No. 52 “fully/quite aware” ............................ 126

Table 5.18 Comparison of Tasks No. 54 “highly/extremely competent” ........ 127

Table 5.19 Comparison of Tasks No. 55 “heavily/deeply/

completely involved” ....................................................................................... 127

Table 5.20 Mean Scores of Overall Accuracy: [+ResComb, +Transp] and

[-ResComb, -Transp]Collocations ................................................................ 129

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

xiv

Table 5.21 Significant Differences found in two-way ANOVA ...................... 130

Table 6.1 Overall Accuracy of French and Japanese Learners

in Translation Tasks ........................................................................................ 136

Table 6.2 Distribution of Types of Errors, W/I Occurrences &

L1 likely Errors by the French and Japanese Learners

([Verb + Noun] collocations) ....................................................................... 141

Table 6.3 Distribution of Types of Errors, W/I Occurrences &

L1 likely Errors by the French and Japanese Learners

([Delexicalised Verb + Noun] collocations) ................................................ 144

Table 6.4 Distribution of Types of Errors, W/I Occurrences &

L1 likely Errors by the French and Japanese Learners

([Adjective + Noun] collocations) ................................................................ 147

Table 6.5 Distribution of Types of Errors, W/I Occurrences &

L1 likely Errors by the French and Japanese Learners

([Adverb + Adjective] collocations) ............................................................. 149

Table 6.6 Number of the Responses of Translation Tasks in the [+ResComb,

+Transp] and [-ResComb, -Transp]Groups of Collocations ................... 152

Table 7.1 Numbers of Texts and Words for French and

Japanese Learner Corpora .............................................................................. 158

Table 7.2 Raw Occurrences of Collocations by Lexical Category

(French Learners) ............................................................................................ 160

Table 7.3 Raw Occurrences of Target Collocations by Lexical Category

( Japanese Learners) ........................................................................................ 162

Table 7.4 Number of Occurrences by the [+ResComb, +Transp] and

[-ResComb, -Transp] ..................................................................................... 167

Table 8.1 Results of L1 Influence by French and Japanese Learners ............... 173

xv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Thesis Structure ..................................................................................... 29

Figure 2.1 Three Possible Combinations of Collocation Criteria ...................... 45

xvii

GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

BNC British National Corpus

CEFR Common European Framework of Reference

Collocation A type of two- to three- word combination in a

certain grammatical pattern, such as “verb+noun”,

which occurs frequently.

EAP English for Academic Purposes

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESL English as a Second Language

Formulaic Sequences A sequence of words which is prefabricated, which

contains from a few word sequences to a longer ones.

HKUST Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

ICLE International Corpus of Learner English

MCQ Multiple Choice Questions

NNS Non Native Speaker

NP Noun Phrase

NS Native Speakers

RC Restricted Collocation

SLA Second Language Acquisition

SPSS Statistical Package for Social Science

ULIP University of London Institute in Paris

xix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Noriko Iwasaki, for her pre-

cious guidance, substantial suggestions and constant encouragement. Noriko

has been an invaluable mentor especially in the last years of my study. Her

careful and thoughtful feedback has made a huge contribution to the quality

and presentation of my work. She has not only supported my work in the

middle of the course but also given me constant encouragement.

I am grateful to my former supervisors, Dr. David Horner and Mr. Dennis

Davy, for giving me the opportunity to study for a PhD. This thesis would not

have been possible without their helpful guidance.

I would like to show my gratitude to the late Dr. Johannes Eckerth who

gave me constructive suggestions and warm encouragement.

I owe my deepest gratitude to Professor Andrew Hussey, Director of In-

stitute in Paris, University of London, and Dr. Louise Lyle, who gave constant

and long-term support for my work.

My thanks go to the students who answered to the tasks and the teachers

who cooperated with the tasks for my work both in France and in Japan.

I am grateful to Professor Ginette Roy at University of Paris X, who

helped me to translate the tasks into French and gave me warm encouragement.

I would like to thank her for her generous help and kindness during my stay in

Paris.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my daughter, Shoko, for their

continuous support and encouragement. I am especially grateful to my hus-

band, Fumio, for sharing with me all the worries and anxieties that a PhD

brings.

21

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Over the past three decades, more and more researchers (Krashen & Scarcella

1978; Nattinger & DeCarrico 1992; Schmitt & Carter 2004; Wray 2002;

Read & Nation 2004) have focused on the importance of multiword unit of

language such as formulaic sequences, idioms, and collocations in L2 learning.

Multiword unit have been considered as widespread formula by L2 learners

(e.g. Fillmore 1976), and its importance that they are stored and processed

holistically has been discussed (e.g. Wray 2002). The empirical research has

been carried out, for example, on the processing of multiword unit. Jiang &

Nekrasova (2007) found that formulaic sequences are processed more quickly

and more accurately than non-formulaic sequences. In recent research on writ-

ten language, researchers use terms such as clusters, chunks or bundles to refer

to formulaic sequences common in written texts. One of types of formulaic

sequences, “lexical bundles”, which are one type of “multiword units that occur

most commonly in a given register” (Biber & Barbieri 2007) have recently been

studied, because they are important building blocks of discourse in spoken and

written registers and prevalent in university classroom teaching. They found

that lexical bundles are more prevalent in non-academic university registers

than in the instructional registers and more common in written course man-

agement than in spoken university registers. The studies on the use of formula-

ic language in speech were carried out (De Cock et al. 1998; Adolphs and

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

22

Durow 2004; Shin & Nation 2008) as well as those in writing (Granger 1998;

Nesselhauf 2005; Webb & Kagimoto 2009). With regard to the written lan-

guage, according to one of the previous studies (Hyland 2008), the frequent

formulaic sequences used in the creation of academic discourse differ between

disciplines.

The studies on another types of formulaic sequences, collocations, have

been performed (e.g.: Nesselhauf 2003, 2004; Read 2000; Schmitt and Carter

2004; Wray 2002) and the empirical research has consequently been carried

out with their implications for the classroom teaching of lexis1. With regard to

collocations in L2 learning, the use and learning of collocations seems im-

portant, for example, for the construct of an advanced L2 user who will be able

to use English at an academic setting. In order to become a fluent bilingual, the

use of collocations is crucial because of their pervasiveness in the L2 language.

The past research has been implemented mainly through the analysis of

the types of collocations by using either written or spoken corpora so far. For

example, Nation (2001) who drew up a table for listing the most frequent two-

to five-word collocations occurring in the Brown Corpus demonstrated that

the number of collocations occurring fifty times or more in the million word

corpus is found much more in the two adjacent items than three- to five- adja-

cent items. From a teaching point of view, he argued that frequent collocations

deserve attention in the classroom if their frequency is equal to or higher than

other high-frequency words. Kilgarrif (1997) studied the frequencies of some

multiword items (two- to three-words) in the British National Corpus (BNC)

and found that the most frequent items marked as collocations in the BNC are

counted as many as 2000.

Moreover, research into the relationships between collocations and the

problems of learners of ESL (English as a Second Language) / EFL (English as

a Foreign Language) were performed (e.g. Bahns 1993; Bahns & Eldaw 1993;

1 For example, Lewis (2002) indicates some tips for teaching collocations for L2 learners.

INTRODUCTION

23

Biskup 1992; Chi, et al. 1994; Durrant & Schmitt 2009; Farghal & Obiedat

1995; Miyakoshi 2009; Yamashita & Jiang 2010). Among them, Nesselhauf

(2005) who investigated a learner written corpus of advanced German learners

of English focused on the deviations in the use of collocations including verbs.

She analysed various types of deviational use in collocations and discussed the

use of L2 elements, L1 influence and intralinguistic factors such as the degree

of combinability restriction of a collocation. Out of more than 2,000 verb-noun

collocations, a quarter was found to be wrong, a third deviant. Deviation was

found not only in the verbs but also in other elements of the collocations

(nouns, determiners, etc.) and in the use of collocations as wholes. She argued

that there are two important factors affecting the German learners’ colloca-

tions: 1) congruence between their L1 equivalents in collocations and the L2;

2) the degree of restriction of a collocation, i.e. whether a verb in a collocation

is restricted to a few numbers of nouns or not. The German learners were more

susceptible to deviation in the collocations which were not congruent to their

L1 and less restricted in combinability.

On the other hand, the types and subjects of previous studies on L2 learn-

ers’ use of collocations have been limited. Previous studies discuss two types of

characteristics which define collocations, i.e. combinability and transparency,

one of which has been included in the empirical study but another one, trans-

parency, has been neglected. Also, while the studies on collocations including

verbs and nouns have been the main focus of the previous studies, there were

not many studies on collocations consisting of other elements, such as adjective

and adverbs. The subjects who have been studied previously were mainly L2

learners with Indo-European L1 backgrounds and the studies on L2 learners

with non-Indo-European backgrounds have been scarce. Moreover, the learner

data previously have been mainly either translation or the use of learner corpus.

The study using multiple types of tasks given to learners of different L1 back-

grounds on the several groups of collocations has never been performed.

USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS BY FRENCH AND JAPANESE LEARNERS

24

Thus, the present study classified collocations based on two characteristics,

combinability and transparency, in combination. The target collocations in-

clude four types of collocations, such as [verb + noun], [delexicalised verb +

noun], [adjective + noun] and [adverb + adjective], which are examined with

regard to the French and Japanese learners who have different L1 backgrounds.

1.2 Aims of the Study

Based on the above-mentioned backgrounds, the research in this thesis there-

fore analyses collocations by means of the following classifications.

Firstly, a new framework in defining collocations is provided, based on

combinability and transparency of words. Then, the present study tries to

classify collocations based on the two categories, combinability and transpar-

ency of words, which have often been partially discussed (See for example,

Howarth 1996) but have not actually put into practice in the experimental

study of collocations.

Combinability refers to the restrictedness with different words in a colloca-

tion. For example, in a collocation “make/take a decision”, “make” and “take” are

both combined with “a decision”, and there are two possibilities of verbs to

combine with a noun, “a decision”. Thus, it is not restricted in the possibility of

combining with different words, which are shown as [- Restricted Combinabil-

ity]. When the word in a collocation has only one possibility in combining with

other words, it is referred to as [+ Restricted Combinability].

Transparency can be expressed as figurativeness of the words in a colloca-

tion. It means whether the elements of the combination and the combination

itself have a literal or a non-literal meaning. [+ Transparency] means the collo-

cation has a literal meaning, while [-Transparency] refers that the collocation

has a non-literal meaning. Despite the ambiguity of deciding: 1) the differences

between [+Restricted Combinability] and [-Restricted Combinability]; 2) the

differences between [+Transparency] and [-Transparency], the present study

INTRODUCTION

25

attempts to provide an original framework in classifying collocations in order to

bring out new findings of L2 learners’ knowledge and use of collocations.

Secondly, the present study examines the knowledge and use of English col-

locations of different L1 backgrounds, i.e. French and Japanese learners. Among

the previous studies of L2 learners’ knowledge of collocations, past research has

not been carried out as to compare two groups of learners with different L1

backgrounds. The present study chooses French and Japanese L2 learners to

investigate how the knowledge and use of collocations are demonstrated by

learners of different L1 backgrounds. Their L1s are not only different but also

belong to different typological language groups: French as one of the In-

do-European background languages and Japanese as one of the non-Indo- Eu-

ropean languages.

Based on the above, the aim of the study is to investigate the differences of

L1 inferences and the combinability and transparency influence of collocations

between the L2 learners from different L1 backgrounds. The research ques-

tions in the present study are:

1) How different is the French and Japanese learners’ L1 influence in their

responses to the tasks in the present study?

2) How different are the French and Japanese learners’ responses to the tasks

in the present study depending on the two combinations of combinability

and semantic transparency of collocations, i.e. [+Restricted Combinability,

+Transparency] and [-Restricted Combinability, -Transparency]?

1.3 Outline of the Study

As shown in Figure 1.1, the present study is composed of nine chapters.

Following this introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 provides a thorough

overview of how to define collocation, an area where many previous vague

definitions have made the concept elusive. In order to discuss the scope of

collocation in the present study, two major approaches to collocation, i.e. fre-