This research investigated the realization of collocation in two respects: how collocation was formed

appropriately and inappropriately in written texts. Following Benson et al. (1997), Lewis (2001), and Mahvelati

& Mukundan (2012), the research categorized collocation into two major types, lexical and grammatical

collocation. Text analyses conducted largely qualitatively indicated that out of seven subtypes of lexical

collocation used appropriately, three combinations (v+n, adj+n and v+adj) were predominant and out of four

subtypes of grammatical collocation realized, two combinations (prep+n and v+prep) were the major ones. It

was also shown that more collocations were used, and fewer errors were made as the proficiency levels got

higher. Therefore, the realizations of collocation in the two respects are linked to the writing quality.

Keywords: collocation, lexical collocation, grammatical collocation, EFL, proficiency level

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stThe 61  TEFLIN International Conference, UNS Solo 2014 THE REALIZATION OF COLLOCATION IN EFL STUDENTS’WRITTEN TEXTS ACROSS THREE PROFICIENCY LEVELSH. Saudinsaudin.polban@gmail.comAbstract: This research investigated the realization of collocation in two respects: how collocation was formed appropriately and inappropriately in written texts. Following Benson et al. (1997), Lewis (2001), and Mahvelati & Mukundan (2012), the research categorized collocation into two major types, lexical and grammatical collocation. Text analyses conducted largely qualitatively indicated that out of seven subtypes of lexical collocation used appropriately, three combinations (v+n, adj+n and v+adj) were predominant and out of four subtypes of grammatical collocation realized, two combinations (prep+n and v+prep) were the major ones. It was also shown that more collocations were used, and fewer errors were made as the proficiency levels got higher. Therefore, the realizations of collocation in the two respects are linked to the writing quality. Keywords: collocation, lexical collocation, grammatical collocation, EFL, proficiency levelsThe importance of collocation in EFL/ESL education has drawn the language teachers’ attention since the appearance of Lewis’ (1993) book, The Lexical Approach (Hsu, 2007). Since even before then, that collocation is an important component of language learners’ linguistic competence has been proved, and how important collocation is in theories of second language acquisition has been shown by lots of researchers (Mahvelati & Mukundan, 2012). Coined by Palmer (1933) and brought to the field of theoretical linguistics by Firth (1957), the term collocation has its roots in a Latin verb ‘collocare’ which means ‘to set in order/to arrange’ (Hsu, 2007 & Mahvelati & Mukundan, 2012). According to Hsu (2007), the most frequent and well known definition of collocation is “the tendency of a lexical item to co-occur with one or more other words.” Further, Yan (2010) defines collocation as “the fellowship of one word.” Based on its syntactic nature, collocation is classified into two major categories: lexical and grammatical collocation (Benson et al., 1997; Mahvelati & Mukundan, 2012). A lexical collocation is a phrase containing various combinations of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. A grammatical collocation, on the other hand, is a phrase which consists of a content word (e.g. a noun, verb or adjective) and function/grammatical word (e.g. a preposition and particle).  Benson et al. (1997) propose seven types of lexical collocation and eight main types of grammatical collocation listed as follows: (1) v + n such as make mistakes, break the news/promise;  (2) adj + n such as strong tea/wind, heavy rain; (3) n + n such as traffic accident, communication breakdown; (4) v + adv such as laugh merrily, argue heatedly; (5) adv + adj such as strikingly different, absolutely right; (6) n + v such as bees buzz, doctors diagnose; (7) v + adj (linking verb collocation) such as turn grey, go blind; (8) prep + n such as in despair, at speed, on purpose; (9) n + prep such as attack on, error/increase in; (10) v + prep (phrasal verbs collocation) such as rely on, put off; (11) adj + prep such as dependent on, familiar with.As indicated by the examples of collocation above, what is considered as collocations in this study are word combinations characterized by restrictedness and semantic transparency. The combinations of the node break and its collocates such as news and promise to form break the news/promise are restricted – thus regarded as collocation  because the constituent break cannot be replaced by a similar word such as inform or violate to form *inform the news or *violate the promise. However, the combinations of break and such lexical items as glasses, a vase, the windows and many other nominal groups, which are relatively limitless, are not regarded as collocations. They are called free word combinations, “just combinations of words following only the general rules of syntax: the elements are not bound specifically to each other and they can be substituted with other lexical items freely” (Miyakoshi, 2009: 5). As for the semantic transparency of collocation, the two lexical units break the news and break the promise have the constituents which are still transparent in meaning. It means the meaning of the two collocations can still be understood from that of the lexical items which compose them, unlike that of an idiom (e.g. break a leg, used to wish somebody good luck) which is non-compositional. Accordingly, idioms – just like free word combinations – were not investigated since they are not considered as collocations in this study although “the boundaries between idioms, collocations and free combinations are not clear-cut” (Miyakoshi, 2009: 6).367stThe 61  TEFLIN International Conference, UNS Solo 2014 MethodThe research was conducted in the English Department of Bandung State Polytechnics, involving a class of twenty-seven students altogether. They were asked to write an Argumentative essay consisting of around 350-450 within 60 minutes and were given some issues to choose, each of which was provided with writingprompts. Next, nine subjects were chosen and categorized into respectively low, middle, and high achievers to represent the nature of the class.In order that an in-depth analysis of the students’ realization of collocation was assured, this study was set to be largely qualitative in nature. However, this study also resorted to quantitative instruments such as tables to display the profiles of the students’ realization of collocation. This is possible since one method can support the other one by means of elaborating or illustrating the results from the other method as suggested by Creswell (2003).In identifying collocation, this study resorted to two tools. The first one is Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English2nd Ed (McIntosh, 2002). The second one is collocation checker (http://candle. cs.nthu.edu.tw/vntango/). That native speakers were not involved to judge whether a collocation was appropriate or not might be a limitation of this study. Further, following Hsu (2007: 197), this study considered an acceptable collocation with spelling or grammatical errors as a valid one. In its analysis, this study counted a collocation that appeared more than once in a text as a single collocation.Findings and DiscussionThe analyses of the realizations of collocation have resulted in such findings as displayed in the following two tables, Table 1 and Table 2. Table 1 shows the appropriate and inappropriate realizations of collocation across the three proficiency levels whereas Table 2 illustrates the linguistic evidence of the inappropriate realizations.As shown in the fifth row (the row of Total) of Table 1, the high achievers deployed 110 collocations (both lexical and grammatical ones), which constitute 80%. The number is the highest, compared with that of collocations realized by the middle achievers (92 collocations altogether, which is equal to 72%) and by the low achievers with the realization of 65 collocations or 61%.  The findings show that more collocations were used as the proficiency increases. This is in line with Zhang (1993), Hsu (2007) and Bazzaz and Samad (2011), who suggest that learners tend to use more collocations at more advanced levels.It was found too across the three levels that v+n subtype was the most commonly used, followed by the subtypes of adj+n, prep+n, v+adj, v+prep etc. as seen in the ninth column.  The  learners  across the  three  levels realized  57  or  21.3%  well-formed  v+n Table 1The Profiles of the Appropriate & Inappropriate Realizations of Collocation Across Three Proficiency LevelsNo. Types of CollocationHigh AchieversMiddle AchieversLow AchieversSumApp Inapp App Inapp App Inapp App Inapp1. Lex. Col.v+n 23 9 23 23 11 13 57 45adj+n 19 3 21 4 11 9 51 16v+adj 18 5 13 1 8 5 39 11n+n 5 0 0 0 2 0 7 0adv+adj 4 2 1 1 0 0 5 3v+adv 1 2 3 0 1 2 5 4n+v 1 0 2 0 2 0 5 02. Sub Total 71 21 63 29 35 29 169 793. Gr. Col.prep+n 16 2 13 0 13 2 42 4v+prep 11 3 12 4 7 5 30 12n+prep 8 1 1 1 8 5 17 7adj+prep 4 0 2 1 3 1 9 24. Sub Total 39 6 28 6 31 13 98 255. Total (2+4) 110 27 91 35 66 42 267 1046. Percentage 80 20 72 28 61 39 72 28368stThe 61  TEFLIN International Conference, UNS Solo 2014 collocations, 51 adj+n (19%), 42 prep+n (15.7%), 38 v+adj (14.2%) and 31 v+prep (11.6%). That v+n and adj+n subtypes were the two most frequently used confirms the findings reported by Hsu (2007: 201) and Kuo (2009: 145). That prep+n, v+adj and v+prep subtypes come next one after the others seems to be new findings contributed by this study.The last column of Table 1 show that, out of 11 subtypes of collocations, nine subtypes wereinappropriately realized. Two of them (v+n and adj+n subtypes) became the major sources of errors with respectively 45 (43%) and 16 (15%) erroneous realizations of all lexical and grammatical collocation mistakes. This is in agreement with Yan’s (2010) study which reports that of all lexical collocation mistakes, errors in v+n subtype constitute 50% and adj+n subtype 25%. The finding that v+n collocation is the most problematic for learners of English has been indicated too by many researchers (Al-Zahrani, 1998; Liu, 1999; Nesselhauf, 2003; and Kuo, 2009). Further, this study suggests that v+prep and v+adj subtypes require to be paid attention to since they represent the third and fourth major sources of errors in realizing collocation.Table 2Samples of Inappropriately Used Collocations Across the Three Proficiency LevelsNo. Deviant Combinations SubtypesLevel No. Deviant CombinationsSubtypesLev.1. *cover (bury) my nose v+n high 10. suffering *in (from) v+prep high2. *destroy (rack) your bodyv+n high 11. become *as(become)v+prep low3. *follow (take) the examinationv+n mid 12. become *success(successful)v+adj high4. *say (make) that statementv+n mid 13. make … *relax (relaxed)v+adj low5. *make a (do) business v+n low 14. effects *to (on) n+prep low6. exchange their *mind (ideas)v+n low 15. tell *directly(bluntly)v+adv high7. *huge (high) chance adj+n high 16. *on (in) public placesprep+n high8. *amazing (soph-isticated tech.adj+n mid 17. *too (truly) afraid adv+adj mid9. *increasing (rising)pricesadj+n low 18. close *with (to) adj+prep lowTable 2 provides linguistic evidence related to the inappropriately-formed collocations made the subjects of this study. The constituents in brackets are the substitutes needed for the well-formed collocations.Conclusion and SuggestionsThis study has proven that there exists a relation between the number of well formed collocations used and the quality of the writing. The relation is further strengthened by the finding that the number of erroneous collocations also indicates the quality of the writing. Its findings taken together, this study highlights the importance of collocation for EFL/ESL learners to gain success in learning English. As a result, it is high time that Indonesian teaching practitioners drew their students’ attention to collocation and that syllabus designers integrated the teaching of vocabulary, especially of collocation, into the English language teaching. ReferencesAl-Zahrani, M. S. 1998. Knowledge of English lexical collocations among male Saudi college students majoring in English at Saudi University. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA.Bazzaz, F. E. & Samad, A.A. 2011. The use of verb-noun collocations in writing stories among Iranian EFL learners. English Language Teaching 4. 3 (Sep 2011): 158-163.Benson, M., Benson, E. & Ilson, R. 1997. The BBI dictionary of English word combinations 2nd Ed. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Creswell, J.W. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches 2nd Ed.California: Sage Publication.369stThe 61  TEFLIN International Conference, UNS Solo 2014 Firth, J. R. 1957. Papers in linguistics 1934-1951 pp. 177-189.Hsu, J. 2007. Lexical collocations and their relations to the online writing of Taiwanese college English majors and non-English majors. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 4(2), 192-209.Kuo, C. L. 2009. An analysis of the use of collocation by intermediate EFL college students in Taiwan. ARECLS, 2009, vol.6, 141-155.Lewis, M. 1993. The lexical approach. London: Language Teaching Publications.Lewis, M. 2001. There is nothing as practical as a good theory. In Michael Lewis (ed.), Teaching collocation: Further developments in the lexical approach (pp. 10-27). London: Language Teaching Publications.Liu, C. P. 1999. An analysis of collocational errors in EFL writing. The Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on English Teaching, 483-494.Mahvelati, E. H. & Mukundan, J. 2012. The role of cognitive style in the collocational knowledge development of Iranian EFL learners through Input Flood treatment. English Language Teaching 5. 10 (2012): 105-117.McIntosh, C. 2002. Oxford collocations dictionary for students of English. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.Miyakoshi, T. 2009. Investigating ESL learners’ lexical collocations: The acquisition of verb+noun collocations by Japanese learners of English. Retrieved on 11 June 2014 from www.ling.hawaii.edu/graduate/dissertations/Tomoko MiyakoshiFinal.pdfNesselhauf, N. 2003. The use of collocation by advanced learners of English and some implications for teaching.Applied Linguistics, 24(2), 223-242. Yan, H. 2010. Study on the causes and countermeasures of the lexical collocation mistakes in college English. English Language Teaching 3.1 March (2010).Zhang, X. 1993. English collocations and their effect on the writing of native and non-native college freshmen.Indiana University of Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania.370

THE REALIZATION OF COLLOCATION IN EFL STUDENTS’

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THE REALIZATION OF COLLOCATION IN EFL STUDENTS’ WRITTEN TEXTS ACROSS THREE PROFICIENCY LEVELS

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