Error Analysis Collocation

Students' Names:
Reham Abu Alrub
Sanaa Melhem
Marwa Alghazawi
Students' ID's:
0154880
0151201
2120963
Topic:
Collocation
Introduction:
For an intermediate learner of a foreign or second language, vocabulary
has always been a difficult and a hindrance stands in his way progress.
With the expansion of the size of vocabulary, many problems arise
concerning the proper use of a word in context, among which is
collocation. However, students of English are more concerned about
how to expand their vocabulary, that is, to increase the number of
words they can remember. They pay no attention to or ignore the depth
of their understanding of the world about how to deepen the
understanding of the word is a problem facing them.
Collocation is one of the most important aspects of knowing a word.

That is to say, in order to deepen the understanding of a word, students
of English must know its collocation.There are no rules we can use to
learn collocations so it’s arbitrary in English and there is often no logical
reason why some words are possible to come together and others are
not. For example, we can talk about an academic year (but not a
studying year).There are many reasons about the importance of learning
collocation. It will help the learner understand how to use vocabulary
words in a sentence correctly. Another reason is that collocation
provides a good way to memorize new words. In another word, words
which are naturally associated in context are learnt more easily than
those not so associated; vocabulary is best learned in context.
Literature review:
Several researchers and linguists attempt to define collocation. Nattinger
and DeCarrico (1992,21) define collocation as “strings of words that
seem to have certain ‘mutual expectancy’, or a greater-than chance
likelihood that they will co-occur in any text." That is to say collocation is
a habitual association in which language words co-occur together
forming single units of meanings . Choueka (1988) defines it as words
collocate together to form meaning different from its literal meaning.
Firth (1957) states that collocations of a given word are statements that
co-occur more frequently than by chance. Furthermore, Cambridge
dictionary supposes that collocation is the often use of a word or
phrase with another word and phrase in which that sounds are correct
to the native speakers of the language, but the meaning might not be
expected from its components.
The most common widely used classifications of collocation are made by

Benson, Benson and Ilson (1986) in their introduction to their The BBI
Combinatory Dictionary of English in which collocations are divided into
two kinds. The first type is lexical collocation, and it refers to the
relations between two or more content words that come together in a
sentence. They refer to content words as open words which are noun,
verb, adjective and adverb. Lexical collocation type has seven subtypes
that emerge these open words together. These subtypes are verb+
noun/p; with the verb denoting creation and/or activation, verb+ noun
with the verb denoting eradication and/or nullification , Adjective+
noun, noun+ noun, verb+ adverb, adverb+ adjective and noun+ verb.
Similar classifications were also proposed by Hausmann (1989, 1010)
referring to them as syntactic structures of collocations. The second type
is grammatical collocation in which a function word is combined with a
content word. The meanings of grammatical collocations are lexicalized
as one unit but sometimes their meanings do not reflect the meanings of
the elements. In that case, grammatical collocations are idiomatic.
According to (ibid) researchers, grammatical collocations fall into specific
combinations which are noun+ preposition, noun+ to-infinitive, noun+
that-clause, preposition+ noun, adjective+ preposition, predicate+
adjective+ to-infinitive, adjective+ that-clause and the English 19 verb
patterns.
In all human language, there is a kind of ‘natural order’ in which words

are arranged or relate to one another in sentences, so that when a word
occurs in a given context, the related or naturally co-occurring word will
automatically or habitually come to the mind. It becomes an error. It
has been observed that most of the second language learners in this
research group commit collocation errors. A study of this kind is very
significant as it gives insight into the kinds of errors committed by
learners. This is help the teachers to clarifying the sources of errors,
helping their students to skip their difficulties and leading to achieve
some level of competence in the language .There are a lot of errors
made by the students to link two words with each others. According to
Abdulmoneim Mahmoud(2005), he explains the types of errors in an
organized way. The first one is word choice where the choice of one
word or both words is improper either one word incorrect. For
examples, * make the homework,* work your work and * rest a full rest.
Or both words which are incorrect. For examples,*destroyed houses (=
broken homes)and *hurts the mind (= harms the brain).The second type
which is word's form where the errors occur when the form of the word
use is erroneous. For examples* wants to get marriage as well as * a
famous musician band. The last one which is contextual errors means
lexical combinations which are linguistically correct but contextually
incorrect. For examples,* bring a boy (= give birth to a boy)and* finish
business (= do business).
Findings:
As mentioned earlier, there are two types of collocations and we found

examples from the samples which are the following:
1. Lexical collocations, which include:
A. adjective + noun.
E.g. occupied territory, the oldest ruins, important evidence, huge
place, many people.
B. verb + noun.
E.g. faced difficulty, solve the problem
C. noun + noun.
E.g. school life, Jewish migration, Zionism power, traffic jam.
D. verb + adverb.
E.g. study hard, wake up early.
E. adverb+ adjective.
E.g. absolutely amazing, well-established, really nice.
Types of lexical Number of Percentage of

collocations examples occurrences
verb + noun 5 23%
verb + noun 2 9%
noun + noun 4 18%
verb + adverb 2 9%
adverb+ adjective 3 14%
2. Grammatical collocations:
A. noun+ preposition.
E.g. pack with, Remains in.
B. preposition+ noun.
E.g. to that point, of starting, at ample, in a pact.
C. noun+ to-infinitive.
E.g. years to come.
Types of grammatical Number of Percentage of

collocations examples occurrences
noun+ preposition 2 9%
preposition+ noun 4 18%
types of collocations Number of Percentage of

examples occurrences
Lexical collocations 16 70 %
Grammatical 7 30 %
collocations
There are many types of errors which are related to collocation based on
the sample that we discussed:
1. Word choice: where the choice of one word or both words is

improper either one word incorrect. For examples:
A. ”watch student” instead of “see student”.
B. ”fit requirement” instead of “suit requirement “.
C. ”build a culture” instead of “assimilate a culture”.
Or it could be two words incorrect .For example:
-“basic machine” instead of” important device”.
2.Word form: where the errors occur when the form of the word use is
erroneous. For examples:
A. “put so much pressure on me” instead of “put me under intolerable

pressure”.
B.”To start” instead of “of starting”.
3. Contextual errors: where combinations which are linguistically correct

but contextually incorrect. For examples:
A. “despite being punctual enough to arrive at time before the lecture
start, I was twenty minutes late” instead of “arrive with”.
B.”Finally I think that truth is clear but people always keep distorting it in
order to suit their requirements” instead of “continue” distorting.
Types of errors Number of Percentage

occurrences
50%
Word choice 7
29%
Word form 4
21%
Contextual errors 3
Methodology
This study is conducted on about 13 samples of freshmen students of
Applied English specialization at The University of Jordan who were
taking Writing course. The samples are written individually by students
in 2015. They are analyzed based on collocation, its types and some
common errors made by beginners of English. We chose this topic
because collocation is problematic for English learners and
understanding its types and errors made by learners is a good way to
avoid making mistakes.
Discussion
According to the findings, we found that students used lexical

collocation rather than grammatical one. Especially they highly
used adjective –noun pattern because it's a rule-governed. In terms
of errors, we found that 50 of errors are word choice .This high
percentage of occurrences is because that Arab students translate
collocation literary from Arabic into English there are many main
sources and causes of the lexical and grammatical collocation
errors. Firstly, native language influence which is also known as
mother tongue interference. The Native language interferes with
the target by way of transfer of and then direct translation of
thoughts and ideas, carefully selected from the ESL learner’s Native
language linguistic repertoire, into the target English language.
Secondly, overgeneralization of Rules, that is it the students over
use, or overextension of morphological and grammatical rules
resulting to incorrect combination of words and phrases.
Conclusion
In this study, the samples have focused on the use of collocation among
Arab students, its types and some common errors that are made by
them. Teachers have to make little efforts to help students learn the use
of collocation because beginners rely on their native language in trying
to communicate or translate. Consequently, we think that we can over
generalize that the main cause of making the errors is that Arab learners
of English lack the knowledge of collocation that is generally manifested
in the students’ lack of adequate and appropriate words for self-
expression. So usually they can’t select the appropriate word in term
their linguistic repertoire.
Bibliography
Abdulmoneim Mahmoud. "Collocation Errors Made By Arab Learners Of
English." researchgate. N.p., 2005. Web. 23 Apr. 2018.
Lüdeling, Anke. "STS: The Productivity Of Collocations." ofai. N.p., 2018.

Web. 23 Apr. 2018.
- Duan, M. and Qin, X. (2012). Collocation in English Teaching and

Learning. [online] ACADEMY PUBLICATION. Available at:
http://www.academypublication.com [Accessed 13 Apr. 2018].
-Karoly, A. (2005). The Importance of Raising Collocational Awareness in
the Vocabulary Development of Intermediate level Learners of English.
[online] EszterházyKárolyFoiskola. Available at:
http://www.anglisztika.ektf.hu [Accessed 13 Apr. 2018].
-Mahmoud, A. (2005). Collocation Errors Made by Arab Learners of

English. Asian EFL Journal, [online] 5, p.5. Available at: http://Asian-efl-
journal.com [Accessed 15 Apr. 2018].
Men, H. (2018). The Notion of Collocation. [online] springer. Available at:

http://www.springer.com [Accessed 15 Apr. 2018].
-Moehkardi, R. (2002). GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL ENGLISH

COLLOCATIONS: SOME POSSIBLE PROBLEMS TO INDONESIAN LEARNERS
OF ENGLISH. [online] Indo-EFL. Available at: http://indotefl.pbworks.com
[Accessed 15 Apr. 2018].
-Sadeghi, Zahra. "The Importance Of Collocation In Vocabulary Teaching

And Learning." translationjournal. N.p., 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2018.
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Students' Names:

Reham Abu Alrub

Collocation is one of the most important aspects of knowing a word.

The most common widely used classifications of collocation are made by

In all human language, there is a kind of ‘natural order’ in which words

As mentioned earlier, there are two types of collocations and we found

1. Lexical collocations, which include:

Types of lexical Number of Percentage of

Types of grammatical Number of Percentage of

types of collocations Number of Percentage of

1. Word choice: where the choice of one word or both words is

A. ”watch student” instead of “see student”.

B. ”fit requirement” instead of “suit requirement “.

C. ”build a culture” instead of “assimilate a culture”.

Or it could be two words incorrect .For example:

-“basic machine” instead of” important device”.

A. “put so much pressure on me” instead of “put me under intolerable

B.”To start” instead of “of starting”.

3. Contextual errors: where combinations which are linguistically correct

Types of errors Number of Percentage

According to the findings, we found that students used lexical

Lüdeling, Anke. "STS: The Productivity Of Collocations." ofai. N.p., 2018.

- Duan, M. and Qin, X. (2012). Collocation in English Teaching and

-Mahmoud, A. (2005). Collocation Errors Made by Arab Learners of

Men, H. (2018). The Notion of Collocation. [online] springer. Available at:

-Moehkardi, R. (2002). GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL ENGLISH

-Sadeghi, Zahra. "The Importance Of Collocation In Vocabulary Teaching

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