Quite a few ESL teachers have probably stumbled upon the collocation threshold wondering whether their students will ever be able to master these fixed word combinations that are usually perceived as a single lexical unit, and yet the meaning of their individual components is slightly different from the meaning of a whole unit. The relations between collocation components are often inexplicable. For example, one can hardly explain why it is possible to say “heavy rain,” but not “hard rain.” Unlike idioms (e.g., killing two birds with one stone) that evoke a certain mental image and, therefore, are easier for memorization, collocations are a part of routine oral and written speech and usually do not elicit any mental associations.

While for a native speaker of English, collocation is just a natural way of saying things, for ESL learners and, consequently, for their teachers this is a challenge. The language learners' progress in mastering collocation is inconsistent, and it seems that, regardless of the teaching strategies, learners even at the advanced proficiency levels struggle and make a number of collocational errors. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a more clear understanding of the learner-related factors that make collocations so difficult to teach and learn.

The already existing research on the ESL learner does not attempt a systematic description or comparison of these factors. Several studies (Jiang & Nekrasova, 2007; Wray, 2002) discuss the mode of learning. According to them, native speakers and people who have learned a second language in their early childhood possess a holistic mode of language processing. They perceive fixed word combinations as a whole and do not break them further apart unless necessary. In contrast, nonnative speakers have an analytical mode of language processing, which means that they break down multiword units into parts in order to understand and memorize the meaning of each individual component. Later on, these links between the words get lost, and learners have certain challenges trying to recombine (match up) the collocation parts. Henceforth, we have ESL learners using “plastic operation” instead of “plastic surgery.” Additional factors mentioned might include a learner's primary language influence on English (Liao, 2010) and frequency and quality of language input (Gitsaki, 1996).

In my research, I used the data from more than 90 participants, both speakers of English as a first and second language, with the ESL speakers' language proficiency levels ranging from emergent to advanced bilingual, in order to identify specifics of and differences in collocation recognition and to explore factors potentially responsible for this.

The results of a reading-comprehension test have shown a complex network of influential factors that go far beyond those in the above-mentioned studies, that are not the same for native and nonnative speakers of English and that might be distributed into several main types:

• Intra-linguistic objective factors such as code-switching between English and participants' native language;
• Extra-linguistic objective factors such as overall language proficiency level, prior instruction, and word learning strategies;
• Psychological-affective subjective factors such as personal motivation for learning a language and communicative situation;
• Cognitive subjective factors ("reception strategies") such as focus of attention on the phrase structure, meaning, or both, and attention span (perceiving words in combinations or individually);
• Test-specific factors: Most of the ESL participants admitted that it was easier for them to recognize collocations in a cloze test versus when reading a paragraph;
• Characteristics of collocation as a lexical unit such as morphosyntactic structure and frequency of co-occurrence of a word combination.
  
  

Although researchers and educators have not yet identified teaching and learning strategies that would guarantee success, I will discuss and illustrate certain criteria of teaching that might prove helpful because they are focused on the above-mentioned factors, including

• raising collocational awareness (intuition) through analysis of language patterns (learning about collocation structure and combinatory patterns);
• attracting students’ attention to the L1-L2 interference (comparing collocations in L1 and L2, recognizing “nativeness”/ “nonnativeness” of word combinations [comparing correct/incorrect collocations]);
• using corpora-based dictionaries and databases, such as Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), Just the Word, or Word Neighbors for teaching to identify frequent/nonfrequent collocations and combinatory rules; and
• learning functions of collocations in dependence on the communicative situation.
  

One might ask whether it is really necessary for ESL learners, especially at lower levels of language proficiency, to try so hard to master these tricky lexical units. Unlike pronunciation, grammar, and one-word vocabulary units, insufficient collocation knowledge does not necessarily impede understanding. If an ESL learner says, “This tea is too powerful for me” instead of using strong, he or she will most likely still be understood, even if labeled as a nonnative speaker. In my presentation, I will argue, however, that there is more to collocations than simply serving as a determiner of advanced or native-like language proficiency. Indeed, collocations perform a range of functions as related to the learner's "communicative needs," "social [and individual] identity," and understanding of language aspects (Henriksen & Stoehr, 2009, p. 226).

In terms of communicative needs, collocations contribute to oral and written speech fluency and efficiency. Collocations also render the speaker's/writer's individual and social identity and facilitate social interaction by serving as code systems that give clues about the communicative situation and denote the speaker's sociocultural status and belonging to the community. Finally, it is important to note that oral and written discourse is composed of word chunks, and, therefore, knowledge of collocations will contribute to the learners’ knowledge of language regulative morphosyntactic and combinatory rules (grammar), as well as expand their vocabulary.

Disregarding or undermining the importance of collocations can result in the ESL learners’ incompetence in communication. Not being able to recognize collocations, ESL learners might feel at a loss when trying to comprehend a target language speech or reading passage. When attempting to speak, they will often be perceived as not fully competent, because they combine words in a way that sounds unnatural. This can lead to frustration and lack of adequate communicative and sociopragmatic competences, which means that language learners risk remaining outsiders who cannot fully participate in the life of the target language community.

REFERENCES

Gitsaki, C. (1996). The development of ESL collocational knowledge (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Centre for Language and Research. The University of Queensland, Brisbane St Lucia, Australia.

Henriksen, B., & Stoehr, L. S. (2009). Commentary on part IV: Processes in the development of L2 collocational knowledge – A challenge for language learners, researchers and teachers. In A. Barfield & H. Gyllstad (Eds.), Researching collocations in another language. Multiple interpretations (pp. 224–231). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jiang, N. A. N., & Nekrasova, T. M. (2007). The processing of formulaic sequences by second language speakers. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 433–445.

Liao, E. -H. (2010). An investigation of cross-linguistic transfer in EFL learners’ phraseology (Master’s thesis). Available from ProQuest LLC. (UMI No. 3401772)

Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Olga Makinina is an ESL instructor and doctoral student in the Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies Program at Carleton University. She has been teaching ESL in Canada, the United States, and Eastern Europe. Her research interests include formulaic language and code-switching in bilingual writing.