a contrastive view
Jens Bahns
For some time now there has been, in the field of EFL teaching, a growing
awareness
of the importance
of lexical collocations
for vocabulary
learning.
One of the main obstacles
to teaching
lexical collocations
systematically,
however,
is their number,
which amounts
to tens of
thousands. In this article, it is argued that this enormous
teaching and
learning load can be reduced by a contrastive approach to the concept of
lexical collocation.
An exemplary German-English
contrastive analysis of
noun + verb and verb + noun collocations
shows that there is, for a
considerable portion of them, direct translational
equivalence. Such lexical
collocations do not have to be taught. The teaching of lexicalcollocations
in
EFL should concentrate,
instead, on items for which there is no direct
translational
equivalence in English and in the learners respective
mother
tongues.1
A neglected
aspect of
vocabulary
teaching
One of the main developments in the field of ELT during the last decade
has been a renewed interest in problems of vocabulary teaching. After the
two decades from 1960 to 1980, when questions of grammar and
grammar teaching were predominant, this general reorientation from
grammar to vocabulary is definitely a step in the right direction. There is,
however, one particular aspect of vocabulary learning which deserves
more attention than it has received up to now, and this is the problem of
word combinability. One of the main difficulties students encounter in
relation to new items of vocabulary is knowing what their collocational
properties are . . . (Rudzka et al., 1981b: 5). Unfortunately for the
foreign language learner, words do not co-occur freely; instead, there are
(varying levels of) co-occurrence restrictions (Allerton, 1984) which the
learner has to adhere to.
Most teachers of English as a Foreign Language (particularly those who
are native speakers of that language) will have noticed that their learners
often have problems in choosing the correct combination of two (or more)
words. Here are a few typical examples of wrong word combinations:2
a.
*feeble tea
ELT Journal Volume 47/1 January 1993 Oxford University Press 1993
articles
welcome
What do we mean
by collocation?
Collocations,
idioms, and free
combinations
Collocations
and
foreign language
teaching research
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One of the few EFL researchers to have stressed the necessity of actually
teaching collocations is Joanna Channel1 (1981). Together with three
colleagues, she has produced two excellent workbooks (Rudzka et al.,
1981a, 1985) for advanced EFL learners, in which special emphasis is put
on distinguishing broadly synonymous vocabulary items through their
different collocational properties.
The importance of teaching collocations is also stressed in particular by
Polish FLT research (glottodidactics). Waldemar Marton (1977: 43), for
example, sees indications that mere exposure to the target language is not
sufficient for the advanced learner to acquire the knowledge of
conventional syntagms. (Syntagms here equate with collocations.) He
argues that if language teachers want to guide advanced learners towards
a native-like command of the foreign language, they should pay special
attention to their effective learning of conventional syntagms (ibid.: 54).
A further study, in which the question under discussion is answered in the
affirmative, is Bahns and Eldaw (1990). In an experiment consisting of a
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Jens Bahns
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Table 1:
German noun + verb
collocations for which
there is direct
translational equivalence
in English
IWW
-
Arger + hinunterschlucken
Appetit + verderben
Geduld + verlieren
Gelegenheit + ergreifen
Gesetz + brechen
lnteresse + zeigen
Kontrolle + ausben
Lsung + finden
Schlu + ziehen
Schutz + suchen
Thema + wechseln
Verantwortung
+ tragen
Versprechen + brechen
Zimmer + lften
Zweifel + beseitigen
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
DS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
BBI
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
DEWC
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
swallow + anger
spoil + appetite
lose + patience
seize + opportunity
break + law
show + interest
exercise + control
find + solution
draw + conclusion
seek + shelter
change + subject
bear + responsibility
break + promise
air + room
remove + doubts
Table 2:
German noun+verb
collocations for which
there is no direct
translational equivalence
in English
Drohung+wahrmachen
Falle+stellen
Familie+grnden
Feuer+legen
Foto+machen
Geld+abheben
Kompliment+machen
Nachricht+
(ber)bringen
Opfer+bringen
Pilze+sammeln
Sahne+schlagen
Tagebuch+fhren
Tisch+decken
Versprechen+halten
Wahrheit+sagen
WW DS literal translation
+ make
true+threat
+ + put+trap
+ + found+family
+ + lay+fire
+ make+photograph
+ + lift+money
+ + make+compliment
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
bring+message
bring+sacrifice
collect+mushrooms
beat+cream
lead+diary
cover+table
hold+promise
say+truth
BBJ DEWC
+ - fulfil+threat
I+ lay+trap
start+family
set+fire
take+photograph
(with)draw+money
pay+compliment
+
I+
1:
+
+
:
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
deliver+message
make+sacrifice
pick+mushrooms
whip+cream
keep+diary
lay+table
keep+promise
tell+truth
These combinations
differs
which
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Different
collocations
for
learners with
different
mother
tongues
attention to
C.
resolve a conflict
For this reason, it is necessary to distinguish (out of all the collocations
considered worth knowing for the learner of English) such collocations
which the learner with a particular Ll background knows already
(because they are fully equivalent in his or her Ll and in English), from
those collocations which a contrastive analysis has shown to be languagespecific (in at least one of the components) and which the learner really
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Notes
References
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