1

Research Timeline

Teaching and learning collocation in adult second and foreign language learning

Frank Boers, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

[email protected]

Stuart Webb, University of Western Ontario, Canada

[email protected]

FRANK BOERS is an Associate Professor at the School of Linguistics and Applied

Language Studies of Victoria University of Wellington. His initial research
endeavours concerned lexicology, semantics and rhetoric (e.g., studies of metaphor).
Most of his more recent research interests, however, were sparked by his experience
as a language teacher and teacher trainer. He now publishes mostly on matters of
instructed second language acquisition, often regarding vocabulary and phraseology.
Some of the latter work has appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics and
Language Teaching Research.
Contact details: Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New
Zealand; email: [email protected].

STUART WEBB is a Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Education at the

University of Western Ontario. His research interests include vocabulary studies,
extensive reading and listening, and language learning through watching television.
His articles have been published in journals such as Applied Linguistics and
Language Learning. His latest book (with Paul Nation) is How Vocabulary is
Learned (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Contact details: The University of Western Ontario, 1137 Western Road, London,
Ontario, Canada; email: [email protected].
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Perhaps the greatest challenge to creating a research timeline on teaching and learning

collocation is deciding how wide to cast the net in the search for relevant publications.

For one thing, the term collocation does not have the same meaning for all (applied)

linguists and practitioners (Barfield & Gyllstad See timeline: 3–7). For another, items

that are labelled as collocations in one study may be called something else in another

study (Wray 2000: 465).

In the discipline of corpus linguistics, collocation refers to the above-chance

co-occurrence of two words (Sinclair 1991). The degree of likelihood of two words

co-occurring in a corpus within a given span of discourse can be quantified through

one of the available measures of collocational strength such as the mutual information

(MI) score. The higher that score, the stronger the word partnership or collocation is.

Word substitutions that cause deviations from the regular co-occurrences (e.g. highly

religious instead of deeply religious) will tend to stand out as unconventional or ‘non-

idiomatic’ (where the term idiomatic is used in the sense of ‘combining words like a

native speaker would’).

However, in the older discipline of phraseology research, collocations are

usually considered a particular type of multiword expression, distinguishable from

other types, most notably idioms (e.g. Howarth 1998; Gitsaki 1999: 3). The principal

argument for making this distinction is that the meaning of some multiword

expressions (e.g. cause damage) follows from adding up the meaning of their

constituents, while the meaning of other multiword expressions (e.g. pull strings)

transcends that of their constituent words. The former type is then labelled collocation

and the latter is labelled idiom. This commonly made distinction between collocations

and idioms is paralleled in the realm of language education by the availability of study
 3

materials devoted separately to either collocations or idioms (e.g. McCarthy & O’Dell

2002, 2005).

The distinction between collocations and idioms on the basis of semantic

transparency (or ‘compositionality’) is not black-and-white, however. For one thing,

many so-called collocations are transparent only provided one is not led astray by the

primary meaning of constituents words (e.g. pay in pay attention is not used in its

financial transaction sense) (Boers & Webb 2015). For another, many expressions that

are listed in idiom dictionaries are to some degree compositional. If pull strings

evokes the image of a puppeteer in action, and if this aids interpretation of the

expression, then the constituent words pull and strings do contribute to the meaning of

the phrase as a whole (Gibbs 1994).

Using the above-chance co-occurrence of words as a (corpus-based) criterion

naturally leads to the inclusion of expressions considered idioms in phraseological

tradition. For example, some of the target expressions labelled collocations in Webb,

Newton & Chang’s (2013) study (see timeline) are included in the Collins Cobuild

Dictionary of Idioms (2002) (e.g. cut corners and stay the course) while other targets

are not (e.g., buy time and run the risk). Conversely, given their relatively fixed

nature, most idioms will conform to the corpus linguistic definition of collocation

(e.g. vicious circle) (Macis & Schmitt 2017). We could therefore have cast our net as

wide as to include publications with an explicit focus on idioms in L2 learning.

However, to keep the scope of this research timeline manageable, we have opted not

to do that. The body of research on idiom comprehension and learning is large, and

probably merits a research timeline of its own.

Apart from revealing the statistical likelihood that certain words will occur in

each other’s company (e.g. that pretty is much more likely to co-occur with girl than
 4

with boy), corpus data can also be used to make inventories of continuous strings of

two or more words (n-grams) that meet a given frequency criterion. Such highly

frequent strings have been called lexical bundles (Biber, Conrad & Cortes 2004). The

resulting inventories will contain sequences such as and so on, and one of the, which

consist of words that are so common that likelihood-of-co-occurrence statistics (e.g.

MI scores) will often fail to reach significance (owing to the fact that these words are

found in the company of just about any other word in a corpus). Despite the value in

this line of research, we have also excluded publications with a particular focus on

lexical bundles. Among these are several corpus-informed attempts to create

inventories of uninterrupted word sequences that could be given priority in learning

by virtue of their high frequency (Shin & Nation 2008; Simpson-Vlach & Ellis 2010;

Liu 2012; Martinez & Schmitt 2012).

The phenomenon of collocation is of course part and parcel of formulaic

language in general. A fair number of studies have explored the learning and teaching

of ‘formulaic sequences’ (Wray 2000), encompassing diverse multiword expressions,

often identified or selected by the researchers on the basis of intuition (and inter-coder

agreement) instead of corpus data. We have also decided against including this line of

research in our timeline, because a separate timeline devoted to formulaic language is

in fact already available in the present journal (Wray 2013).

Still, we fully recognize that giving precedence in our research timeline to

studies which explicitly focus on ‘collocation’ is at the expense of multiple other

publications that offer valuable insights into the nature of phraseology more generally

and into the challenges that particular types of multiword expressions (e.g. idioms)

pose for L2 learners.

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Turning now to our timeline, it is striking that interest in collocation in the

context of L2 learning initially developed very slowly. The pace of research only

began to pick up in the late 1990s, possibly spurred on by Nattinger & DeCarrico’s

(1992) and Lewis’ (1993, 1997, 2000) seminal works that highlighted the relevance of

multiword lexis for L2 learners. The proliferation of research on collocation learning

and teaching since the late 1990s has been astounding, however, with a particularly

rapid rise in numbers of studies in the past decade. There is no doubt that the interval

between the creation of this timeline and its publication will see more publications on

the subject. As a whole, the timeline shows a progression in research from studies that

provide evidence of the importance of collocation for L2 learners and the slow pace of

L2 collocation learning in the absence of pedagogic intervention, to studies that

evaluate the effectiveness of various types of intervention, ranging from relatively

unobtrusive manipulations of input (e.g., textual enhancement) to explicit collocation-

focused exercises.

The publications included in this timeline cover the following three broad

themes, and each publication is classified according to the most relevant one(s).

A Demonstrating the usefulness of L2 collocation knowledge. These are

publications that show strong associations between learners’ mastery of collocation

and their general levels of (speaking and/or writing) proficiency.

B Assessing L2 learners’ collocation knowledge. This theme includes

comparisons of natives’ and learners’ use of collocation, and also the development

and validation of test instruments to measure collocation knowledge.

C Investigating factors that influence the pace of acquisition of (types of)

collocations, and pedagogic interventions to accelerate learning. This broad category

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comprises studies which gauge the impact of variables such as L1-L2

(non-)congruency and frequency of encounters on learners’ (incidental) uptake of L2

collocations, as well as studies that evaluate the effectiveness of collocation-focused

instructional procedures.

References

Biber, D., S. Conrad & V. Cortes (2004). If you look at…: Lexical bundles in

university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics 25.3, 371–405.

Boers, F. & S. Webb (2015). Gauging the semantic transparency of idioms: Do

natives and learners see eye to eye? In R. Heredia & A. Cieslicka (Eds.),

Bilingual Figurative Language Processing (pp. 368–392). Cambridge

University Press.

Collins Cobuild dictionary of idioms (2002, 2nd ed.). Glasgow, UK: HarperCollins.

Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and

understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gitsaki, C. (1999). Second language lexical acquisition: A study of the development

of collocational knowledge. San Francisco: International Scholars

Publications.

Howarth, P. (1998). Phraseology and second language proficiency. Applied

Linguistics 19.1, 24–44.

Lewis, M. (1993). The lexical approach. Hove, UK: Language Teaching Publications.

Lewis, M. (1993). Implementing the lexical approach. Hove, UK: Language Teaching

Publications.

Lewis, M. (ed.) (2000). Teaching collocations. Hove, UK: Language Teaching

Publications.
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Liu, D. (2012). The most frequently-used multiword constructions in academic

written English: A multi-corpus study. English for Specific Purposes 31.1, 25–

35.

Macis, M. & N. Schmitt (2016). Not just ‘small potatoes’: Knowledge of the

idiomatic meanings of collocations, Language Teaching Research 21.3, 321–

340

Martinez, R. & N. Schmitt (2012). A phrasal expressions list. Applied Linguistics

33.3, 299–320.

McCarthy, M. & F. O’Dell (2002). English idioms in use. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

McCarthy, M. & F. O’Dell (2005). English collocations in use: Intermediate.

Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Nattinger J. R. & J. S. DeCarrico (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shin, D. & P. Nation (2008). Beyond single words: The most frequent collocations in

spoken English. ELT Journal 62.4, 339−348.

Simpson-Vlach, R. & N. C. Ellis (2010). An academic formulas list: New methods in

phraseology research. Applied Linguistics 31.4, 487–512.

Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Wray, A. (2000). Formulaic sequences in second language teaching: Principles and

practice. Applied Linguistics 21.4, 463–489.

Wray, A. (2013). Formulaic language. Language Teaching 46.3, 316–334.

YEAR
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REFERENCES

ANNOTATIONS

THEME

1933

Palmer, H.E. (1933). Second interim report on English collocations. Tokyo, Japan:

Kaitakusha.

This is one of several texts in which Palmer calls for more research on collocation

and for giving due attention to collocation in language pedagogy. He recommends

learning collocations holistically rather than through knowledge of the words that

make up each item. This recommendation will be reiterated by many others (e.g.

Lewis 1993), but also questioned by some (e.g. LIU 2010).

1992

Biskup, D. (1992). L1 influence on learners’ renderings of English collocations. A

Polish/German empirical study. In P. J. L. Arnaud & H. Bejoint (eds.), Vocabulary

and applied linguistics. London: Macmillan. 85–93.

Biskup finds that EFL learners with a more distant L1 (Polish) make fewer L2

collocational errors that are due to L1 interference than those with a less distant L1

(German), and suggests that this is due to an assumed congruency between the more

closely related languages. This book chapter is the beginning of a thread of studies on

the influence of learners’ L1 on their production of collocations in their L2 (e.g.

GRANGER 1998; NESSELHAUF 2003).

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1993

Bahns, J. & M. Eldaw (1993). Should we teach EFL students collocations? System

21.1, 101–114.

Bahns & Eldaw examined the extent to which verb-noun collocations were correctly

produced in cloze and translation tests. They found that knowledge of collocations

was far less than that of single word items. L2 verb-noun collocations have since been

found in several other studies to be particularly troublesome for learners, especially

when they are incongruent with the counterparts in the learners’ L1 (NESSELHAUF

2003; PETERS 2016).

B/C

1993

Read, J. (1993). The development of a new measure of L2 vocabulary knowledge.

Language Testing 10.3, 355–371.

Read’s Word Associates Test was not specifically designed to measure collocational

knowledge. However, it was innovative in that it measured recognition of collocates

of target words as one of the components of word knowledge.

1998

Granger, S. (1998). Prefabricated patterns in advanced EFL writing: Collocations and

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formulae. In A. P. Cowie (ed.), Phraseology: Theory, analysis and applications.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 145–160.

Granger provides evidence from a learner corpus of the impact that the L1 has on

learning and use of L2 collocations and suggests that teachers and materials

developers need to take this into consideration to make learning more efficient.

2003

Nesselhauf, N. (2003). The use of collocations by advanced learners of English and

some implications for teaching. Applied Linguistics 24.2, 223–242.

Nesselhauf used a learner corpus to examine the types of mistakes that advanced

language learners make using verb-noun collocations. She found that L1 influence, or

the degree of L1-L2 congruence, was responsible for a large proportion of errors (thus

confirming the earlier findings by BISKUP 1992, and GRANGER 1998).

B/C

2007

Keshavarz, M. H. & H. Salimi (2007). Collocational competence and cloze test

performance: A study of Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Applied

Linguistics 17.1, 81–92.

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Keshavarz & Salimi created a 50-item multiple-choice test designed to measure

collocational competence and compared L2 participants’ results on this test to their

scores on open-ended and multiple-choice cloze tests. The significant correlations

lend support to the claim that L2 proficiency and knowledge of collocations are

closely associated. Further (indirect) evidence of this association is provided by HSU

& CHIU (2008).

2008

Laufer, B. & N. Girsai (2008). Form-focused instruction in second language

vocabulary learning: a case for contrastive analysis and translation. Applied

Linguistics 29.4, 694–716.

Laufer & Girsai compared the effectiveness of learning collocations in meaning-

focused activities, exclusively L2 form-focused activities, and L1-L2 translation

activities. The latter treatment resulted in the best learning outcomes. Explicitly

contrasting L1 and L2 collocations in instructional materials thus appears to be an

effective way of countering the well-documented interference from L1 on learners’

(mis)use of collocations (cf. NESSELHAUF 2003). Laufer & Girsai’s study is an early

‘intervention’ study that compares learning gains obtained from different kinds of

engagement with the target collocations. More recent examples include BOERS ET AL.

(2016) and EYCKMANS ET AL. (2016).

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2008

Lindstromberg, S. & F. Boers (2008). The

mnemonic effect of noticing alliteration in

lexical chunks. Applied Linguistics 29.2,

200–222.

The results from the experiments reported by Lindstromberg & Boers suggest that

collocations exhibiting alliteration (e.g. make a mess) – a conspicuously common

feature of English phraseology – can easily be made more memorable for learners by

alerting them to the alliteration.

2008

Hsu, J.-y. & C.-y. Chiu (2008). Lexical collocations and their relation to speaking

proficiency of college EFL learners in Taiwan. Asian EFL Journal 10.1, 181−204.

Hsu & Chiu report significant correlations between EFL learners’ scores on written

tests intended to measure knowledge of collocation, and the learners’ grades obtained

for oral narrative tasks. This provides more (indirect) evidence of the contribution that

collocation mastery can make to oral proficiency.

2008

Siyanova, A. & N. Schmitt (2008). L2 learner production and processing of

collocation: A multi-study perspective. Canadian Modern Language Review 64.3,

429–458.
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Unlike others (e.g., GRANGER 1998), Siyanova & Schmitt found little difference

between natives’ and advanced learners’ use of adjective-noun collocations in

comparable native and learner corpora. However, L2 learners’ processing of the

collocations was found to be slower than native-speakers’.

2009

Durrant, P. & N. Schmitt (2009). To what extent do native and non-native writers

make

use of collocations? International Review of Applied Linguistics 47.2, 157–177.

Durrant & Schmitt examine the degree to which frequency may affect L2 learners’

use of collocations. They found that non-native writers tend to overuse higher

frequency collocations and underuse lower frequency ones.

2009

Barfield, A. & H. Gyllstad (eds.) (2009). Researching collocations in another

language - Multiple interpretations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

This edited volume contains original research studies that collectively cover the three

broad themes identified in this time line. Three of its chapters are specifically

concerned with the design and validation of tests of collocation knowledge, and

illustrate the intricate nature of this knowledge construct and how it can be measured.

A, B, C
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2009

Boers, F. & S. Lindstromberg (2009).

Optimizing a lexical approach to instructed

second language acquisition. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan.

Boers & Lindstromberg argue on the basis of previous research that foreign

language learners’ autonomous uptake of multiword lexis (including collocations) is

almost bound to be unsatisfactory, and they call for initiatives that go beyond

awareness-raising about the importance of phrasal lexis. The book presents

experimental validation for classroom techniques intended to help learners not only to

notice chunks of language, but to remember them.

A, B, C

2009

Webb, S. & E. Kagimoto (2009). The effects of vocabulary learning on collocation

and meaning. TESOL Quarterly 43.1, 55–77.

Webb & Kagimoto look at how (silent) reading of glossed sentences and completing

a cloze activity contribute to learning the written form and the meaning of target

collocations. The two activities led to comparable gains in both aspects of knowledge,

and so the study does not furnish evidence of a practice-mode – test-mode congruency

effect.

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2010

Durrant, P. & N. Schmitt (2010). Adult

learners’ retention of collocations from

exposure. Second Language Research 28.2,

163–188.

Durrant & Schmitt’s experiment starts a thread of investigations into the role of

repeated encounters with the same collocation (see, e.g., WEBB, NEWTON & CHANG

2013 and PELLICER-SANCHEZ 2017, for later studies). Participants were asked to read

sentences containing collocations aloud and were tested on their recollection of the

target collocations shortly after this. More exposures to a collocation increased the

likelihood of recollection, in particular when the collocation had been re-encountered

in identical sentences.

2010

Liu, D. (2010). Going beyond patterns:

Involving cognitive analysis in the learning

of collocations. TESOL Quarterly 44.1, 4–

30.

Liu argues that many collocations can be motivated with reference to the core

semantics of their component words. He argues that learners should be encouraged to

explore the non-arbitrary facets of collocation as a way of stimulating retention. An

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instructional approach to multiword expressions along these lines was proposed by

BOERS & LINDSTROMBERG (2009).

2010

Li, J. & N. Schmitt (2010). The development of collocation use in academic texts by

advanced L2 learners: A multiple case study approach. In D. Wood (ed.),

Perspectives on formulaic language: Acquisition and communication. New York:

Continuum, 22–46.

Li & Schmitt document the slow development of EFL learners’ knowledge of

adjective-noun collocations over time. The described pace of acquisition is perhaps

particularly revealing given that the participants in the study were language majors,

and it lends support to earlier claims that collocation learning tends to lag behind

single word learning (e.g. BAHNS & ELDAW 1993)

2010

Yamashita, J. & N. Jiang (2010). L1 influence on the acquisition of L2 collocations:

Japanese ESL users and EFL learners acquiring English collocations. TESOL

Quarterly 44.4, 647–668.

Yamashita & Jiang look at the effects of L1-L2 congruency and L2 exposure on

learning collocations. Their results indicate that both factors affect learning;

congruent collocations are more easily learned than incongruent collocations, and

greater L2 exposure increases the potential for acquisition.

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2011

Webb, S. & E. Kagimoto (2011). Learning collocations: Do the number of collocates,

position of the node word, and synonymy affect learning? Applied Linguistics 32.3,

259–276.

Webb & Kagimoto report an experiment where participants were asked to study

differently designed sets of collocations. Post-test results indicate that learning is

easiest when some of the collocations share the same collocate (e.g., deep sleep and

deep sigh), and so fewer word associations need to be remembered. Learning is

hardest when collocations in a set contain near-synonymous words (e.g., slim chance

and narrow escape), as this increases the risk of cross-interference between the target

items. Further evidence of the risk of cross-item interference is reported in BOERS ET

AL. (2014).

2011

Wolter, B. & H. Gyllstad (2011). Collocational links in the L2 mental lexicon and the

influence of L1 intralexical knowledge. Applied Linguistics 32.4, 430–449.

While previous investigations on the impact of L1 – L2 congruency at the level of

collocations used off-line tasks, Wolter & Gyllstad use online processing measures,

and confirm that L2 collocations that are congruent with L1 collocations are
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processed with much greater ease by learners than those which have no L1 equivalent,

thus supporting the findings of YAMASHITA & JIANG (2010).

2011

Laufer, B. & T. Waldman (2011). Verb-noun collocations in second language

writing: A corpus analysis of learners’ English. Language Learning 61.4, 647–672.

Laufer & Waldman compared EFL students’ knowledge of collocations across

different proficiency levels (operationalized as different years of language study).

Their cross-sectional study reveals only piecemeal gains between proficiency levels, a

finding reminiscent of LI & SCHMITT’s (2010) longitudinal study.

2011

Laufer, B. (2011). The contribution of dictionary use to the production and retention

of collocations in a second language. International Journal of Lexicography 24.1, 29–

49.

Laufer examined how dictionary entries may contribute to learning verb-noun

collocations. She found that, although use of dictionaries did contribute to some

extent to collocational knowledge, her EFL learners often overestimated their

knowledge of the collocations and consequently did not consult a dictionary. At other

times, they failed to find the information they needed.

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2011

Kasahara, K. (2011). The effect of known-and-unknown word combinations on

intentional vocabulary learning. System 39.4, 491–499.

Kasahara compared learning collocations made up of one known and one unknown

word with learning the unknown words alone. The research indicated superior

retention of the intact collocations, which suggests that associating new words with a

familiar collocate is helpful.

2013

Levitzky-Aviad, T. & B. Laufer (2013). Lexical properties in the writing of foreign

language learners over eight years of study: Single words and collocations. In C.

Bardel, C. Lindqvist, & B. Laufer (eds.), L2 vocabulary acquisition knowledge and

use: New perspectives on assessment and corpus. EUROSLA MONOGRAPHS

SERIES 2. European Second Language Association, 127–150.

Levitzky-Aviad & Laufer examined the use of collocations in written work of

students of different ages and grade levels. A corpus that included 290 passages

written by students in grades 6-12 and first-year university English majors was

examined to determine if there was variation in the use of collocations during the

years of formal English learning. The results indicated that there was a general

increase in the use of collocations, but that statistically significant increases only

occurred between the university level and each of the school grades. This cross-
 20

sectional study complements LI & SCHMITT’s (2010) longitudinal study of the (slow)

development of L2 collocation knowledge.

2013

Sonbul, S. & N. Schmitt (2013). Explicit and implicit lexical knowledge: Acquisition

of collocations under different input conditions. Language Learning 63.1, 121–159.

Sonbul & Schmitt examine collocation learning in two contextualized conditions and

one decontextualized learning condition. They found that all conditions led to

significant learning, and that typographic enhancement contributed to greater learning

than reading an unenhanced text. The effect of typographic enhancement on

collocation learning has been further investigated in, for example, CHOI (2016) and

SZUDARSKI & CARTER (2016).

2013

Webb, S., J., Newton & A. C-S Chang (2013). Incidental learning of collocation.

Language Learning 63.1, 91–120.

Webb et al. examined the extent to which collocations are learned incidentally

through reading (while listening to) a graded reader, as well as the effect of frequency

on collocation learning. The study was the first to reveal that incidental learning of

collocation occurs and that frequency has a similar effect for learning collocations as
 21

it does with single-word items; incidental learning increased as the number of

encounters with target collocations (1, 5, 10, and 15) increased.

2013

Wolter, B. & H. Gyllstad (2013). Frequency of input and L2 collocational processing:

A comparison of congruent and incongruent collocations. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition 35.3, 451–482.

In a follow up to YAMASHITA & JIANG (2010) and WOLTER & GYLLSTAD (2011),

Wolter & Gyllstad look at the influence of frequency effects on the processing of

congruent and incongruent collocations. They found that the frequency of adjective-

noun collocations affected the response times of advanced L2 learners, and that this

effect occurred with both congruent and incongruent collocations.

2014

Boers, F., M. Demecheleer, A. Coxhead & S. Webb (2014). Gauging the effects of

exercises on verb-noun collocations. Language Teaching Research 18.1, 50–70.

Boers et al. evaluate by means of pre-test – post-test comparisons several commonly

used textbook exercises on verb-noun collocations, and find poor learning outcomes,

partly because of cross-item interference. This interference is attested more often in

exercises where learners are required to match the constituents of collocations than in

exercises where collocations are presented from the start as intact wholes.

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2015

Crossley, A. S., T. Salsbury & D. S. McNamara (2015). Assessing lexical proficiency

using analytic ratings: A case for collocation accuracy. Applied Linguistics 36.5, 570–

590.

Crossley et al. collected holistic lexical proficiency ratings of L2 writing and L2

speech samples and the same raters’ assessment of particular facets of lexical

proficiency exhibited in the samples. Of those facets, collocation accuracy was found

to be the strongest predictor of the holistic ratings. This is an important addition to

the body of evidence attesting to the importance of collocation knowledge.

2016

Peters, E. (2016). The lexical burden of collocations: The role of interlexical and

intralexical factors. Language Teaching Research 20.1, 113–138.

In this study, Peters investigated characteristics of collocations that hinder learning in

deliberate, collocation-focused instructional activities. Like in aforementioned studies

that looked at incidental learning, L1-L2 non-congruency was again found to be one

of the obstacles to learning, especially in the case of verb-noun combinations.

2016
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2016

Eyckmans, J., F. Boers & S. Lindstromberg (2016). The impact of imposing

processing strategies on L2 learners’ deliberate study of lexical phrases. System 56.2,

127–139.

Szudarski, P. & R. Carter (2016). The role of input enhancement in EFL learners’

acquisition of collocations. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 26.2., 245–

265.

Eyckmans et al. asked EFL learners to study a list of verb-noun collocations as

preparation for a test. One group of students was asked additionally to look for the

presence of alliteration in the target expressions as they tried to commit the items to
 24

memory (see Lindstromberg & Boers 2008), a second group was asked to compare

the target expressions with counterparts in their mother tongue, and a third group was

not given any specific directions to help them with the memorization task. Post-test

results showed positive effects of engagement with the sound pattern (alliteration), but

not of the L2-L1 comparisons. The latter finding differs from LAUFER & GIRSAI

(2008), where contrastive analysis was found beneficial.

Szudarski & Carter compared the effects of repeated encounters with collocations to

repeated encounters with the same collocations in typographically enhanced

(underlined) forms. As expected, the latter, attention-directing, text manipulation was

found beneficial for uptake of the collocations.

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2017

Choi, S. (2017). Processing and learning of enhanced English collocations: An eye-

movement study. Language Teaching Research 21.3, 403–426.

Like SZUDARSKI & CARTER (2016), Choi finds that typographic enhancement of

collocations in readings texts positively influences learners’ uptake of the enhanced

items. One of the strengths of this study is that the learners’ post-test performance is

triangulated with eye-tracking data which confirm that the typographic enhancement

indeed directed the learners’ attention to the target collocations. The study also

indicates, however, that this enhancement may distract learners from other, non-

enhanced, text segments.

2017

Pellicer-Sanchez, A. (2017). Learning L2 collocations incidentally from reading.

Language Teaching Research 21.3, 381–402.

This study is a conceptual replication of WEBB ET AL. (2013), which found positive

effects of repeated encounters with collocations during reading. Unlike the original

study, Pellicer-Sanchez found no such compelling evidence of a frequency-of-

encounters effect, which suggests that other factors (including item-specific

characteristics of the target collocations) can play a big enough part to override the

expected frequency effect.

2017
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Nguyen, T.M.H & S. Webb (2017). Examining second language receptive knowledge

of collocation and factors that affect learning. Language Teaching Research 21.3,

298–320.

Nguyen & Webb evaluate, by means of a corpus-informed multiple-choice test,

Vietnamese EFL learners’ knowledge of adjective-noun and verb-noun collocations

made up of words at three levels of frequency. The results indicate very poor

knowledge of collocations in comparison with the same learners’ knowledge of

individual words. Congruency with L1 counterpart expressions was again found to be

one of the predictors of test performance.

B/C

2017

Boers, F., T.C.T Dang & B. Strong (2017). Comparing the effectiveness of phrase-

focused exercises: A partial replication of Boers, Demecheleer, Coxhead, and Webb

(2014). Language Teaching Research 21.3, 362–280.

In this further evaluation of the effectiveness of textbook exercises on collocations,

Boers et al. find that exercises in which verb-noun collocations are worked with as

intact wholes from the start are more helpful than ones where learners are required to

(re)assemble expressions from separate, jumbled parts, because the latter exercises

carry a greater risk of erroneous cross-item associations. When it comes to the

deliberate study of collocation, it seems that methods that minimize the risk of error

are more judicious than those that rely on trial-and-error. An analysis of phrase-

focused exercises in a corpus of ten recent EFL textbooks indicated that the latter

approach is (unfortunately) still common practice.

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