Collocation   

 

 

 

   

 

Collocation is the way in which some words are often used together. A collocation is a particular combination of words used in this way: "Commit a crime" is a typical collocation in English. (Longman Advanced American Dictionary)

 

 

 

Common patterns of collocation include:

verb + noun (fly a kite)adjective + noun (a light snowfall)adverb + verb (to boldly go)adverb + adjective (totally different)adjective + preposition (similar to)noun + noun (a collocation dictionary) 

Jimmie Hill offers the following schema for pointing out collocations to students (in Lewis, M., 2000: 63): 

Unique collocations. E.g. foot the bill; shrug your shoulders. (These are unique because foot (as a verb) and shrug are not used with any other nouns.)

Strong collocations. Trenchant criticism, rancid butter. (There are other things that can be

trenchant or rancid, but very few.)

Weak collocations. A tall woman, a red shirt, an expensive car, a loud noise. (These combinations are entirely predictable to most students and not worth focussing on.)

Medium-strength collocations. Hold a conversation, a major operation, expensive tastes, a loud shirt. (Note that words such as expensive and loud can form both weak and medium-strength collocations.)Hill argues that it is the medium-strength collocations which are most important for the ESL classroom.

 

Expression. A word or phrase that is used to express a particular idea or feeling. You use the expression "break a leg" to wish an actor good luck.

Idiom. A group of words that has a special meaning that is different from the ordinary meaning of each separate word.

Idiomatic. 1. An idiomatic phrase or expression has a special meaning that is different from the ordinary meaning of each separate word.

2. If language is idiomatic, it is typical of the natural way in which someone using their own language speaks or writes. Their books are translated into idiomatic English.

Lexical Approach. The name given by Michael Lewis and his associates to the lexis/collocation-focussed theories and procedures developed in The Lexical Approach, Implementing the Lexical Approach, Teaching Collocation, and numerous textbooks published by LTP.

Lexical Phrases. Nattinger and DeCarrico define lexical phrases as "'chunks' of language of varying lengths, phrases like as it were, on the other hand, as X would have us believe, and so on. As such, they are multi-word lexical phenomena that exist somewhere between the traditional poles of lexicon and syntax, conventionalized form/function composites that occur more frequently and have more idiomatically determined meaning than language that is put together each time." (Nattinger and DeCarrico 1992:1) Other terms with similar meaning include multi-word lexical units, multi-word items, lexical chunks, lexicalized sentence stems, and ready-made (complex) units. "Lexical phrase" is also the term used most recently by Schmitt (2000) in Vocabulary in Language Teaching.

Lexis. All the words and phrases in a language.

Phrasal verb. Two or more words including a verb and adverb or preposition which are used together as a verb and have a different meaning from the verb alone. In the sentence "The rocket blew up," "blew up" is a phrasal verb. Phrasal verbs may or may not be idiomatic.

Phrase. 1. A group of words that are often used together and that have a special meaning. Darwin gave the world the phrase "Survival of the fittest."

2. A group of words without a main verb that together make a subject, an object or a verb tense. In the sentence, "Sarah was wearing old grey sneakers," "old grey sneakers" is a noun phrase.

 

 

 

 

A brief introduction to basic terminology used on our web pages and by people interested in teaching lexically. Unless otherwise indicated, definitions are from, or based on, the Longman Advanced American Dictionary.

 

 

 

Source : http://www.eli.ubc.ca/teachers/resources/lexicon/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collocation 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to concentrate in this article on the problems non-native speakers may have with English vocabulary use - in particular with the appropriate combinations of words. This is an aspect of language called collocation. An example of collocation that many learners of English may be familiar with is the different adjectives that are used to describe a good-looking man and a good-looking woman. We talk of a beautiful woman and of a handsome man, but rarely of a beautiful man or a handsome woman.

(It is quite possible, in fact, to describe a woman as handsome. However, this implies that she is not beautiful at all in the traditional sense of female beauty, but rather that she is mature in age, has large features and a certain strength of character. Similarly, a man could be described as beautiful, but this would usually imply that he had feminine features. Calling a man pretty is most often done perjoratively to suggest effeminacy.)

In another familiar example of collocation, we talk of high mountains and tall trees, but not of tall mountains and high trees. Similarly a man can be tall but never high (except in the sense of being intoxicated!), whereas a ceiling can only be high, not tall. A window can be both tall or high, but a tall window is not the same as a high window. We get old and tired, but we go bald or grey. We get sick but we fall ill. A big house, a large house and a great house have the same meaning, but a great man is not the same as a big man or a large man. You can make a big mistake or a great mistake, but you cannot make a large mistake. You can be a little sad but not a little happy. We say very pleased and very tiny, but we do not say very delighted or very huge. And so on - there are endless examples of this kind of difficulty!

The problem for the learner of English is that there are no collocation rules that can be learned. The native English speaker intuitively makes the correct collocation, based on a lifetime 뭩 experience of hearing and reading the words in set combinations. The non-native speaker has a more limited experience and may frequently collocate words in a way that sounds odd to the native speaker.

Here are some questions to test your knowledge of collocations:

What is the difference between a high window and a tall window? Look at the following pairs of phrases and in each case choose the most usual

collocation: 

o strong tea / powerful teao a strong car / a powerful caro a strong computer / a powerful computero a strong drug /a powerful drug

  Now look at the following words and phrases and decide if we do them or make them.

For example, do we do a mess or make a mess? 

a mess a mistake the housework the bedsa noise a wish a test a promisea job someone a favour your best a speechthe shopping damage a telephone call your hair (i.e. comb it or make it tidy

Finally some odds and ends. See if you know the correct collocations in answer to the following questions?

The opposite of strong tea is weak tea. What is the opposite of strong cigarettes, a strong wind, a strong smell?

What is the usual way of describing someone who smokes a lot? 

o a big smokero a strong smokero a hard smokero a heavy smokero a furious smoker

  Someone can be very tired, but not very awake or very asleep. What do we say instead? What is the opposite of sweet wine? Which of the following are the usual collocations?

 o completely beautifulo incredibly beautifulo absolutely beautifulo extremely beautifulo totally beautifulo utterly beautiful

o thoroughly beautiful 

The following collocations are incorrect. Can you sort them out?o to get in a buildingo to get on a caro to go in a ship

More on collocation

 

Answers

A high window is a window that is located a long way from the ground, whereas a tall window measures a long way from top to bottom.

We talk of strong tea, a powerful car and a powerful computer. A drug can be both strong and powerful.

These are the usual collocations with make or do: 

make a mess make a mistake do the housework make or do the bedsmake a noise make a wish do a test make a promise

do a jobdo someone a favour

do your best make a speech

do the shopping

do damagemake a telephone call

do your hair (i.e. comb it or make it tidy

Odds and ends. Here are the usual collocations:o mild cigarettes, a light wind, a faint smello a heavy smokero wide awake; sound asleep or fast asleepo dry wineo to get in a car; to get on a ship; to go in a buildingo incredibly beautiful; extremely beautiful (and possibly: utterly beautiful)

 

 

 

A question from a site visitor

 

 

 

 

 

Source : http://www.fis.edu/eslweb/esl/parents/easy/colloc.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is collocation? 

 

 

 

 

Language and lexis

When I first started teaching English, we were encouraged to think of grammar as the bones of the language and vocabulary as the flesh to be added. We now know that language consists largely of pre-fabricated chunks of lexis. That 'skeleton image' has been consigned proverbially to the cupboard. A central feature of lexis is collocation, an idea that for the first 15 years of my career in ELT I hardly gave a moment's thought to, but for the past 10 has come to play a more and more central part in my thinking about English, the classroom, materials, and methodology. I am not alone. The work of John Sinclair, Dave Willis, Ron Carter, Michael McCarthy, Michael Lewis, and many others, have all contributed to the way teachers today think about lexis and what it means for their teaching.

 

 

 

 

 

What is collocation?

Collocation is a feature of all languages. At its simplest, according to Rutherford, collocation is 'what goes together with what'. I like to define it as 'the way words occur together in predictable ways. 'We are not surprised if we hear someone speak of an utter disaster or if we read of a shady deal. Although we are familiar with the use of shady with nouns like place, or corner, we are not surprised by its metaphorical use with deal. Language is intrinsically metaphorical. Knowing the word shady involves knowing the range of words it can collocate with. Driving into London recently, I passed a road safety poster with a picture of a tombstone. The caption was If you go fast, you'll go fast. This must be a mystery to foreign visitors who do not know the collocation go fast meaning die in a short space of time. For teachers who are familiar with the huge impact of corpus linguistics, these observations are obvious, but it is important to remember that for many teachers worldwide the word is still the basic unit of language. Corpus linguistics has taught us the importance of looking at natural language in large enough quantities to see recurring patterns of lexis. You might like to re-read this article so far and underline all the groups of words which occur in predictable combinations. For example, encouraged to think, a central feature, for the first X years of my career, a moment's thought, has come to play a more and more central part in my thinking, road safety, huge impact, etc. 

Is this new?

Of course not! Even if the word 'collocation' is new to students and to some teachers, the problem is as old as language learning itself. How often do students ask Can you say X? - If we can say both It's nice to get out into the open/fresh air, why can't we say "I need a breath of open air"? And if we can say 'an open-air restaurant', why not then 'a fresh-air restaurant'? We have all smiled at the menu with cow tail soup or the student who talked about silly cow disease. We are familiar with the concept of communicative competence, but perhaps we should add the concept of collocational competence to our thinking. Any analysis of students' speech or writing shows a lack of this collocational competence. Lack of competence in this area forces students into grammatical mistakes because they create longer utterances because they do not know the collocations which express precisely what they want to say. A student could easily invent the cumbersome His disability is forever because they lack the adj + noun collocation, he has a permanent disability. Analysis of students' essay writing often shows a serious lack of collocational competence with the English 'de-lexicalised' verbs: get, put, make, do, bring, take. Students with good ideas often lose marks because they don't know the four or five most important collocates of a key word that is central to what they are writing about. 

Different kinds of collocation

A collocation can be made up of two or more words:verb + noun make a mistakeadj + noun heavy trafficadv + verb totally misunderstandadv + adj extremely generousadj + prep guilty of ....ingnoun + noun a ceasefire agreement

Collocations can be much longer. For example: adv + verb + adj + noun + prep + noun = seriously affect the political situation in (Northern Ireland).

When analysing text we often find that collocations of 5 or 6 words are common. Looking with an open mind at text we are immediately persuaded to stop thinking in terms of individual words. ELT has always recognised two types of collocation where the patterns have been clear - idioms and phrasal verbs. Everything falling outside those two categories used to be conveniently but confusingly labelled 'idiomatic'. Some of the lexical categories which Michael Lewis proposes in Implementing the Lexical Approach help us to think more coherently about lexis from a student's point of view.

1. Unique collocations

It is useful to think of collocation on a cline from probably unique / fixed / strong to flexible/weak. I say 'probably' unique advisedly since all native speakers know that as soon as

they say that X does not exist, they find it said or written within 24 hours! I have often given the example leg room (meaning the distance between two seats in, for example, a plane) in talks and maintained that leg space was not possible. I have recently learned that the correct technical term in the airline industry is, in fact, leg space. In her 1998 Iatefl plenary talk Gwyneth Fox of Cobuild pointed out the uniqueness in their corpus of foot used as a verb in the collocation foot the bill. We cannot imagine footing the invoice, or footing the coffee. Similarly, we shrug our shoulders, but no other part of our anatomy.

2. Strong collocations

A large number of collocations, although not unique, are strong or very strong. Predictably, we may talk of trenchant criticism or rancid butter, but this does not mean that other things cannot be trenchant or rancid. We often have ulterior motives or harbour grudges while being reduced to tears or even moved to tears. Such strong collocations are not unique, but it is clear that any knowledge of the words trenchant, rancid, motive, grudge, or tears would be incomplete without some idea of their strong collocates. The new corpus-based dictionaries often contain information about strong collocations, but they remain patchy in the quantity and quality of that information.

3. Weak collocations

All elementary students create combinations of words which are on the verge of the area we define as 'collocation' ie those words which co-occur with 'a greater than random frequency.' Many things can be long or short, cheap or expensive, good or bad. Colours are a good example. Early on, students learn the primary colours. They are able to make combinations such as blue shirt, red car etc. They know that they can apply the colours in English in a similar way to their own language. The picture is not as simple as that, but for most teaching purposes we pretend that it is. However, there is something 'more predictable', and, therefore collocational, about the following examples: a white shirt, white wine, red wine, red hair, black hair, a blue film, a yellow submarine. Similarly, most teachers would agree that the adjective good is not very interesting from a teaching point of view. It can be applied to anything - a meal, a journey, a government. But notice the strength of the following collocations containing good:It'll take you a good hour.Oh, he's a good age.He'll do it in his own good time.

We need to recognise that even simple words have many uses and make sure that students are aware of their more predictable collocations.

4. Medium-strength collocations

The main learning load for all language users is not at the strong or weak ends of the collocational spectrum, but in the middle - those many thousands of collocations which make up the greater part of what we say and write. Most intermediate students will know the words hold and conversation, but may not know that you can hold a conversation. They know the words make and mistake, but have not stored make a mistake in their mental lexicons as a single item. When thinking of this huge area, it is useful to think of the average 'Sun reader', ie a native speaker often of less education, and in language terms we assume with a 'smaller vocabulary' than the 'Times reader', the so-called educated native speaker. Native speakers with smaller vocabularies are collocationally competent with what they have and this makes them able to function perfectly adequately in most normal situations. I speculate that native speakers with a total vocabulary of 5,000 words can function with no problems as long as they are collocationally competent with those 5000. This then explains why learners with even 'good vocabularies' still have problems. They may know a lot of words, but their collocational competence with them is very limited. I have come to the view that the main thrust of vocabulary teaching (and I mean classroom teaching) at intermediate level and above should be to increase students' collocational competence with their basic vocabulary while stressing on them the need to acquire more new words on their own. I wonder if you agree with me that a nomadic tribe is a strong collocation because nomadic collocates with a limited number of nouns. A big flat is a weak collocation and not very interesting for us as teachers. He's recovering from a major operation is a complex medium-strength collocation. You could argue that there are three collocations present: recover from, a major operation, and the whole expression recover from a major operation. Each individual word may be known to students, but they probably won't know the whole collocation. They are more likely to say: My father - he's getting better - he had a big operation. Full marks for communicating meaning, but more of an effort for both speaker and listener. It is this area of medium-strength collocation which is missing from all traditional ELT dictionaries.

Collocation as shorthand

You may very well look at this last example and ask why the student needs to learn to say something the way native speakers say it? Why not just make it up? The answer is obvious. Collocation is the key to fluency. This cannot be over-emphasised. Much current fluency teaching concentrates on getting students talking. This is futile if students haven't had enough input in chunks, which they can call on when needed. What happens in such lessons is that students are merely exposed to the low-quality output of other students. We need to place a much greater emphasis on good-quality written and spoken input at lower levels than is currently the case. Native speakers can only speak at the speed they speak because they are calling on a vast repertoire of ready-made language in their mental lexicons. Similarly, they can listen at the speed of speech and read quickly because they are constantly recognising used chunks'. I often say in lectures that the main difference between me and a non-native speaker is that I have met more English. This enables me to process and produce language at a much faster rate than the average student. Typical intermediate student speech is laboured, one word at a time, and using simple vocabulary to express both simple and complicated ideas. The more exposure students have to

good quality input and the more awareness they develop of the lexical nature of language, the more they will recognise and eventually produce longer chunks themselves. Fluency is a natural consequence of a larger and more phrasal mental lexicon.

The pronunciation pay-off

Because students create most of what they say from the individual words they know, their pronunciation, stress, and intonetion, can be difficult for the listener. The great added bonus to knowing a large number of collocations and other longer expressions is that we learn the stress pattern as a whole when we meet the item. The more longer lexical items students know, the better their stress and intonation will be. The more and bigger the lexical items students know, the more brain-space they have to think about the content of what they are saying. There are immediate methodological implications. Teachers should read texts aloud in class so that students hear the text correctly chunked. In class we should do no unseen reading aloud and less silent reading. The reason students find unseen reading so difficult is because they don't recognise the chunks. They read every word as if it were separate from every other word. During silent reading students may be chunking totally wrongly. And mis-chunking matters. Students cannot store items in their brain correctly if they have not identified them correctly. They cannot then retrieve them. Correctly understood, and stored lexical items should be available for immediate use. I will always remember a lecture at TESOL France some years ago when Michael Swan asked me to read a poem to his audience in Scots - a language similar in structure to English, but with enough significant differences in vocabulary to make it only partially comprehensible. Because I was able to read the poem meaningfully, ie chunking it correctly, the audience all laughed in the correct places. In one sense they 'understood' the poem while not understanding a large proportion of the individual words. Most teachers will have had the experience of watching and enjoying a Shakespeare play. Few will understand fully the nuances of Shakespeare's language. The actors, however, speak the lines, correctly, therefore meaningfully, chunked for us. Says who? We know collocations because we have met them. They are part of what David Brazil has called 'used language' which native speakers meet and on which they base their own language. We then retrieve them from our mental lexicon just as we pull out a telephone number or address. We remember them. We must be aware that collocation is intrinsic to all natural native speaker language.

Role of memory in language

ELT has not given sufficient thought to this idea. Every native speaker parent knows how children love to hear the same rhymes and stories night after night to the extent that they can say the rhymes and tell the stories themselves. As adults we all have a huge store of memorised text in our heads, ranging from poetry, addresses, telephone numbers, proverbs, idioms, sayings, clich?, to catch phrases and jokes. Most often we have made no attempt to learn these items. Having them is part of what we mean by being a native speaker. How do I know lead on Macduff, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, flavour of the month, free gratis and for nothing,

each and every one of us, don't forget the fruit gums Mum, and even That's the way the cookie crumbles? I may never use them. Indeed, I may be allergic to anyone who does use them! The fact of the matter (a good example of one!) is that every native speaker has a vast store of these obviously fixed expressions. We have an even bigger store of collocations, ready for use when required.

Density of collocation

Any analysis of naturally-occurring text shows how densely collocations occur. While it can be difficult to define the boundaries of a collocation, every text I have analysed has 7 out of 10 words occurring in some kind of collocation. Even if the figure was 50% it would have serious consequences for comprehension and choice of text. There are immediate classroom implications for how we deal with texts. We should be asking students to predict collocations which are in the text by identifying and gapping them. We should be asking students to notice and underline useful ones, and we should be encouraging them to store them in their notebooks in some retrievable way along with the L1 equivalent of the whole collocation. In other words, making sense of text involves not only understanding new items, it involves the ability to identify collocations.

Collocation and meaning

Every word has a collocational field ie that range of other words with which it collocates. Very often the difference between words of similar meaning is defined partly by their different collocational fields. For example, how many teachers have tried to explain the difference between wound and injury? They do share collocates (nasty, fatal, serious etc), but some are very strong (internal injury, but bullet, stab, knife, gunshot, self-inflicted, gaping, deep wound). It seems that when we have checked the meaning of a word in a conventional dictionary, we have only started on the process of knowing it.

The issues

Although I meet many teachers who are trying to incorporate lexical ideas into their teaching, it seems that what we now know about the nature of English lexis, and collocation in particular, raises important issues for us all.

1. It is clear that lexis should be one of the central organising principles of our syllabus. Unfortunately, grammar still rules, and sentence grammar at that!

2. The vocabulary learning load is much much greater than we used to think - words, collocations, multi-word items, and expressions. This suggests that educated native speakers

have many hundreds of thousands of items stored in their mental lexicons. This forces a radical re-think of the present, practice, produce paradigm. It should force us to think more about input and, in particular, quantity of input. It should make us question what the role of the language teacher is. Instead of being language practisers, we should be language providers.

3. It is clear that we need different strategies for vocabulary learning at different stages of learning, both in and outside the classroom. Beginners need words, simple collocations, and some expressions. In class intermediate students need collocational competence with the words they know; outside class they need to be increasing their store of new words. Advanced students need more and better strategies to build on what they know while vastly increasing the number of words they meet outside the classroom. With the learning and memory load so much higher than we ever imagined, we need to give more thought to how best to manage learning in class.

4. We need to develop techniques to help students record and store lexis in ways which will enable them to retrieve what they want and to revise for examinations. Every student needs to become a 'lexis collector'.

5. The language of many current textbooks and Ministry syllabuses is at odds with our current understanding of language and how it is acquired. There is no point in teachers changing their classroom practice if their students then fail their examinations.

6. What are the implications for reference books? It is clear that conventional dictionaries cannot give all the information necessary about collocation. At the same time translation can be important when dealing with collocation and other kinds of lexical item. A fresh look needs to be taken at bilingual dictionaries.

7. We need to start thinking how this will affect examinations. Clearly, it is easier to test the present perfect continuous than 'collocation'. Given the size of the mental lexicon, is it even fair to attempt to test it? Who chooses which items are tested? Why those and not others?

8. There are clear implications for translation. It should not have been discarded. Many students have to do it. It is essential in much business English and ESP. Lexis is an area where literal translation is often impossible. A collocation in English may be totally different in Spanish or Japanese. The unique skills of the non-native speaking teacher must be recognised in this area.

9. There are obvious implications for grammar in the classroom. Greater emphasis on lexis must mean less emphasis on grammar. Accuracy must be treated as a late-acquired skill. Greater emphasis on 'larger chunks' of language also means that grammar and vocabulary merge into one another. The dividing line is much less clear cut than teachers and textbooks often pretend.

10. Finally, and crucially, all this raises the issue of what our model should be. English is taught throughout the world, predominantly by non-native speakers, so that their students can communicate mostly with other non-native speakers. Yet collocation is dictated by the native-speaker speech community. The ELT profession considers that the mistake in she work in a hospital is something that teachers should be concerned about. Does it matter if a student always uses a big/small operation and never uses a major/minor operation? Is collocation worth

learning? Is it the key to fluency that I claim it is? Or is it yet another way the native speaker ELT establishment will force its methodologies and materials on non-native speakers? At present we have more questions than answers. It is accepted that recent developments in corpus linguistics have forced us to change our view of language. This means it is time for a re-evaluation of many our accepted ideas about learning and teaching. Corpus linguistics is going to change the content of what we teach radically. These ideas on collocation are only the first rumblings.

 

 

 

 

 

This article first appeared in Issue 11 of English Teaching Professional.If you would like to receive a copy of LTP's complimentary booklet Collocation Exercises, please fax your request to: Fax: +44.1273.775361e-mail: LTPsample@aol.comor write to: LTP, 114a Church Road, Hove, Sussex BN3 2EB, UK.Remember to send your full address

 

 

 

 

 

Source : http://www.disal.com.br/nroutes/nr6/pgnr6_03.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collocation

 

 

 

 

 

Can you fill in the missing words in the following sentences?

 

 

 

1. Carl's a __________smoker - two packs a day.

2. His wife__________admits to regularly hiding his cigarettes.

3. The storm moved in quickly; a ______of lightning followed by a _______of thunder.

4. The _______clad young women ran for cover.

5. Off in the distance an owl _________eerily.

Did you come up with:

1. heavy smoker

2. freely admits

3. bolt of lightning, clap of thunder

4. scantily clad

5. owl hooted?

 

What are collocations and why should we teach them?

Collocations are conventional word combinations - idiomatic expressionsin a sense. They're easy to understand, but not so easy for a learner toproduce correctly. We can think of many verbs that might be used withlion to describe the sound it makes - for example, bellow, shoutscream, yell, holler. It just happens that English speakers have chosento use roar, and one has to know this in order to express the ideacorrectly. A learner who uses the wrong words for an idea like this maybe understood, but he or she will not sound natural. Since there are no 'rules' of collocation and it is difficult to group itemsby their collocational properties, they are best dealt with in isolation oras they arise. Collocation is useful for expanding students' knowledge ofa word. Students at the intermediate level often know the words 'light','weak', 'strong' and 'heavy' but frequently use them inaccurately - 'weak' rain, where 'light' was intended.

Any comments or questions? We invite you to send in ideas for future teachers' teasers! E-mail me!

Also check out some more teasers... Specially vs. Especially Farther vs. Further Stop Talking vs. Stop to Talk

Most of, Almost, MostSome, Any

 

 

 

 

 

Source : http://www.winfieldcollege.com/tesl_collocation1.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collocations  

 

 

 

 

What are collocations?What are some characteristics of collocations?Why should we learn collocations?Can you recognize collocations? 

 

 

 

Becoming aware of collocations is another way to improve your fluency.

 

 

 

 

 

What are collocations?

 

 

 

Collocations are collections of words that "fit together"; i.e. they are predictable patterns and phrases or groups of words that we typically use together. They include what have traditionally been considered vocabulary items, as well as structural patterns which may seem closer to traditional grammar and combinations of words that simply "go together". So idioms like "take a break", structures like "If I had the chance, I would . . . " and word combinations like "get on a bus /get in a car" are all considered collocations.

What are some characteristics of collocations?

Collocations can be described in a number of ways One way of thinking about them is in terms of "fixedness" - in other words, the degree to which you can vary the basic pattern and still have a collocation. We can only define the fixedness or unfixedness of collocations in terms of a continuum - all we can say is that some are more fixed than others but we can't make a neat dividing line between "fixed" and "unfixed". A very fixed collocation is one in which the pattern has very few expected variations. So, for example, the phrase "kick the bucket" is an idiom, a relatively fixed collocation meaning "to die". While we could substitute nouns and verbs in this sentence and get other meaningful sentences (e.g. "kick the door", "lift the bucket"), the word combinations in these other sentences are no longer cohesive patterns in the way that "kick the bucket" is. Like "kick the bucket", most collocations which are very fixed form a particular expected meaning rather than a structure.

Less fixed collocations are often more structural - common patterns that help structure a sentence but don't carry as much specific meaning by themselves. For example a less fixed collocation might be something like:

Let's + verb which directs an audience's attention + preposition + noun which describes an idea. This is a commonly used structural pattern into which you can insert a variety of words and still have commonly used patterns:

Let's move on to the next point. Let's go back to the last chapter. Let's move away from this paragraph. Let's look at tomorrow's homework. Let's go on to the main point."

However, there are still a limited number of words which will "fit" into this pattern. So, for example, we don't typically say "Let's go out of this paragraph."

On the other hand, there are some less fixed collocations which are not as clearly structural. Words that are commonly used with other words are examples of less fixed collocations which are not as structural in nature. So for example, we use "bus" and "car" with only certain sets of other words:

We say "Get on a bus" /"climb on a bus" but usually not "enter a bus" or "get in a bus". However, we say "get in a car".

We say "take the bus"/"ride the bus"/"go there on the bus " but usually not " We can drive there on the bus". However we say "We can drive there in her car."

It's not important to be able to classify collocations according to their exact degree of fixedness. However, it probably is helpful to know that some collocations are more fixed than others: if you recognize a collocation as very fixed, you can learn it as one item; if you recognize it as less fixed, you understand that there's a pattern there that you can use to build a collection of useful related phrases.

It's also helpful to pay attention to how collocations relate to the context around them. In some cases, especially with structures and longer phrases, the use of a collocation depends very heavily on the situation in which it's used. So for example, you probably shouldn't greet the president of the company you work for by saying, "What's up?". On the other hand, other collocations, like "get in a car" you can use almost anywhere.

 

Why should we learn collocations?

Our brain tends to store language in chunks, rather than individual words. Thus, when we speak or write, it is more efficient for us to remember and use phrases as chunks rather than constructing them one word at a time. This increased efficiency promotes fluency.

Native English speakers will unconsciously predict what is going to be said based on their own use of these phrases. This increases the efficiency with which they are able to listen or read. Thus, if a speaker or writer uses uncommon phrasing patterns, a native English speaker may find him or her harder to understand. Conversely, if a non-native speaker of English uses frequently used phrasing patterns, this may make it easier for native speakers to guess what the non-native speaker is saying and may help compensate for other language issues such as pronunciation.

Familiarity with collocations and the resulting ability to make guesses about a speaker/writer's speech should increase a non-native speaker's efficiency as a listener or reader .

Can you recognize collocations?

Fill in the blanks in the sentences below with words that you think might belong there. The blanks represent one part of a collocation. Some of these

collocations are more fixed than others, so in some cases, there might be several words that could be used in the blanks.

Example:

He only sees his sister once in a _____________.

Almost every native speaker in the U.S. would almost immediately write either "while" or "blue moon" in the blank. The phrases "once in a while" and "once in a blue moon" are collocations, learned as chunks of language.

Now see what you can do with the following sentences:

1. His angry ex-wife claims he has never ________________ his responsibilities to his children because he has not paid enough child support.

2. She was excused for being late due to extenuating ____________________.

3. "Can you give me directions to the freeway from here?""45th Street is the next left. If you follow 45th for about a mile, you can __________________ the freeway there."

4. "Can you give me a __________ with this? " 5. "I'm so hungry, I __________________________."

Answers: 1) fulfilled, honored, carried out, met 2) circumstances 3) get on 4) hand 5) could eat a horse

 

 

 

 

 

Principles and Activities For Improving English Language Fluency

o Fluency practice on your own o Developing and practicing vocabulary on your own o Collocations (words that "fit together") o Pronunciation practice on your own o General resources for improving your English

 

 

 

 

 

Source : http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/ITAPAWfluency4.html#COLLOCATION

 

 

 

 

         

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