Abstract
This article compares the use of collocations in texts written by native speakers and advanced learners of Spanish. The collocations studied were first identified in the sample texts on the grounds of phraseological criteria and subsequently assigned frequency information corresponding to their occurrence in a reference corpus of Spanish. The distribution of collocations with different frequency of co-occurrence and mutual information scores in the texts of the two samples was then compared, as was their proportion in the collocation repertoire of native speakers and learners. The study revealed significant differences both in terms of frequency and mutual information.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by two post-doctoral grants from the Xunta de Galicia (POS-A/2013/191) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity (Juan de la Cierva formación FJCI-2014-22853).
References
Alonso Ramos, Margarita, Leo Wanner, Nancy Vázquez Veiga, Orsolya Vincze, Estela Mosqueira Suárez & Sabela Prieto González. 2010a. Tagging collocations for learners. In Sylviane Granger & Magali Paquot (eds.), Elexicography in the 21st Century: New Challenges, New Applications. Proceedings of eLex2009 (Cahiers du Cental 7), 375–380. Louvain-la Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Search in Google Scholar
Alonso Ramos, Margarita, Leo Wanner, Orsolya Vincze, Gerard Casamayor, Nancy Vázquez Veiga, Estela Mosqueira Suárez & Sabela Prieto González. 2010b. Towards a motivated annotation schema of collocation errors in learner corpora. In Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Jan Odjik, Stelios Piperidis, Mike Rosner & Daniel Tapias (eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on International Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’10), 19–21 May 2010, Valletta, Malta, 3209–3214. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).Search in Google Scholar
Altenberg, Bengt & Sylviane Granger. 2001. The grammatical and lexical patterning of MAKE in native and non-native student writing. Applied Linguistics 22. 173–195.10.1093/applin/22.2.173Search in Google Scholar
Bestgen, Yves & Sylviane Granger. 2014. Quantifying the development of phraseological competence in L2 English writing: An automated approach. Journal of Second Language Writing 26. 28–41.10.1016/j.jslw.2014.09.004Search in Google Scholar
Church, Kenneth, William Gale, Patrick Hanks & Donald Hindle. 1991. Using statistics in lexical analysis. In U. Zernick (ed.), Lexical acquisition, 115–164. Englewood Cliff, New Jersey: Erlbaum.10.4324/9781315785387-8Search in Google Scholar
Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment.https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf (accessed 1 June 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Cowie, A. P. 1981. The treatment of collocations and idioms in Learners’ dictionaries. Applied Linguistics 2(3). 223–235.10.1093/applin/2.3.223Search in Google Scholar
Cowie, A. P. 1998. Phraseological dictionaries: Some East–West comparisons. In A. P. Cowie (ed.), Phraseology. Theory, analysis, and applications, 209–228. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Durrant, Philip. 2008. High frequency collocations and second language learning. Nottingham: University of Nottingham dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Durrant, Philip. 2014. Corpus frequency and second language learners’ knowledge of collocations. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19(4). 443–477.10.1075/ijcl.19.4.01durSearch in Google Scholar
Durrant, Philip & Norbert Schmitt. 2009. To what extent do native and non-native speakers maker use of collocations? IRAL 47. 157–177.10.1515/iral.2009.007Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick, Rita Simpson-Vlach & Carson Maynard. 2008. Formulaic language in native and second language speakers: Psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, and TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 42(3). 375–396.10.1002/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00137.xSearch in Google Scholar
Erman, Britt & Beatrice Warren. 2000. The idiom principle and the open choice principle. Text 20(1). 29–62.10.1515/text.1.2000.20.1.29Search in Google Scholar
Evert, Stefan. 2005. The Statistics of word cooccurrences. Stuttgart: Universität Stuttgart dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Evert, Stefan. 2008. Corpora and collocations. In Anke Lüdeling & Merja Kytö (eds.), Corpus linguistics. An international handbook. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. http://purl.org/stefan.evert/PUB/Evert2007HSK_extended_manuscript.pdf (accessed 15 April 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Ferrando Aramo, Verónica. 2012. Aspectos teóricos y metodológicos para la compilación de un diccionario combinatorio destinado a estudiantes de E/LE. Tesis doctoral. Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Ferraro, Gabriela, Rogelio Nazar, Margarita Alonso Ramos & Leo Wanner. 2014. Towards advanced collocation error correction in Spanish learner corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation 48. 45–64.10.1007/s10579-013-9242-3Search in Google Scholar
Firth, John R. 1957 [1951]. “Modes of meaning”. In John R. Firth (ed.), Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951, 190–216. London: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gilquin, Gaëtanelle. 2007. To err is not all: What corpus and elicitation can reveal about the use of collocations by learners. Zeitschrift Für Anglistik Und Amerikanistik 55(3). 273–291.10.1515/zaa.2007.55.3.273Search in Google Scholar
González Fernández, B. & N. Schmitt 2015. How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: The effects of frequency and amount of exposure. ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics 166. 94–126.10.1075/itl.166.1.03ferSearch in Google Scholar
Granger, Sylviane & Yves Bestgen. 2014. The use of collocations by intermediate vs. advanced non-native writers: A bi-gram based study. IRAL 52(3). 229–252.10.1515/iral-2014-0011Search in Google Scholar
Granger, Sylviane & Magali Paquot. 2012. Formulaic language in learner corpora. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 32. 130–149.10.1017/S0267190512000098Search in Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1966. Lexis as a linguistic level. In C. E. Bazell, J. C. Catford, M. A. K. Halliday & R. H. Robins (eds.), In memory of J. R. Firth, 148–162. London: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Hasselgren, Angela. 1994. Lexical teddy bears and advanced learners: A study into the ways Norwegian students cope with English vocabulary. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 4(2). 237–260.10.1111/j.1473-4192.1994.tb00065.xSearch in Google Scholar
Hausmann, Franz Josef. 1989. Le dictionnaire de collocations. In Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann, Hans Ernst Wiegand & Ladislav Zgusta (eds.), Wörterbücher : ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires, 1010–1019. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110095852.1Search in Google Scholar
Insituto Cervantes. 1997-2016. Plan curricular del Instituto Cervantes. http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/plan_curricular/ (accessed 1 June 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, Adam. 2001. Comparing corpora. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 6(1). 97–133.10.1075/ijcl.6.1.05kilSearch in Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, Adam & Irene Renau. 2013. esTenTen, a Vast Web Corpus of Peninsular and American Spanish. Procedia 95. 12–19.10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.617Search in Google Scholar
Krishnamurthy, Ramesh. 2000. Collocation: from silly ass to lexical sets. In Chris Heffer & Helen Sauntson (eds.), Words in context: A tribute to John Sinclair on his retirement, 31–47. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Search in Google Scholar
Lexical Computing. 2015. Statistics used in the Sketch-Engine. https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/ske-stat.pdf (accessed 1 June 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Lijffijt, Jefrey, Terttu Nevalainen, Panagiotis Papapetrou, Kai Puolamaki & Heikki Mannila. 2014. Significance testing of word frequencies in corpora. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, fqu064. http://dsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/12/08/llc.fqu064 (accessed 4 December 2015)10.1093/llc/fqu064Search in Google Scholar
Lorenz, Günter. 1999. Adjective intensification – Learners versus Native speakers: A corpus study of argumentative writing. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Search in Google Scholar
Lozano, Cristobal. 2009. CEDEL2: Corpus Escrito del Español L2. In Carmen M. Bretones Callejas, José Francisco Fernández Sánchez, José Ramón Ibáñez Maria Elena García Sánchez, Ma Enriqueta Cortés De Los Ríos, Sagrario Salaberri Ramiro, Ma Soledad Cruz Martínez, Nobel Pedrú Honeyman & Blasina Cantizano Márquez (eds.), Applied linguistics now: Understanding language and mind/La lingüística aplicada hoy: Comprendiendo el lenguaje y la mente, 197–212. Almería: Universidad de Almería.Search in Google Scholar
Lozano, Cristobal & Amaya. Mendikoetxea 2013. Learner corpora and second language acquisition: The design and collection of CEDEL. In Ana Díaz-Negrillo, Nicolas Ballier & Paul Thompson (eds.), Automatic treatment and analysis of learner corpus data, 65–100. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/scl.59.06lozSearch in Google Scholar
Martinez, Ron. 2013. A framework for the inclusion of multi-word expressions in ELT. ELT Journal 67. 184–198.10.1093/elt/ccs100Search in Google Scholar
Mel’cuk, Igor A. 2012. Phraseology in the language, in the dictionary, and in the computer. Yearbook of Phraseology 3(1). 31–56.10.1515/phras-2012-0003Search in Google Scholar
Mel’čuk, Igor A. 1995. Phrasemes in language and phraseology in linguistics. In Martin Everaert, Erik-Jan Van Der Linden, Andr Schenk & Robert Schreuder (eds.), Idioms: Structural and Psychological perspectives, 167–232. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Search in Google Scholar
Meunier, F. 2012. Formulaic language and language teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 32. 111–129.10.1017/S0267190512000128Search in Google Scholar
Millar, Neil 2011. The processing of Malformed Formulaic language. Applied Linguistics 32(2). 129–148.10.1093/applin/amq035Search in Google Scholar
Nation, Paul. 2001. Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139524759Search in Google Scholar
Nesselhauf, Nadia. 2005. Collocations in a learner corpus. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/scl.14Search in Google Scholar
Paquot, Magali & Yves Bestgen. 2009. Distinctive words in academic writing: A comparison of three statistical tests for keyword extraction. In Andreas H. Jucker, Daniel Schreier & Marianne Hundt (eds.), Corpora: Pragmatics and discourse, 243–265. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Search in Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 1985. On speech formulas and linguistic competence. Lenguas Modernas 12. 84–104.10.17161/KWPL.1808.566Search in Google Scholar
Polguère, Alain. 2012. Propriétés sémantiques et combinatoires des quasi-prédicats sémantiques. Scolia 26. 131–152.Search in Google Scholar
Sinclair, John M. (ed.). 1987. Looking up – An account of the COBUILD Project in lexical computing. London: Harper-Collins.Search in Google Scholar
Stubbs, Michael. 1995. Collocations and semantic profiles: On the cause of the trouble with quantitative studies. Functions of Language 2(1). 23–55.10.1075/fol.2.1.03stuSearch in Google Scholar
Vincze, Orsolya. 2015. Learning multiword expressions from corpora and dictionaries. A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Vincze, Orsolya & Margarita Alonso Ramos. 2013. Incorporating frequency information in a collocation dictionary: Establishing a methodology. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 96. 241–248.10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.644Search in Google Scholar
Vincze, Orsolya, Margarita Alonso Ramos & Estela Mosqueira. 2011. Exploiting a learner corpus for the development of a CALL environment for learning Spanish collocations. In Iztok Kosem & Karmen Kosem (eds.), Electronic lexicography in the 21st century: New applications for new users. Proceedings of eLex 2011, 280–285. Ljubljana: Trojina, Institute for Applied Slovene Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Vinzce, Orsolya, Marcos García Salido, Ana Orol & Margarita Alonso Ramos. 2016. A corpus study of Spanish as a Foreign Language learners’ collocation production. In Margarita Alonso Ramos (ed.), Spanish learner corpus research: Current trends and future perspectives, 299–332. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/scl.78.11vinSearch in Google Scholar
Wray, Alison. 2002. Formulaic language and the lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511519772Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston