Collocations

Collocational Knowledge versus General Linguistic Knowledge among EFL

Introduction
One of the most important aspects of learning a language is learning the vocabulary of that language and its appropriate use. Since traditional techniques of learning vocabulary (the learning of individual words or memorizing bilingual vocabulary lists) appeared to be no longer tenable, researchers suggestedways for learning multiword phrases, chunks as well as association between lexical items. Anderson and Nagy (1991), for instance, accentuate the importance of deep meanings including collocational properties in words. Students need to know which words go with which other words, how words go together normally, and how we can manipulate these arrangements to make new meanings for ourselves. Nattingerand DeCarrico (1992) also report on the importance of prefabricated language chunks such as collocations and routinized formulas for language acquisition and use. Gitsaki and Taylor (1997) and Wray (2002) point out that an increase in the knowledge of collocations can result in better performance in the learner’s oral skills and even in reading speed.

Vocabulary knowledge involves considerablymore than just knowing the meanings of given words in isolation; it involves knowing the words that tend to co-occur with it. If collocational associations are not taught and learned as part of L2 vocabulary knowledge, the resulting irregularities will immediately mark the learners’ speech or writing as odd or non-native. Hoey (2005), for example, argues that non-native speakers behave differentlywith collocations than native speakers, in that the former group learns them in very restricted contexts. Compounding this problem is the fact that the frequency of particular combinations depends upon the genre in which each occurs. Grammatical and lexical collocations, like the accompaniments of nouns with other nouns, adjectives with nouns, verbs with other parts of speech, or many other suchcombinations, may all show different behavior. This study intends to shed light on this aspect of grammatical and lexical combinations of collocation.

Definitions of collocation
Defining collocation is a challenge, even though a number of definitions of collocations have been offered in the literature. Collocation is an expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to someconventional way of saying things, or in the words of Firth (1951): “collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word” (p. 194). A collocation is often defined as either a recurring combination of words that is often arbitrary, or just a recurring combination of a few words without emphasizing its arbitrariness (Sinclair, 1991, p. 123).

Classification oftypes of collocations
Collocations fall into two major groups: grammatical collocations and lexical collocations (Benson, Benson & Ilson, 1997, p. xx).

Grammatical collocations: Grammatical collocations consist of a noun, an adjective, or a verb plus a preposition or a grammatical structure such as an infinitive or a clause. Examples of grammatical collocations include; account for, advantageover, adjacent to, by accident, to be afraid that.

Lexical collocations: Lexical collocations consist of various combinations of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Lexical collocations, in contrast to grammatical collocations, do not contain prepositions, infinitives or clauses. Benson et al. (1997) distinguish several structural types of lexical collocations: verb+noun (inflict a wound,withdraw an offer), adjective+noun (a crushing defeat), noun+verb (storms rage), noun+noun (a world capital), adverb+adjective (deeply absorbed), verb+adverb (appreciate sincerely).

Review of the literature
Collocation has been investigated using three major approaches. The oldest, the lexical approach, goes back to Firth (1951), who holds that meaning by collocation is an “abstraction at the...