Focus on Collocations

English is a key part of the Year One Higher Diploma in Business Programme (HD1) at the Dubai Women’s College (DWC) in the United Arab Emirates. Several years ago, the HD1 English faculty team decided to prioritize the teaching and learning of vocabulary to try and help students better cope with the demands of their coursework. The target vocabulary for HD1 is the Academic Word List (AWL). As Coxhead points out, the AWL is more than just a list, it can be used as a basis to ‘set vocabulary goals….construct relevant teaching materials, and help students focus on useful vocabulary items.’ The AWL is comprised of the ‘semi-technical’ lexis that assists students in their English language academic development and Business studies.

This article traces the development of HD1’s approach to the teaching and learning of vocabulary over 2-3 years, the central importance of independent student learning and research, the use of technology in facilitating the process, and the assessment procedures developed.

The ideas discussed areeminently ‘transferable’ and applicable in other contexts.

To be a proficient language user, one must learn not only about the meaning of words, “but also about the way words combine with other words.” (Sicherl, 2005). Collocations, along with the lack of a systematic order of acquisition of them, bring a certain difficulty to language learning. This essay will dissect why collocations are so difficult to learn, and how to help students navigate said difficulties, thus developing collocational competence.

Semantics is rather difficult to define. Linguists and philosophers alike have for decades been trying to define its intricacies, characteristics and properties. Within the realm of language, semantics is a street called meaning, which lies in the suburbs that is linguistics. Semantics with regards to this essay helps us to find meaning out of what is inputted into our brains from spoken language sources. Many linguists have tried to bottle these sources up and put labels on them, some have succeeded and
some have not. Geoffrey Leech (1969) is one such linguist who has come up with seven different kinds of meaning. However, it would be helpful if there was one plain definition for collocative meaning. Though, after reviewing a multitude amount of essays and after reading dozens of books on the topic, making one informed decision on what collocative meaning is tricky. This essay will delve into collocative meaning by looking into its origins, definitions, role in semantics and role within the EFL environment. The author wishes to find out if it is, or is not, a kind of meaning, or perhaps, that it might be something else altogether.

Коллокация принадлежит к числу тех сложных явлений, которые имеют относительно недолгую историю изучения, представляя собой особое явление по сравнению с другими единицами языка, находящееся между свободными и устойчивыми словосочетаниями. Изучение таких «пограничных» явлений всегда привлекало внимание исследователей. До сих пор существует много расхождений в определении сущности коллокаций, а также их месте в системе языковых единиц. Целью данной работы является проследить происхождение и развитие понятия коллокация в зарубежной (преимущественно европейской) и отечественной лингвистике на начальных этапах его развития. Методами послужили диахронический, описательный и дефиниционный. Материалом исследования являются исторические и теоретические труды в области языкознания, а также лексикографические справочники.

This article reports on a classroom-based experiment that tested the effects of three vocabulary teaching constructs (involvement load, spacing, and intentionality) on the learning of English verb-noun collocations—for example, " shelve a plan. " Laufer and Hulstijn's (2001) " involvement load " predicts that the higher the motivational-cognitive load of a task, the more effectively it promotes word retention. " Spacing " refers to the advantage of spreading out learning opportunities for words as opposed to massing them. " Intentionality " comprises two word processing modes: intentional learning (posttest announced) and incidental learning (posttest unannounced), where the former is claimed to outperform the latter. The constructs were integrated into an intervention study with 59 adolescent L1 Swedish learners of English in within-and between-subjects designs. Learners processed target items three times when performing tasks that operationalized the constructs. Three posttests of productive knowledge of target items were administered. Statistical analyses of gain scores show that neither involvement load nor spacing had a significant positive impact on learning gains. Significant effects were found on three measures for intentional learning when compared to incidental learning. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and their implications for English language teaching (ELT). Cet article rend compte d'une expérience basée en salle de classe et qui évalue les effets de trois concepts pédagogiques en enseignement du vocabulaire (charge d'implication, espacement et intentionnalité) sur l'apprentissage d'expressions fi-gées en anglais consistant d'un verbe et d'un nom. La « charge d'implication » de Laufer et Hulstijn (2001) prédit que plus la charge motivationnelle et cognitive d'une tâche est élevée, plus elle favorise la rétention des mots. « L'espacement » fait référence à l'avantage de répartir les occasions d'apprentissage des mots plutôt que de les rassembler. « L'intentionnalité » comprend deux modes de traitement des mots: l'apprentissage intentionnel (post-test annoncé) et l'apprentissage ac-cidentel (post-test pas annoncé), le premier supposément donnant de meilleurs résultats que le second. Ces concepts ont été intégrés dans une étude d'intervention impliquant 59 adolescents suédois qui apprenaient l'anglais et suivant un modèle à mesures répétées et un modèle inter-sujets. Les participants ont traité des éléments cibles trois fois en accomplissant des tâches qui opérationnalisaient les concepts. Trois post-test portant sur des connaissances productives des éléments cibles ont eu lieu. Des analyses statistiques des notes ont indiqué que ni la charge d'implication ni l'espacement n'avaient eu un impact positif significatif sur les notes. Trois me

Abstract
We propose here through a corpus of Berber (Kabyle) locutions containing the lexeme ul "heart", drawn mainly from dictionaries, to make the departure between idioms, collocations and free combinations of words. We will first approach the concepts of idiom and collocation, opposed to the free combination of words, trying to give definitions clear enough to be applied rigorously to our corpus, and will end with the analysis of our material and the resulting conclusions.
Résumé
Nous nous proposons ici à travers un corpus de locutions berbères (kabyles) contenant le lexème ul « cœur », puisées essentiellement dans des dictionnaires, de faire le départ entre locutions figées, collocations et combinaisons libres de mots. Nous aborderons d’abord les concepts de locution figée et de collocation, opposées à la combinaison libre de mots, en essayant d’en donner des définitions suffisamment claires pour être appliquées rigoureusement à notre corpus, et terminerons par l’analyse de notre matériau et les conclusions qui en découlent.
Rezumat
Propunem, în acest studiu, printr-un corpus de locuții berbere (kabyle) care conțin lexemul ul „inimă”, extras, în principal, din dicționare, pentru a face diferențe între fraze fixe, colucuții și combinații libere de cuvinte. Mai întâi, vom aborda conceptele de locuție fixă și colocuție, opuse combinării libere a cuvintelor, încercând să oferim definiții suficient de clare pentru a fi aplicate riguros studiului nostru și vom încheia cu analiza materialului și a concluziilor rezultate.
Keywords : idiom, collocation, lexeme ul "heart", Kabyle.
Mots clés : locution figée, collocation, lexème ul « cœur », kabyle.
Cuvinte cheie : idiom, colocuție, lexemul ul „inimă”, kabyle.

Целью данной статьи является практическое рассмотрение явления коллокации в современной лексикологии, входящее в понятие коммуникативной компетенции. Коллокации, как устойчивые, характерные для носителей языка сочетания слов, основывающиеся на семантических факторах, в процессе овладения языком составляют понятие коллокационной компетенции (collocational competence) – умения образовывать лексические единства (chunks of language) в соответствии с правилами лексической сочетаемости и речевой традиции. Появление самого термина коллокации в современных методиках обучения иностранному языку не случайно. Развитие лексического подхода к обучению требует не простого овладения лексическими единицами, а также знания правил сочетаемости, что позволяет овладеть речью, звучащей естественно с точки зрения носителей языка. Нарушение семантической связи между словами при сохранении их синтаксической связи вызывает явление малопропизмов. Это явление опирается на  понятие коллокации, однако в противоположность ему обозначает собой речевые ошибки.

Reproducibility, which belongs to key terms in phraseological studies, is the focal issue of the conference, which will aim at offering an insight into this quality from a phraseological perspective by trying to provide answers to the following questions: What does the term reproducibility – of which several definitions exist – really mean in phraseological studies? How can reproducible language units be detected and analysed in corpora? How should they be described in mono-and bilingual dictionaries? What is their importance from the translational point of view? How to view them from a didactic perspective? How to discuss them in a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural context? The list is not exhaustive and all proposals related to the notions of fixedness and phraseology are most welcome. The conference is not limited to the main subject and proposals of section presentations and posters on other phraseological issues are also planned. Persons who would like to organize special topic section and/or workshops are encouraged to send their proposals (one has to send the section or workshop abstract, the name of the chairperson and the names of participants along with the titles of their presentations).

ABSTRACT: Idioms, collocations, compounds and other multi-word expressions often diverge in various languages due to the different "conceptualisations" used by each speaking community, i.e. the different cognitive approaches to actual situations of the extralinguistic reality. Indeed, most of the differences in phraseological expressions seem to be rooted in the "choice" made by each language to highlight a certain aspect of a concept which they regard as salient. Basing our analysis on Italian (and German) examples, we would like to demonstrate how languages and cultures differ from each other in the conceptualisations expressed in (compositional and non-compositional) phrasemes as well as in the polysemies and metaphorical uses of lexemes, and how the respective theoretical findings can be useful for language didactics. See for example Ital. divertirsi un mondo vs. Germ. sich köstlich amüsieren (meaning to be tickled pink or to have much fun/a ball/a field day, but literally *to have fun "a world" and *to have fun "deliciously" respectively), Ital. stirare (also: lisciare) i capelli vs. Germ. die Haare glätten (to straighten someone's hair, in Italian literally *to "iron" someone's hair) and Ital. occhi a mandorla vs. Germ. Schlitzaugen (slit eyes, in Italian literally *"almond" eyes). In particular, we will suggest that an efficient didactic method of learning and memorising phrasemes more easily consists in making the learners explicitly aware of the divergencies, ideally using concrete visualisations of the phrasemes' conceptualisations, a method which we have already tested in several Austrian schools with very positive results (for our presentation we intend to show some of the pupils' drawings representing the conceptualisations of selected Italian phrasemes). The aim of this method is to develop not only the learners' linguistic competence, but also their metalinguistic awareness of the language-specific conceptualisations of phrasemes, both in the L2 language(s) and in their own mother tongue(s).

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether teaching vocabulary via collocations would contribute to retention and use of foreign language, English. A quasi-experimental design was formed to see whether there would be a significant difference between the treatment and control groups. Three instruments developed were conducted to 60 participants. The experimental group was taught collocations through lexical approach by means of ten different kinds of activities for ten weeks. On the other hand, the control group was taught in a traditional way, only focusing on word definitions from dictionary, antonyms, synonyms and guessing from the text. The results showed that the participants in the experimental group outperformed the ones in the control group in all of the three instruments. The study also indicated that a period of treatment and exposure to lexical collocations led the treatment group to remember and produce the collocations in the reading courses more appropriately ...

'Pseudo-native speaker' is the term given to a foreign language learner who has reached a high level of proficiency. Such level of proficiency is characterised by the mastery of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Consequently, a distinction must be drawn between grammatical proficiency and the idiomatic one. Idiomaticity has three basic levels of compositionality: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. The present research work investigates the mastery of Verb+Noun lexical collocations by Algerian EFL learners in Frères Mentouri university. It is hypothesised that Algerian EFL learnershave a low level of mastery in the usage and comprehension of Verb+Noun collocations.It is also hypothesised that the essays of Algerian EFL learners lack the use of appropriate Verb+Noun collocations. An online corpus (BNC) and two other online websites (Collocation Checker & O.O.C.D) were used as tools to measure learners' collocational competence. Examined collocations were extracted from the learners' examination essays. The analysis was done manually through identification and corpus usage. The findings of the study indicate that Algerian EFL learners have a low competence in dealing with Verb+Noun collocations. Thus, focus on collocational knowledge is required. Teachers must raise their students' awareness on the importance of collocations in improving the oral and written quality of production. Learners have to, deliberately, be able to identify collocations, and memorise them within their contexts.

The aim of this paper is to organise lexical and conceptual knowledge by analysing a domain-specific corpus. The domain we focus on is the cork industry. Through the analysis of the corpus, we have found that some common verbs in Portuguese, such as “choose” and “separate” acquire a specialised value in the field under study. This was the starting point for the analysis of the terminological collocations where verbs are the core constituents. For the analysis of these verbal terminological collocations, we used natural language processing techniques, building simple and complex CQL structures with RegEx. The outcome of this analysis permits us to introduce a distinction between polylexical terms and terminological collocations. The terminological collocation is a reality of great relevance in specialised discourse, but unlike terms, it is not defined by conceptual criteria, but by morphological and syntactic criteria.

ABSTRACT: L'oggetto di studio del presente contributo è costituito dalle combinazioni lessicali italiane dalla struttura "nome più aggettivo o sintagma preposizionale". In italiano esse presentano sempre la stessa struttura superficiale degli elementi, mentre in tedesco, per designare i rispettivi concetti, si ricorre spesso a singole unità lessicali, creando un nuovo unico lessema attraverso la composizione di più elementi lessicali. Nella letteratura italiana, suddette combinazioni sono attribuite a varie categorie e sono state proposte diverse terminologie, come fra l'altro collocazioni (Lo Cascio 2007), (unità/parole) polirematiche (Lo Piparo 2007; Voghera 2004), composti sintagmatici (Scalise 1994) e lessemi complessi (De Mauro/Voghera 1996). Tuttavia, non sembrano esistere chiari criteri di definizione e di delimitazione fra i diversi tipi di combinazioni lessicali. Nella categoria delle collocazioni, per esempio, vengono talvolta inclusi anche diversi tipi di composti come camera ardente – Leichenhalle (Lo Cascio 2007: 27). Intendiamo mostrare che, per garantire una più appropriata categorizzazione e descrizione delle singole combinazioni, è il caso di prendere in considerazione più aspetti alla volta e basarsi su criteri diversi: - Da un punto di vista semantico-concettuale, occorre distinguere fra combinazioni libere (occhi azzurri – blaue Augen), collocazioni (occhi spalancati – [weit] aufgerissene Augen) e composti determinativi (occhi a mandorla – Schlitzaugen; il SPrep in questo caso è restrittivo e indica una sottoclasse). - Da un punto di vista morfo-sintattico, si possono distinguere diversi gradi di fissità, fatto che può esse-re dimostrato attraverso varie prove (curva piuttosto cieca, *vicolo piuttosto cieco) – anche se non in tutti i casi, perché dipendente anche dalle caratteristiche semantiche delle parole (*CD assai vergine). - Da un punto di vista interlinguistico e cognitivo, le concettualizzazioni ovvero gli approcci cognitivi alla stessa realtà extralinguistica possono divergere (dente del giudizio – Weiheitszahn), ma talvolta an-che convergere (dente da latte [ma anche: caduco] – Milchzahn). - Da un punto di vista didattico e lessicografico, quello che interessa agli apprendenti/insegnanti L2 e ai lessicografi è se all'interno di una combinazione lessicale sia identificabile un elemento cognitivamente sovraordinato ossia una "base" (traducibile di solito letteralmente da una lingua all'altra) o meno. Appartengono alla prima categoria sia le collocazioni che i composti determinativi (CD vergine – un-bespielte/leere CD, foresta vergine – Urwald), alla seconda invece dei composti (spesso esocentrici) che devono essere imparati in modo simile alle espressioni idiomatiche (testa dura – Dickkopf). Inoltre, intendiamo esaminare se in alcuni casi le divergenze nelle concettualizzazioni possano essere ri-condotte a delle differenze tipologiche fra le due lingue (tetto apribile – Schiebe-/Hebedach) e se la traduzione tedesca possa aiutare a distinguere p.es. fra collocazioni e composti. In generale, tuttavia, i confini fra le diverse classi sembrano essere fluidi e le combinazioni non sempre attribuibili chiaramente all'uno o all'altro tipo, per cui ci sembra oppurtuno partire da una concezione dinamica e da una struttura prototipica delle singole categorie.

ABSTRACT: Idioms, collocations, compounds and other multi-word expressions often diverge in various languages due to the different "conceptualisations" used by each speaking community, i.e. the different cognitive approaches to actual situations of the extralinguistic reality. Indeed, most of the differences in phraseological expressions seem to be rooted in the "choice" made by each language to highlight a certain aspect of a concept which they regard as salient. Basing our analysis on Italian (and German) examples, we would like to demonstrate how languages and cultures differ from each other in the conceptualisations expressed in (compositional and non-compositional) phrasemes as well as in the polysemies and metaphorical uses of lexemes, and how the respective theoretical findings can be useful for language didactics. See for example Ital. divertirsi un mondo vs. Germ. sich köstlich amüsieren (meaning to be tickled pink or to have much fun/a ball/a field day, but literally *to have fun "a world" and *to have fun "deliciously" respectively), Ital. stirare (also: lisciare) i capelli vs. Germ. die Haare glätten (to straighten someone's hair, in Italian literally *to "iron" someone's hair) and Ital. occhi a mandorla vs. Germ. Schlitzaugen (slit eyes, in Italian literally *"almond" eyes). In particular, we will suggest that an efficient didactic method of learning and memorising phrasemes more easily consists in making the learners explicitly aware of the divergencies, ideally using concrete visualisations of the phrasemes' conceptualisations, a method which we have already tested in several Austrian schools with very positive results (for our presentation we intend to show some of the pupils' drawings representing the conceptualisations of selected Italian phrasemes). The aim of this method is to develop not only the learners' linguistic competence, but also their metalinguistic awareness of the language-specific conceptualisations of phrasemes, both in the L2 language(s) and in their own mother tongue(s).

The objective of this paper is to highlight problems connected with assessment of collocational competence in teaching German as a foreign language as well as their possible solutions. We begin with a description of the notion of collocation from the teaching perspective and list its most important features. Then we discuss the ways in which collocation competence has been assessed. Selected empirical studies are presented with the focus on the employed methodology. Then a discussion of their methodological value follows. In the next part of the paper we turn to an account of possible analytical tools for studying all three components of collocational competence and propose two alternative methods which allow to assess it during formal courses of a foreign language. Finally, we present our conclusions concerning the possibility of collocational competence assessment.

Der Beitrag setzt sich zum Ziel, Probleme bei der Evaluation von Kollokationskompetenz im DaF-Unterricht aufzuzeigen und Lösungsansätze zu diskutieren. Ausgehend von der Beschreibung des fremdsprachendidaktisch orientierten Kollokationsbegriffs und der wichtigsten Eigenschaften von Kollokationen wird erläutert, auf welche Weise Kollokationskompetenz bisher evaluiert wurde. Eingegangen wird dabei auf ausgewählte empirisch ausgerichtete Studien zur Beherrschung von Kollokationen bzw. zum Erwerb der Kollokationskompetenz im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Die Forschungsmethoden werden kritisch hinterfragt, und auf Probleme bei konkreten Versuchen der empirischen Erforschung von Kollokationskompetenz wird hingewiesen. In einem weiteren Teil des Beitrags zeigen wir, mit welchen Datenerhebungsverfahren drei Subkompetenzen der Kollokationskompetenz erfasst werden können. Dabei beziehen wir uns auf die schon eingesetzten und ergänzen diese um neue mögliche Datenerhebungsverfahren. In einem Fazit werden Schlussfolgerungen für die Evaluierung der Kollokationskompetenz gezogen.