A Corpus-based Approach toward Teaching Collocation of Synonyms

Abstract

the aim of the study is to provide insights into the use of the corpus-based approach in L2 classes. The study aimed at comparing the effects of the corpus-based approach with the effects of the traditional approach on learning collocations of near-synonymous pairs. The study was run on 2 groups of L2 learners. One group named experimental group studied with concordancing and the other group named the control group studied with the traditional approach. The participants in each group were similar in terms of their proficiency and collocation competence. During the study, the first group was taught through concordancing materials taken from BNC as the concordancing, whereas the control group was taught the collocations explicitly. The instruments used for data collection were a pretest, a posttest, a prewriting and a postwriting. Through running a t test and descriptive statistics, the results revealed a difference between the two approaches about their effect on the comprehension and production of collocations of synonyms. The study has some implications for L2 learning and teaching that are discussed in the last part of the study

Using COCA to Foster Students’ Use of English Collocations in Academic Writing

“…Jafarpour et al found that their corpus-based teaching approach had a significant effect on the students' knowledge and competence of collocations in the experimental group. According to Jafarpour et al (2013), student in both groups achieved a considerable progress; however, students in the experimental group showed a significant improvement in their writing proficiency after using the corpus producing more authentic language.…”

“…Jafarpour et al (2013) compared the effect of a corpus-based teaching of collocations applied on an experimental group to that of traditional approach applied on a control group. The researchers focused on teaching collocations of nearsynonymous pairs.…”

Factors Impacting Recognition of False Collocations by Speakers of English as L1 and L2

“…The pilot study at the first stage included a collocation-recognition-targeted test, par tially modelled after Jafarpour et al (2013), McCarthy and O'Dell (2005), McKinlay and Hastings (2007), Nguyen and Webb (2016), and Smith (2005), and a posttest interview. The purpose of this stage was to identify the patterns and strategies participants used to select "oddsounding" word combina tions and build a hypothesis about potential factors that might have influ enced this recognition.…”

“…They argue that connections between words in collocations are dependent on a particular language (e.g., plastic surgery in English and пластическая операция [plastic operation] in Russian), and therefore are more difficult for language learners to recognize. Jafarpour, Hashemian, and Alipour (2013) and Webb and Kagimoto (2011) focus on synonyms for collo cates and nodes that might be similar or different in L1 and L2, which again impedes with collocation comprehension. Additionally, Peters (2016) identi fies that although congruent collocations are less likely to be problematic for recognition/recall in comparison to incongruent formulaic units, both are still a source of challenge for learners.…”

“…One of the words composing a collocation (either a node or a collocate) was changed to its syn onym because, according to Cieślicka (2015), many collocational errors are the result of either direct wordforword translation or paraphrasing related to word substitution by its synonym. This test format measured recognition of false collocations and was modelled after Jafarpour et al (2013), McCarthy and O'Dell (2005), and McKinlay and Hastings (2007). The false counterparts were run through the British National Corpus (BNC) search to ensure their nonfrequency.…”