International Journal of Language Education.
Vol.
3 No.
October 2019 pp.
AN INVESTIGATION INTO IRANIAN EFL LEARNERSAo PRODUCTIVE
KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS AND THE STRATEGIES
APPLIED
Seyed Ali Mirsalari Department of English Language.
Faculty of Humanities.
Islamic Azad University of Ramhormoz.
Ramhormoz.
Iran Email: Gh.
mirsalari@gmail.
Alireza Khoram Department of English Language and Literature.
Faculty of Letters and Humanities.
Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz.
Ahvaz.
Iran.
Email: arkhoram2017@gmail.
Abstract Collocations are one of the areas that create problems for EFL learners.
Iranian EFL learners like other EFL learners encounter serious problems in producing collocations.
The current study is an attempt to examine the Iranian EFL learnersAo ability to produce English collocations.
It also attempts to identify the strategies that they usually adopt when they are not familiar with acceptable collocations in English.
this end, a sample of 60 Iranian EFL learners at intermediate level was given a 50- item test of collocations in the filling-the-blank format.
They were asked to fill in each blank with the most appropriate adjective or verb that could produce an acceptable collocation with the bold noun in the sentence.
The findings have revealed that Iranian university students had unsatisfactory performance in the production of English Of the total number of collocations produced, only 38.
1 % were rendered correctly.
With respect to use of various strategies, negative transfer with 28.
4% ranked first, followed by synonymy 21.
and avoidance 11.
7 % respectively.
Keywords: collocation, productive knowledge, strategy use INTRODUCTION The term AocollocationAo, etymologically speaking, is derived from the Latin word AocollocareAo .
all= together locare= to plac.
which implies putting or placing together.
Firth .
was the scholar who made the term collocation widely known linguistically.
Firth essentially perceived collocation as a means to get to a wordAos meaning.
It was this view that made him majestically proclaim:
AuYou shall know a word by the company it keeps!Ay (Firth, 1957, p.
, thus giving collocation a central position in the theories of word meaning.
He claimed that part of the meaning of a word could be established by collocation, and he considered collocation as an abstraction at the syntagmatic level.
Aunot directly concerned with the conceptual or idea approach to the meaning of wordsAy (Firth, 1957, p.
It is commonly acknowledged that collocational competence plays a key role in successful language use.
However, enhancing L2 collocational knowledge is a gradual process that poses serious obstacles for language learners.
Recent empirical studies have identified several factors that may influence EFL learnersAo performance in Seyed Ali Mirsalari.
Alireza Khoram.
An Investigation into Iranian EFLA producing collocations.
Some of these factors are semantic fields, meaning boundaries, and collocational restrictions.
The semantic field of a lexical item is determined by its conceptual field.
Color, kinship and marital relations are some examples of conceptual fields (Wood, 2.
Biskup .
examined Polish and German EFL learnersAo production of English collocations.
He came to conclusion that the wider the semantic field of a given lexical item, the more Ll interference errors it might trigger.
For instance, a several of subjects provided *lead a bookshop for the target collocation run a bookshop, which was clearly an instance of L1 interference.
Similarly, the more synonyms an item had, the more difficulties learners encountered in producing a restricted collocation.
Boers.
Lindstromberg, and Eyckmans .
also pointed out the reasons justifying learnersAo erroneous use of high frequency verbs such as take, go, and put.
According to them, the main reason lies in these verbsAo rich polysemy and syntactic complexity.
As they formed phrases with prepositions, these verbs created collocational restrictions that required special attention to their collocational environments.
These lexical properties surely created different degrees of difficulty for learners.
LearnersAo native language influence is the second factor affecting learnersAo ability to collocate words in L2.
Due to the commonality of some human situations, different languages have parallel fixed expressions that are syntactically and semantically similar (Moon.
Teliya.
Bragina.
Oparina, & Sandomirskaya, 1998.
Wolter & Gyllstad.
Because of cultural specificity, however, certain elements embedded in these expressions differ across languages.
For example.
English and Russian have a restricted collocation to express the process of forming a personAos character.
The English collocation is to mold someone's character, whereas the Russian expression vuikovuivat' kharakte means literally, to forge someoneAos character.
This Russian collocation is associated with a blacksmith hammering at a metal object to give it firmness and hardness.
Though the English expression is also connected with a firm object, it emphasizes the idea of giving shape to an originally shapeless mass (Teliya et al.
, 1.
These similar but distinct expressions may cause a negative transfer from learnersAo Ll (Wang & Shaw, 2.
influence is most prevalent when learners Lacking collocational knowledge, learners rely heavily on the L1 as the only resource and thus do better in those collocations that have L1 equivalents than those that do not (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993.
Farghal &Obiedat, 1995.
Huang, 2013.
Levitzky-Aviad & Laufer.
Yamashita & Jiang, 2.
The third factor concerns individual learnersAo collocational competence.
Granger .
and Howarth .
, by comparing the writing corpora of ESL/EFL learners and native English speakers, both reported that these learners generally demonstrated deficient knowledge of English collocations.
Compared native-speaker counterparts, the ESL/EFL learners produced a lower percentage of conventional collocations but a higher percentage of deviant These learners tended to have a weak sense of the salience of collocational Other researchers such as GonzylezFernyndez and Schmitt .
and Zhang .
reported likewise.
They found that L2 learners had a big gap between their receptive and productive knowledge of collocations.
Teliya et al.
identified culturerelated knowledge as another dimension embodied in the issue of lexical competence.
They argued that the use of some lexical collocations was restricted by certain cultural Metaphorical collocates, for instance, served as clues to the cultural data associated with the meaning of restricted Lack of cultural competence International Journal of Language Education.
Vol.
3 No.
October 2019 pp.
might be responsible for learnersAo failure to acquire such culturally marked collocations.
, the German learners employed more creative strategies than the Polish learners.
Thus, they provided more descriptive answers such as substituting crack a nut with break a nut open.
Furthermore, in a study by Farghal and Obiedat .
, it was showed that Arabic EFL learners highly relied on the open-choice principle for word selection, replacing a word with its synonym.
Such a strategy often led them to deviant, ungrammatical collocations in English.
In a similar vein.
Howarth .
6, 1998.
showed that L2 learners seemed to draw an analogy between collocates of two synonyms, thus often resulting in errors in the target language.
For instance, they produced the unusual combination *adopt ways, which was presumably caused by analogy with the correct collocation adopt an approach (Howarth, 1998b, p.
Another frequently used strategy reported by researchers is avoidance (Bahns & Eldaw.
Farghal & Obiedat, 1995.
Howarth.
It is a common observation of researchers that testees often avoid carrying out certain tasks because they are perceived as difficult or time-consuming or when they fail to retrieve the appropriate items of which they have passive knowledge.
As a consequence, they alter the intended meaning of the collocations (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993.
Farghal & Obiedat, 1995.
Lee, 2.
There are of course other strategies frequently employed by L2 learners.
For instance, learners may experiment by creating a collocation that they think is substitutable for the target one (Ebeling & Hasselgyurd, 2015.
Laufer & Waldman .
Ebeling and Hasselgyurd .
in their corpus of learner essays found that leaner created collocations they considered to be acceptable such as shapelessly exploited and ferociously It seems that, these unusual word combinations were results of learnersAo creative Howarth .
studied the errors in the corpus of non-native writers and identified some other strategies including LITERATURE REVIEW Due to insufficient knowledge of collocations.
English language learners frequently adopt certain strategies to produce collocations and thus create certain types of errors (Henriksen, 2.
The most commonly reported strategy used by language learners is transfer in which learners draw on their L1 equivalents when they fail to find the desired lexical items in the L2.
For example.
Biskup .
, in examining Polish and German EFL learnersAo performance in English collocation use, showed that the learners, based on risk taking, did transfer their L1 knowledge of collocation to their production of collocations in L2, hence obviously resulting in incorrect use of English collocations.
For instance, whereas the native-like collocation in English is to set a record, the Polish learners had a tendency to use to state a record, which is suggestive of an L1 collocational pattern.
Similarly, the German learners were found to produce the L1-based deviation to lend a bookshop instead of the English native-like version to run a bookshop.
The transfer strategy may reflect the learnersAo assumption that there is a one-to-one correspondence between their L1 and L2.
As Farghal and Obiedat .
pointed out, positive transfer occurred when the target collocations matched those in the L1, while negative transfer appeared when no corresponding patterns could be found in the L1.
Aside from relying on their L1.
EFL learners may use synonymous or paraphrasing.
This is frequently used by learners whose proficiency in L2 is limited.
They may substitute the target item with a synonymous alternative and use paraphrasing to express the target collocations with which they are not For instance, in a study by Biskup Seyed Ali Mirsalari.
Alireza Khoram.
An Investigation into Iranian EFLA repetition and analogies.
These writers produced collocations based on a familiar L2 For example, they draw an analogy between adopt a method and adopt an Nevertheless, this strategy might also lead to the overgeneralization of An example of this would be adopting ways, an idiomatic expression which would likely have minor usage among nonnative speakers.
The non-native writers in Granger's .
study tended to use a limited number of collocations repeatedly such as the combination of very with a variety of The strategy of repetition was particularly adopted when learners did not have adequate collocational knowledge.
Although much has been said about the acquisition of English collocations by EFL learners who come from various cultural backgrounds in various countries (Gitsaki, 1.
, very few studies have examined the Iranian EFL learnersAo knowledge of Furthermore, among the small number of the studies reported, no study, to the best of our knowledge, has reported on the use of strategies by Iranian EFL learners.
The current study, hence, is an attempt to fill this gap by exploring the Iranian EFL learnersAo ability to produce English collocations and identifying the strategies that they usually adopt when they are not familiar with acceptable collocations in English.
Persian and aged between 20 and 27.
They have learnt English as a foreign language for a minimum of 7 years.
Instruments For the purpose of the study, a blankfilling test was designed by consulting the following resources: the English Collocation in Use by McCarthy & OAoDell .
Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English .
Dictionary of Selected Collocations .
, the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary .
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English .
, and the BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations .
It consisted of a 50-item adjective noun and verb noun collocation in a blank filling format which was an attempt to elicit learnersAo production of a set of particular English collocations.
In addition, it elicited learnersAo use of strategies.
In this test, each item was composed of an English sentence with a blank a noun collocation.
The participants were required to fill in each blank with the most appropriate adjective or verb that could produce an acceptable collocation with the bold noun in the sentence.
Reliability and Validity of the Test The test reliability was obtained through a test-retest method, which was applied on a pilot group of 10 different students majoring in English language.
The test was repeated on the same group to check its reliability three weeks Using Pearson correlation formula, the reliability correlation coefficient of the testretest was computed.
It was found to be .
which is considered to be appropriate The test content was validated by three experts in the field of EFL teaching.
They were asked to validate the content of the test with regard to its appropriateness to the research goals and objectives, test instructions, the appropriateness of the time allocated to the test, and the number and METHOD Participants The study was carried out with 60 intermediate EFL learners selected from among 136 undergraduate university students.
Their selection was based on their scores on a general proficiency test given to the whole A 100Aeitem BPT TOEFL test was used to measure the proficiency level of the Then, those whose scores were one standard deviation above and below the mean were selected for the purpose of the The participantsAo native language is International Journal of Language Education.
Vol.
3 No.
October 2019 pp.
arrangement of questions.
The comments of the validating team, their notes and suggestions were taken into account, and the necessary modifications were made before administering the test.
make up a high percentage of all errors committed by EFL learners.
Out of a total of 2000 correct target collocations expected to be produced by participants, only 762 .
1%) were rendered 1004 .
2%) items were answered incorrectly of which 568 .
4%) of incorrect collocations were due to transfer from LI and 372 .
8%) due to the use of synonymy as a Moreover, 234 .
7 %) items were left blank, i.
, the participant avoided giving answer some items.
This might implies the participantsAo reluctance at risk-taking and a lack of knowledge.
Data analysis also revealed that eleven collocations had the highest frequency.
These collocations were ordered based on the frequencies and percentages of correct answers in Table 1.
Data Collection Procedures In order to accomplish this study, as said before, 60 students majoring in English language and literature or English translation, regarded as being at the intermediate level based on a TOEFL test administered as part of the study, were given a 50-item collocation Having administered the collocation test, the researchers started analyzing and categorizing the participantsAo responses, which fell in one of three categories of strategies such as transfer, synonymy or Therefore, in a sentence like: I a.
a bad dream last night and woke up If the blank was filled in with the word saw by a participant as the correct answer, then this incorrect response was attributed to transfer from learnersAo LI since this is the form used in Persian.
However, if the participant provided got, then he was believed to rely on synonymy because got and had are somewhat synonymous.
On the other hand, if the participant left the item blank, he or she was believed to rely on the avoidance Table 1.
Acceptable collocations ordered based on frequencies and percentages of correct answers (N=.
Target collocation Frequency Have a responsibility 37
Golden opportunities 35
Give advice Do housework
Gain experience Heavy traffic
Break a heart
Take control of Hasty decisions Catch a cold
Complex network of 21
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As the findings clearly reveals, the participantsAo overall performance on test of English collocations is far from being These learnersAo performance in collocations led credence to the viewpoints of Bahns and Eldaw .
, who assume that L2 learnersAo collocational knowledge seems not to parallel their competence in vocabulary.
It is also in line with Sadeghi .
and Phoocharoensil .
, who showed that collocational errors Percentage One way of explaining the relatively high percentage of the correct rendering of such collocations can be attributed to .
positive transfer from learnersAo L1.
In this regard.
Ellis .
argues that where there is an exactly identical equivalent between collocations in both languages, transfer from learnersAo native language can result in positive, satisfactory Seyed Ali Mirsalari.
Alireza Khoram.
An Investigation into Iranian EFLA For example, the combination golden opportunities seem to be possible in both Persian and English.
Another way to explain suchAA high frequency of such collocations in the textbooks or using them in everyday life i.
, the more learners encounter a certain type of collocation, the more they can comprehend and use it.
Tajalli .
4, p.
argues that exposure or lack of exposure to a certain type of collocation affects the learning of that kind of collocation.
Moreover, the learnersAo assumption that these collocations may constitute inseparable entities and are thus learnt as linked pairs where one of the pairs immediately elicits its From among the collocations produced 6 collocations had received the lowest of correct answers: leading lights .
%), white lie .
%).
Quench thirst .
%), pay tribute .
%) and sick joke .
%).
However, transfer from learnersAo native language is not always helpful.
Discrepancies between L1 and L2 collocations can create some problems for EFL learners.
That is, when collocations in the L1 and L2 do not match, unacceptable collocational structures often occur.
According to a number of earlier studies.
L1 influence is evident in EFL learnersAo collocations.
Farghal and Obiedat .
pointed out that positive transfer occurred when the target collocations matched those in the L1, while negative transfer appeared when no corresponding patterns could be found in the L1.
Nesselhauf .
, consistent with the above-mentioned studies, has shown that L1 influence on the production of English collocations by German speakers is considerably high.
She also confirmed the significance of native language impact on L2 collocation learning, suggesting that since L1-L2 collocational incompatibility is a major source of errors in learner language.
English teachers should concentrate on such non-congruent collocations in the two languages in order to prevent learners from committing such transfer errors.
In a similar way, the finding of the current study revealed that discrepancies between English and Persian collocations cause some problems for Iranian EFL Below are some instances of participants which are due to L1 negative Table 2 shows the frequencies and percentages of unacceptable collocations caused by transfer from LI.
Table 2.
Acceptable collocations ordered based on frequency and percentage of incorrect answers caused by transfer Target collocation Artificial teeth Closed alley Beautiful arts Oily hair Do the initiative get a profit See a dream Keep an eye Frequency Percentage The relatively high percentage of unacceptable collocations in Table 2 seems to indicate that differences between L1 and L2 substantially to errors in the production of L2 In another word, it can be argued that these errors are attributed to transfer from LearnersAo LI and more particularly to translation from LI.
In Persian the term closed alley and not blind alley is used.
Therefore, it is unusual that participants substituted closed alley for blind alley.
Similarly, the collocations, fine arts, have a dream, make a profit and make a pact were substituted for beautiful art, see a dream, get a profit, and tie a pact respectively.
Based on the collocation data obtained, 8% % of the collocations were rendered International Journal of Language Education.
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incorrectly due to the use of synonymy It seems that learners, when short of the appropriate collocant, looked for a synonym or near synonym, the result being the production of an incorrect collocation.
argued by Biber.
Conrad, and Reppen .
, even though synonyms share a similar meaning, they cannot be always used interchangeably in all contexts.
For example.
Based on the 50-million-word sample of the Bank of English corpus, which is composed of English magazines, even though the synonyms strong and powerful can be substitutable in some collocations, e.
strong/power leader, strong/power voice, or strong/powerful argument, etc.
, they cannot be substituted for each other in some others, strong views .
ut not *powerful view.
, or powerful computer .
ut not *strong compute.
(McCarthy.
OAoKeeffe, & Walsh.
Boonyasaquan .
, in her study of how Thai EFL learners translated business news articles from Thai to English reported on their collocational deviations arising from the use of synonymy, which accounted for 8.
62% of all the collocational errors.
A clear example given in the study was*a qualified hotel instead of a quality hotel, which may reflect the learnersAo confusion over the use of the (Boonyasaquan, 2006, p.
Table 3 shows several of the unacceptable collocations caused by adopting synonym strategy.
Table 3.
Examples of unacceptable collocations due to the use of synonymy and their percentage Target
ParticipantsAo
Percentage Blank tape
Empty Rotten eggs decayed eggs Heated Hot argument
Profound
deep effect
Lethal weapon deadly weapon
Fast lane
quick lane
Plastic surgery Cosmetic Unwholesome Unhealthy food 33
CONCLUSIONS
AND
RECOMMENDATIONS