Knowledge of English Lexical Competence

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KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS AMONG MALE
SAUDI COLLEGE STUDENTS MAJORING IN ENGLISH AT A SAUDI
UNIVERSITY
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate School and Research
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Mohammad S. Al-Zahrani
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
May 1998
UMI Number: 9825581
Copyright 1998 by
Al-Zahrani, Mohammad Said
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9825581

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© 1998 by Mohammad Al-Zahrani
Ill
Indiana University of Pennsylvania

The Graduate School
Department of English
We hereby approve the dissertation of
Mohammad S. Al-Zahrani
Candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
P^^uOC>/ 9^ CvU\
Ali-Asghar Aghbar, Ph.D.
Professor of English, Adv.sor
0Ji :.IM/l
Michael M. Williamson, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Ce ,— ! -'*?? /l& ~ ~ 7________

J^annine M. Heny, Ph.Zf.
Associate Professor of English
%
Dan J. Tannfacito, Ph.D.

Professor of English, Director
Graduate Studies in Rhetoric and
Linguistics
Virginia L. Brown, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Research
The Graduate School and Research
Title: Knowledge of English Lexical Collocations among
Male Saudi College Students Majoring in English at
Saudi University
Author: Mohammad S. Al-Zahrani
Dissertation Chairman: Dr. Ali-Asghar Aghbar
Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Michael M. Williamson

Dr. Jeannine M. Heny
This study examined the differences in the knowledge
of English lexical collocations among four groups of Saudi
EFL students representing four academic levels (freshmen,
sophomore, junior, and senior) as well as the relationship
between knowledge of such collocations and the students'
overall language proficiency.
Participants in the present study were 81 male Saudi
students majoring in English at the Department of Language
and Translation at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic
University. Their knowledge of collocations was measured
by a blank-filling Test of Collocations that consisted of
50 items, each of which contained a verb-noun collocation
with the verb missing but the first letter/phoneme
provided. A writing test and an Institutional Version of
the TOEFL were used to measure students' English language
proficiency.
Results of all the statistical analyses showed that
there was a significant difference in students' knowledge
of collocations between the first and second academic
levels followed by a smaller difference between the second
and the third academic levels, and another significant
difference between the third and the fourth academic
levels. Similarly, results of the Pearson's correlation
and the regression analysis showed that there was a strong
relationship between the students' knowledge of
collocations and their overall language proficiency. It
was also found that while the Writing Test and the TOEFL
were good predictors of students' knowledge of
collocations, the Writing Test was a slightly better
predictor than the TOEFL.
The Test of Collocations used in this study was the
result of multiple piloting and may be used as a measure o
knowledge of verb-noun collocations in future research.
Implications of the study and suggestions for further
research are included in the final chapter.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all the people whose
contribution made this work possible.
I am deeply indebted to my advisor and friend Dr. Ali
Aghbar, who has always displayed a genuine concern for me
and my work. He has always been there for me no matter the
time or the circumstance. When I found myself lost and
floundering, Dr. Aghbar gently led me to the right
direction, showing the utmost respect for me and my
opinions. I have greatly benefited from Dr. Aghbar's rich
knowledge in SLA in general and in collocations in
particular. I cannot forget all he has done for me and
these words cannot begin to be enough to display my
gratitude to him.
I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr.
Michael M. Williamson and Dr. Jeannine M. Heny for their
valuable comments and insightful suggestions. Their
encouragement and support have inspired me as a researcher
and their expertise has greatly helped me reshape this
work.
I am thankful to Dr. Othman Al-Semari, the Head of the
Department of Languages and Translation, for allowing me
access to obtain the data of this research. His genuine
vii
interest in research and the growth of the Department of
Languages and Translation has encouraged me to conduct this
research, whose results are hoped to contribute to the
current curriculum of the Department. I owe special
gratitude to the faculty of the Department of Languages and
Translation for their generous assistance and cooperation
throughout the data collection process.
Special acknowledgment goes to my colleagues Eileen
Master and Rich Matzen for their assistance with the
scoring of the Writing Test.
I am grateful to the Saudi EFL students at the
Department of Languages and Translation, who have
voluntarily and enthusiastically participated in this
study.
Dr. Ahmad AL-Issa, a colleague and a friend, deserves
my sincere thanks for all he has done for me. I am
grateful to him for his careful revision and comments on
previous drafts of this dissertation.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
friends, Dr. Nashat Zuraikat, of the Nursing Department at
IUP, and Aref Al-Khattar, a Ph.D. candidate at the
Criminology Department at IUP, for their generous
assistance with the statistical procedures. Their generous
viii
advice and support throughout my study have been a great
source of encouragement.
Special thanks go to my fellow Saudi graduate students
at IUP for their participation in the pilot study. Their
support and encouragement have proved to be indispensable.
Also, I would like to thank Meteab Al-Zahrani for his
assistance with computer-related matters. I wholeheartedly
wish all of them luck in their academic endeavor.
Most of all, I am deeply indebted to the Saudi
government, represented by Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic
University and the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, for
granting me a full scholarship to further my higher
education in the U.S. Without the help and continuous
support I have received from them, all I have achieved
would not have been possible.
The steadfast and unconditional love that my dear
mother and father have given me has been the driving force
behind every success I have achieved in my life. I am
grateful to them for their patience, sacrifice, and
endurance throughout the many years I have been away from
them. Their understanding and appreciation for everything
I did, their confidence in me, and encouragement have made
me who I am. I thank all my brothers and sisters for all
ix
they have done for me. Of a special closeness to my heart
is my brother Fahad Al-Alam, to whom I dedicate this
di ss ertation.
X
TABLE OF CONTENET
Chapter Page
I INTODUCTION..................................... 1
Purpose of the Study...................... 4
Scope of Collocations .................... 6
Research Hypotheses....................... 8
II THE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE................... 9

What are Collocations?.................... 9
Collocations as a Phenomenon............ 14
Collocations as a C onc ep t................ 17
Boundaries of Collocations.............. 20
Collocations in Computer Analysis and
Lexicography.......................... 25
Collocations in First and Second Language
Acquisition........................... 27
Importance of Collocations in EF L/ESL....33
Experimental Studies in EF L/E SL ...........36
Collocational Studies with Arab Learners
Of English............................ 48
III THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY........................ 56

The Research Design........................ 56
Setting of the St udy....................... 57
Participants................................ 59
The Teaching Materials.....................60
Data Collection.............................62
Instruments........................... 62
The Demographic Questionnaire..62
The T O E F L ........................ 63
The Test of Collocations...... 64
The Writing T e s t ........... 68
Pilot Studies............................... 69
Procedures.................................. 72
Session 1 ..............................74
Session I I ............................ 75
Data Analysis ...............................76
Co di n g ................................. 7 6
Scoring................................ 77
The Test of Collocations...... 77
The Use of BBI Combinatory
Dictionary of English...78
xi
Chapter Page
The use of Web Search

Engi ne s...................... 79
The Demographic Questionnaire...81
The Writing T e s t ................. 82
Scoring the T O E F L ................ 85
Measuring the Variables............... 85
Variable I: The Academic Level..86
T O E F L ........................ 87
The Writing T e s t ............87
Variable II: Knowledge of
Collocations 88
Reliability T e s t ....................... 88
Item A n a l y s i s .......................... 90
IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION................................. 95

Section I : ......................................... 96
Knowledge of Lexical Collocations
among the Four Academic Levels............ 96
Descriptive Statistics...................... 97
One-Way Analysis of Variance.............. 103
Post Hoc Test (MultipleComparisons) 105
Section I I :....................................... 110
Knowledge of Lexical Collocations and
Proficiency L e v e l .......................... 110
Pearson Correlation Coefficient...........110
Regression A n a l y s i s ........................ 112
Item A n a l y s i s............................... 114
Section I I I : ......................................117
Observations on Individual
Collocation Items.......................... 117
Cultural F actors........................... 117
Semantic F actors........................... 118
Positive Transfer Factors................ 119
Negative Transfer Factors................ 122
Section I V ........................................ 126
Implications for the Acquisition and
Development of Collocations by Saudi
EFL Students................................ 126
V SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION................................ 129

Summary........................................... 12'9
Pedagogical Implications........................ 138
xii
Chapter Page
Limitations of.the S t u d y .............. 141

Methodology as Findings........................ 142
The Piloting of the Test of Collocations.142
Data Co ll ection............................. 144
Suggestions for Further Research................ 145
REFE RENCES................................................... 14 9
A P P E ND ICE S ................................................... 160
Appendix A - Course P l a n .................................. 160

Appendix B - Demographic Questionnaire................... 165
Appendix C - Test of Collocations Version 1 .......... 166
Appendix D - Test of Collocations Version I I ......... 173
Appendix E - Informed Consent F o r m ....................... 179
Appendix F - Participation Request ..................... 18 3
Appendix G - Test of Collocations Version III........ 184
xiii
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Grammatical Colloca tio ns ............................. 11
2 Lexical Collocations................................. 12
3 Targeted Collocations and Valid Responses as Used

in Alta Vista Web Search E n g i n e ..................... 80
4 Targeted Collocations and Invalid Responses as Used

in Alta Vista Web Search E n g i n e ..................... 81
5 Results of the Reliability A n a l y s i s .................. 89
6 Low-Frequency Verb-Noun Collocations................. 91
7 Medium-Frequency Verb-Noun Collocations............. 92
8 High-Frequency Verb-Noun Collocations ................ 93
9 Summary Table of the Differences among the Four

Academic Levels in the Test of Collocations......... 98
10 Summary Table of the Four Academic Levels in the

Writing T e s t ........................................... 101
11 One-Way Analysis of Variance for the Knowledge of

Collocations .......................................... 104
12 Multiple Comparisons of the Means of the Four

Academic Levels in the Test of Collocations........ 105
13 Pearson Correlation of the Dependent and Independent

Variables............................................... Ill
14 Summary of the Regression Analysis for Predicting

the Knowledge of Collocations by the Writing Tost
and the T O E F L .......................................... 113
15 Collocations Having no Arabic Equivalents.......... 123
16 English Collocations and their Arabic Equivalents

Expressed by the Use of a Verb O n l y ................. 124
xiv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
1 Distribution of the Collection Test by the Frequency

of Correct Responses..................................... 94
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This study investigates the relationship between Saudi
EFL students' knowledge of lexical collocations and their
general proficiency in English as well as their academic
le vel.
As defined by Zhang (1993), a lexical collocation is
a type of collocation where one component recurrently c o
occurs with one or more other component as the only lexical
choice or one of the few readily-available lexical choices
in a combination. For example, in he committed a m u r d e r ,
the verb commit is the lexical item that recurrently c o
occurs with the noun murder in this combination.
Collocations are one of the challenges that adult
second language learners have to deal with in their journey
of English language learning. They often come across quite
a large number of difficulties in all language skills.
These difficulties vary in their intensity and nature
depending on a variety of variables such as students'
2
native language (LI) background, age, and personality, to
name but a few. Scholars in the field of second language
acquisition study these difficulties to determine their
magnitude and, in turn, their effect on L2 learners'
performance and try to provide solutions for them. For
example, the difficulties faced in pronunciation have been
studied extensively by researchers and have been found to
be attributed to factors such as the age of the learners
and the differences between the sound systems of the
learners' LI and L 2 . Often, the linguistic patterns of the
students' LI manifest themselves in the learners' L2. This
phenomenon is referred to by linguists as "transfer," which
is not limited to phonology, but rather extends to many
aspects of the newly learned language such as semantics
(e.g., Ard & Hamburg, 1987), rhetoric (e.g., Krapels,
1990), word order (e.g., Gilsan, 1985), reading (e.g., Al-
Rufai, 1976), syntax (e.g., T a d r o s , 1979), and collocations
(e.g., Biskup, 1992).
Transfer can be positive or negative. Positive
transfer occurs when the patterns of LI and L2 are the
same. Negative transfer occurs when the patterns of
3
students' LI and L2 are different, in which case problems
may arise.
Negative transfer problems are claimed to be
alleviated considerably as learners become more proficient
in and have more exposure to the L 2 ; some, however, persist
even when learners have reached a high level of
proficiency. An example of this problem is the
pronunciation of L2 learners of English. When L2 learners
of various levels of proficiency speak to a native speaker
(NS), their "accent" is the best indicator that English is
not their mother tongue.
An interesting question that may be raised when one
thinks about the "accent" issue is whether adult L2
learners with varying proficiency levels write with an
accent. The answer to this question is a resounding yes.
Different researchers in ESL/EFL have found that L2
learners from different proficiency levels face
difficulties in combining words together, resulting in
texts that are not native-like. A major part of this
phenomenon is due to deficiencies in their collocational
knowledge. As Korosadowicz-Struzynska (1980 Cited in
4
Bahns, 1993), rightly puts it, "errors in the use of word
collocations surely add to the foreign flavour in the
learner's speech and writing, and along with his faulty
pronunciation, they are the strongest markers of an
"accent" (p. 115).
The problems in word collocations have been studied
by various researchers who have included them under such
labels as routines (Krashen & Scarcella, 1978), formulaic
language (Ellis, 1984c, 1985, 1994), composites (Cowie,
1988), and Lexical phrases (Nattinger, 1985, 1988) . More
labels to be discussed in Chapter II below.
Purpose of the Study
The importance of collocations and the difficulty they
pose to English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as
a second language (ESL) learners have been underscored by
various second language acquisition researchers. These
researchers agree that learners' knowledge of collocations
is an essential requirement to the overall mastery of their
second language. Yet, despite their important role in
5
language acquisition, collocations have not received much
attention. There has been little research on how
collocations are acquired and used by ESL/EFL learners and
even much less on Arabic-speaking students. Needless to
say, there have been no studies that have investigated the
knowledge of collocations by Saudi EFL students. This
study, therefore, attempts to investigate the knowledge of
English lexical collocations among Saudi EFL students at
the Department of Languages and Translation at Imam
Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. One of the objectives of this study is to examine
whether there is a difference in the knowledge of lexical
collocations among students from one academic level to the
next. Another objective of this study is to examine
whether there is a relationship between the knowledge of
lexical collocations and the overall language proficiency
of students.
6
Scope of Collocations
The present study uses the verb-noun collocations to
examine Saudi EFL college students' knowledge of lexical
collocations. The selection of this particular verb-noun
collocation is motivated by the following two reasons:
1. Common U s e :
The verb-noun collocations are among the most common
collocations in English. According to Benson, Benson, and
Ilson (1986), many lexical collocations in English consist
of a verb and a noun, such as bring in an a c q u i t t a l , file a
complaint. and put on airs.
2. Source of difficulty for non-native speakers (NNS’s ) .
Collocational studies conducted by various researchers
in EFL/ESL, such as Bahns and Eldaw (1993), Newman (1988),
and Aghbar (1990) have indicated that lexical collocations
and, more specifically, the verb-noun collocations are
responsible for many ESL/EFL students' errors and thus pose
difficulties for them. Benson, et a l . (1986) have also
touched briefly on the problems non-native speakers have
with the verb-noun combination. They pose their view in
7
relation to verbs that denote either "creation" or
"activation," which according to them constitute a great
number in English. They do not define these terms, but
their examples seem to indicate that "creation" refers to
bringing about something that did not exist before and that
"activation" refers to starting a process. Some examples
of collocations denoting creation given by the authors are:
come to an a g r e e m e n t , make an impression, compose music,
inflict a w o u n d . Examples of collocations denoting
activation are: fly a k i t e , launch,,a missile, spin .a. top,
and wind a w a t c h . Benson, et al (1986) point out that the
same noun phrase may collocate with both a creation verb
and an activation verb as in establish a principle
(creation) and apply a principle (activation). They also
explain that the two meanings may unite in one verb as in
impose an e m b a r g o , issue a warning, and pose a..question-
The authors then state that students learning English as a
foreign language have a great deal of difficulty in
selecting the correct creation and activation verbs.
8
Research Hypotheses
This study tested the following two hypotheses:
Hypothesis I: There is a differences in the knowledge
of lexical collocations among students from one
academic level to the n e x t .
Hypothesis II: There is a relationship between
students' language proficiency as measured by their
TOEFL and Writing Test scores and the knowledge of
lexical collocations as measured by their performance
on the Test of Collocations.
9
CHAPTER II
THE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
What Are Collocations?
A collocation, in its simplest definition, is a
sequence of lexical items which may co-occur. Collocations
are of two types: lexical and grammatical. Commonly used
examples to illustrate lexical collocations are strong t e a .
dark n i g h t , blond hair, and commit a crime. The meaning
association between the components of each example above is
said to be arbitrary. That is, strong and powerful are
synonymous, but native speakers do not produce sentences
such as *powerful t e a , which would be an unacceptable
combination/collocation.
In grammatical collocations, words are identified by
their grammatical categories rather than by meaning
association. An example of grammatical collocations is the
type of verb that can follow certain verbs as in the
following ex am p l e s :
10
He agreed to help me.
He avoided helping me.
The verb agree can only be followed by an infinitive,
whereas the verb avoid requires a gerund after it. Another
type of grammatical collocation can be found in Chomsky's
(1965) Aspects of Syntactic T h e o r y . Chomsky employs two
types of restrictions: subcategorization and selection
restriction rules to account for the semantic/pragmatic
oddness in sentences like *"You convinced my frying-pan"
and the ungrammaticality of *John won't go Mary (Radford,
1988, p. 370).
In their BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. Benson
et al (1986) also classify collocations into two major
types: grammatical and lexical. Grammatical collocations
are further divided into eight types and lexical
collocations include seven types. Tables 1 and 2 list the
patterns of both types as well as examples given by the
authors (p. xxxvii)
11
Table 1
Grammatical Collocations
Type Pattern Example
1 N + preposition. Blockade against
2 N + to + infinitive an attempt to do it
3 N+that clause He took an oath that he ...
4 Prep + N combinations On somebody's advice
5 A d j + preposition They stayed home_my friends
combinations
6 Pred.adj + to + It was necessary to work
infinitive She(the girl)is ready to go
7 Adj+ that clause She was afraid that she
would fail the examination.
8 V (19 types) +to They began to speak
infinitive
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
12
Table 2
Lexical Collocations
Type Pattern Example
LI V + N Reject an appeal
L2 Adjective + N Strong tea
L3 N+V naming an action Blood circulate, blizzards rage
L4 N1 of N2 A colony of bees
L5 Adverb + adjective Deeply absorbed
L6 V + adverb Affect deeply
Since this study is concerned with lexical
collocations, grammatical collocations will not be
discussed further. From this point onward, the terms
"collocations" and "lexical collocations" will be used
interchangeably.
The following text, in which the lexical collocations
have been underlined, serves as an example of the frequency
of lexical collocations in natural communications:
Your college library is a storehouse of information,
and learning how to retrieve information form it is a
13
basic part of your education. One purpose of the
r.e.S.ear.C,h paper is to help you become familiar with
your library's facilities and the rules governing
their use.
If your collage library provides cruided t o u r s , avail
yourself of the opportunity; if not, obtain a map
showing the location of the library's . . . hol dings.
In either case, learn to ask for h e l p . The reference
librarians will help you locate particular volumes and
answer specific research q uestions. If you learn
early in your college career how to use the library
efficiently, you will save yourself time and
frustration and greatly enhance the quality of your
education (Eschholz, 1992, p. 259).
The high percentage of collocations in the above text
is an illustration of their high frequency in
communication. As such, they should receive special
attention in teaching English to speakers of other
l anguages.
Collocations are arbitrary in nature. Their
acquisition results from frequent exposure and use. As a
14
result, ESL/EFL students normally have inadequate knowledge
of collocations. This not only makes their production of
language sound odd and sometimes incomprehensible, but it
also affects their comprehension of both written and spoken
discourse. As Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992) have argued,
many ESL university students' comprehension of academic
discourse is negatively affected by a poor command of
collocations.
Collocations as a Phenomenon
According to Robins (1967), the phenomenon of
collocations dates back to 300 BC. Greek Stoics, according
to him, believed that "words do not exist in isolation, and
they may differ according to the collocations in which they
are used" (Robins, 1967, P. 21). This view of word
collocations has continued to be central to the study of
language at the present time. The majority of linguists
have come to recognize the fact that certain fixed
expressions, among which are collocations, are stored in
15
the memory of native speakers of a language as whole chunks
and used in their written and oral production as such.
Pinker (1994) borrows the term listeme from Di
Sciullo and Williams (1987) to describe the lexical
association between words. In his view, a listeme is "a
rote-memorized chunk: a string of linguistic stuff that is
arbitrarily associated with a particular meaning" (p. 148).
Though Pinker does not mention the term "collocations," his
definition of listeme seems to fit the idiom principle used
by Bolinger (1976) and N. C. Ellis (1996) which includes
idioms, collocations, cliches and other fixed expressions.
According to Pinker (1994), listemes can be of any size and
they cannot be produced mechanically by syntactic rules.
For example, the meaning relations between the head noun
and the verb in "kick the b u c k e t . spill the b e a n s , ga
bananas. and bite the bullet cannot be predicted by the
meaning of their components, thus they are stored and
memorized as listemes in our mental dictionary [the
lexicon]" (Pinker, 1994, p. 148).
In his article, "Meaning and Memory," Bolinger (1976,
p. 1) challenges a reductionist analysis of "syntax and
16
phonology into determinate rules, words into determinate
morphemes, and meaning into determinate features" (P. 1).
Such an approach, according to Bolinger, does not account
for the way humans use idiomatic expressions. Native
speakers produce sentences such as "I bear them no l o v e ,
but not * I..bear -tiiem love, and long a g o , a Iona time a g o ,
and a short time a g o , but not *short a g o . Such unique use
of these prefabs is not accounted for by the reductionist
theory, which "endows human beings with limited memory and
unlimited generative power" (p. 9).
Along the same lines, N. C. Ellis (1996) criticizes
the predominant generative grammar theory for denying the
powerful nature of formulas and argues for what Sinclair
(1991) has called the "principle of idioms." Ellis
contends that "Speaking natively is speaking idiomatically
using frequent and familiar collocations" (p. 95). Ellis
continues to argue that despite the grammaticality of
sentences such as "I wish to be wedded to y o u , my becoming
your spouse is w hat I want." they are "unidiomatic, odd
foreignisms when compared with the more ordinary and
familiar I want to marry yo u " (p. 95). Bolinger's view of
17
collocations is echoed by several other linguists in SLA
(see section on Collocations in First and Second Language
Acquisition below) who have recognized the significance of
collocations to language acquisition and production.
Collocations as a Concept
The concept of collocations is by no means new to the
field of linguistics. The term collocation originated with
the British linguist J. R. Firth. Firth's primary
contribution is his description of the meaning relations
between words at the syntagmatic level. Meaning to Firth
is "an abstraction at the syntagmatic level . . . one of
the meanings of night is its collcability with dark"
(Firth, 1957, p. 197).
Subsequently, a number of linguists, known as Neo-
Firthians, adapted and developed Firth's theory, among whom
are Halliday (1966), Sinclair (1966), McIntosh (1971), and
Mitchell (1971). Halliday's (1966) treatment of
collocations has considered lexis as "complementary to, but
not part of, grammatical theory." He adds the notion of
18
set as an additional dimension to the collcability of
words, which he distinguishes from collocations. In his
definition, a collocation is a linear co-occurrence
relationship among lexical items which co-occur together,
whereas the set is "the grouping of members with like
privilege of occurrence in collocation" (Halliday, 1966, p.
153). For example, the adjectives b r i g h t . h o t . s h i n e .
li g h t . and come out belong to the same lexical s e t . since
they all collocate with the word sun (Halliday, 1966, p.
158) .
Like Halliday, Sinclair (1966, p. 411) also views
grammar and lexis from "two different, interpenetrating
aspects." That is, in grammar, language patterns are
treated as if they could be described by a system of
choices (e.g., the choice between passive and active voices
(p. 411). Lexis, on the other hand, is concerned with the
tendencies of lexical items to collocate with one another.
Such tendencies, according to Sinclair, "ought to tell us
facts about language that cannot be got by grammatical
analysis, since such tendencies cannot be expressed in
terms of small set of choices" (p. 411) . Sinclair further
19
explains that the contrast between lexical items is less
rigid than that of grammatical classes, for "There are
virtually no impossible collocations, but some are much
more likely than others" (Sinclair, 1966, p. 411).
Unlike the Neo-Firthians, Mitchell (1971) views lexis
and grammar as one entity. He contends that collocations
should be described as lexico-grammatical units and that
collocations are of roots rather than of words (Mitchell,
1971, p. 65). For example, words with the same morpheme do
not always mean the same when morphemes are inflected or
rearranged. For example, hard in hard work is different
from hard in hard working (Malmkjar, 1991) .
Halliday and Hasan (1976) took collocations a step
further. They applied collocations to lexical cohesion of
text beyond the level of clauses and sentences and called
them "cohesive effect" of pairs of words such as flame . .
. c a n d l e , kina . . . c r o w n , and M i r . • • comb- They
pointed out that "the cohesive effect of pairs that have
similar patterns of collocations . . . will generate a
cohesive force if they occur in adjacent sentences" (p.
286) .
20
Boundaries of Collocations
While there seems to be a general agreement on the
phenomenon of collocations among researchers, there is,
however, a lack of clarity of the definition. Nattinger
and DeCarrico (1992), argue that the nature and
characteristics of lexical phrases (collocations) are still
in need of a rigorous definition "to permit reliability in
further research involving these units" (p. 176) . For
example, researchers disagree about where to draw an
identifying line that separates collocations from other
fixed expressions such as idioms, one the one hand, and
free combinations, on the other. Wallace (1979), on the
other hand, does not see a difference between idioms and
collocations. He perceives collocations as a sub-category
of idioms.
Bolinger (1976) uses "prefabricated units" or
"prefabs" as a generic term that includes collocations. He
views all prefabricated units as overlapping with certain
21
properties that set them apart from each other. He equates
such an overlapping nature with that existing in morphology
and syntax. He uses the word ago to illustrate this
overlap. According to him, among the characteristics of
ago is that it is always the last word in a temporal unit.
We have a year a g o , not *an ago y e a r . Another
characteristic of ago is that it is used only in
expressions of time. Thus, it is different from its
synonym b a c k : both ten years back and ten miles back are
normal, but, while ten years ago is normal, *ten miles ago
is not (Bolinger, 1976, p. 3-4). Cliches such as hot as
h e l l . sharp as a r a z o r , thin as a rail, spoiled rotten.
glimmer of hope are in Bolinger's view, "so close to idioms
and the two categories merge imperceptibly" (p. 5).
Collocations, according to Bolinger, can also be of
different levels. For example, some collocations occur
with stereotyping adjectives such as mutual and c o m m o n .
Though such adjectives are synonymous, they cannot be used
to modify certain nouns (e.g., mutual friends, mutual
enemies, common enemies, but not *CQmmQH friends) • Other
collocations, according to Bolinger, can only occur in
22
clusters and usually denote "something new coming." He
lists the following phrases to illustrates this point (p.
7) :
Know what?
Guess what?
Tell you what:
Tell you what you do:
I'll tell you what I'll do:
The fact that Bolinger's prefabs do not allow
inflections and/or analyzing is an indication of the way we
learn such combinations. The ill-formedness of
combinations such as *some time else and short ago,
according to him, is due to the fact that they do not exist
in our memory Bolinger (1976).
Other researchers such as Bahns (1993) and Benson,
Benson, and Ilson (1986b) have discussed the differences
between idioms, collocations, and free combinations in
terms of degrees of fixedness by placing idioms at the top
as being strictly fixed and the free combinations at the
bottom as being the least fixed with collocations in the
middle. They use the noun murder as an example of how it
23
can combine with the verb c o m m i t . on the one hand, and with
verbs like analyze and d i s c u s s . on the other, to illustrate
collocations and free combinations.
Wouden (1997) adds three more dimensions to the above
classification: transitional combination, compounds, and
proverbs/ sayings. His approach can be illustrated in the
following continuum, where 1 is the most fixed (frozen),
and 6 the least fixed:
1. Compounds: Compounds are the most frozen, thus
allowing no grammatical variations. They can be
adjective + noun, or noun + noun such as alternating
cur r e n t . definite a r t i c l e , and blood, count- This
class includes all types of phrasal verbs as well
(e.g., add u p ) .
2. Proverbs/sayings: They are more frozen than idioms
in that they are complete sentences.
3. Idioms: Idioms are relatively frozen expression
whose meanings cannot be worked out from their
separate parts. They allow some grammatical
variability as in verb tense (e.g. he kicked the
bucket and he will kick the b u c k e t ) .
24
4. Transitional combinations: This category falls
between idioms and collocations and refers to
collocations that are on their way to becoming idioms.
As such, they are more frozen than collocations while
their meaning is close to the meaning of their
component parts (e.g., all dressed u p , to catch one's
b r e a t h , and tQ foot.,the hill) .
5. Collocations: Collocations are loosely fixed
combinations (e.g., commit m u r d e r ) . They fall between
idioms and free combinations.
6. Free combinations: These are the freest in
combining with other lexical items. For example, the
noun murder can be freely used with other verbs such
as to describe and to analyze. The resulting
combinations are novel constructions and are not
registered as fixed expressions in the memory of
native speakers (Wouden, 1997, p. 7-8).
The classification of collocations as related to other
fixed expressions is evident in Bolinger's (1976).
Bolinger's criterion in distinguishing idioms from
collocations is based on whether the meaning of the whole
25
can be deduced from the parts. For example, the meaning of
spill the beans cannot be deduced from its component parts;
thus it is an idiom. On the other hand, the meaning of
indelible ink cab be deduced from its parts; thus it is a
collocation (Bolinger, 1976). Bolinger's classification of
speech patterns is similar to the neurolinguistic approach
of Van Lancker and Victoria Fromkin, who, according to
Bolinger, views language as a continuum that places
propositional language at one end and automatic language at
the other end, with collocations in the middle but closer
to the automatic speech since they are overlearned.
Collocations in Computer Analysis and Lexicography
Due to the increasing interest in the study of
collocations as an indispensable component of language
learning and teaching, lexicographers and computational
linguists have established a large number of projects in
which large corpora have been gathered. Directed by
Sinclair (1966), the COBUILD project is considered by most
to be the largest lexicographic analysis of the English
26
language to date. It includes approximately 100,000
collocations grouped under 5000 entries (see Bahns, 1992).
A remarkable outcome of this project is the COBUILD (1987)
dictionary. These projects were advocated by researchers
such as Becker (1975, cited in Nattinger & DeCarrico,
1992), who called for systematic treatment of idiosyncratic
lexical phrases such as let alone, as well a s . and so much
for.
In the last two decades, the interest in collocations
motivated lexicographers to compile dictionaries. Hornby
(1974) is among the early lexicographers to include a huge
number of collocations in his dictionary Oxford Advanced
Learner's Dictionary of Current English, followed by Cowie,
Mackin, and McCaig's (1975) Oxford Dictionary of Idiomatic
Engli s h . Benson et al's (1986) The BBI Combinatory
Dictionary of English is fully dedicated to collocations.
These efforts were inspired by the need to help foreign
language learners overcome difficulties in vocabulary
learning in general and collocations in particular.
27
Collocations in First and Second Language Acquisition
Linguists in first and second language acquisition
have acknowledged the existence of collocations and thus
their influence in both first and second language
acquisition and teaching, with only few researchers viewing
the phenomenon as marginal to language acquisition. In
their article titled "On Routines and Patterns in Language
Acquisition and Performance," Krashen and Scarcella (1978)
argue that formulaic speech is fundamentally different form
creative construction. They based their argument primarily
on neurolinguistics research, which claims that automatic
speech (patterns and routines) is stored in both
hemispheres of the brain as evident in patients who
underwent language loss and could still produce automatic
speech. They state that "Routines are part of a system
that is separate from the process generating rule-governed,
propositional language" (p. 286). Thus they claim that
"automatic speech does not "turn into" creative production"
(p. 286). Krashen and Scarcella, however, acknowledge the
role of such patterns in building social relations which,
28
in turn, could invite input for the "the creative
construction process" (p. 298).
Several SLA researchers who have asserted that
collocations are overwhelmingly pervasive in both first and
second language acquisition, however, have challenged such
an argument. L. W. Fillmore (1979) has studied the
language of five Spanish children learning English as a
second language paired with English-speaking children for a
whole year. Fillmore's study has shown that there were
striking similarities among her subjects in using formulaic
expressions. Some of the examples that were commonly used
by her subjects are: "I wanna p l a y . Do you w anna p l a y ? .
Whaddya wanna d o ?. I gotta hurry up. Shflddup your mQU.th"
(L. W. Fillmore 1979, p. 222) .
L. W. Fillmore explains that children do learn these
expressions as unanalyzed wholes and only when they become
confident enough in using them do they start analyzing them
into individual units. She notes:
Once in the learner's speech repertory, they become
familiar, and therefore could be compared with other
utterances in the repertory as well as those produced
29
by the speakers. Their function in language learning
process, is not only social, [italics added] but
cognitive too, since they provided the data on which
the children were to perform their analytical
activities in figuring out the structure of the
language (L. W. Fillmore, 1979, p. 212).
Similarly, Ellis (1994) argues that children, in the
early stages of LI development, pass through a stage where
they use a large number of formulas that are characterized
by semantic and syntactic simplifications and are analyzed
later and used in creative utterances. These formulas,
according to Ellis, are believed to aid the children's
language acquisition (p. 106).
Other scholarships in first language acquisition have
also shown that formulaic language plays a significant role
in children's language acquisition. Peter (1977) shows
that children use both analytical and gestalt strategies to
acquire their first language. Children start employing
utterances used by adults in the form of formulas. Such
formulas are stored and later reused creatively both as
segmented units and as whole chunks.
30
Stressing the importance of fixed expressions in first
language acquisition, N. C. Ellis (1996) argues that
children follow systematic sequencing patterns in most of
their language acquisition. Such sequencing, which Ellis
uses to describe the grouping of language units, eventually
results in the knowledge of the underlying grammar of the
language. In discourse, for example, children use "lexical
units and their sequences in clause and collocations" (p.
91). The author further argues that the acquisition of
idioms and collocations varies according to the learner's
ability to "remember simple strings in order" (p. 91).
In the field of second language acquisition,
researchers have used different terms, all of which
describe the same notion of formulaic language used by
first language learners. For example, terms like recurrent
combinations, fixed combinations, fixed expressions,
routines, conventional syntagms are frequently used to
refer to collocations and all are grouped under the
umbrella of formulaic language (Benson et al, 1986). Other
researchers have used even more labels to describe the
concept. Among these labels are: patterned speech and
31
collocations, (e.g., Kennedy, 1990), prefabrications (or
prefabs)(e.g., Bolinger, 1976), lexicalized phrases and
non-canonical phrases (e.g., Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1989).
These labels, though referring to similar concepts,
can sometimes overlap. Kennedy (1990) demonstrates this
overlap with some examples. For instance, the phrase as a
matter of fact has been called formulaic speech, cliche,
lexicalized sentence stem, and deictic locution, whereas at
the present time has been referred to as fixed phrase and
set phrase (Kennedy, 1990, p. 217).
Ellis (1984c, 1985, 1994) recognizes the role of
formulaic language in second language acquisition. He
points out that such wholes can consist of entire script
such as the greeting sequences. Some common examples which
he found in L2 learners' performance were I don't k n o w . Can
I have a ? . There is no What is this? I
wanna ?. This is a How do you d o ? . and I can't
speak English (Ellis, 1985, p. 167) . Ellis (1984c) notes
that three ESL learners adapted some formulas as a
communication strategy. He concludes that formulas in
general are common in both natural and classroom settings
32
and that they are often employed by learners to reduce
learning burden while maximizing communicative needs (see
Ellis, 1985).
Other researchers in second language acquisition have
also reached similar conclusions to those in the first
language acquisition studies. Second language learners,
according to N. C. Ellis (1996) acquire lexical items in
stages: first, lexical items are represented in
phonological strings; then learners start focusing on their
collocations; and only later do learners start segmenting
these chunks and their sequences into semantic and
syntactic units. He argues that such sequences serve as a
basis for the acquisition of grammar.
To conclude, with the exception of Krashen and
Scarcella (1978), the role of collocations, as scaffoldings
for creative construction of language has been underscored
by all researchers in first and second language
acquisition. While collocations have been recognized to be
important building blocks for children's language
acquisition, this researcher believes that they also play a
33
crucial role in adult EFL/ESL learner's language
acquisition.
Importance of Collocations in ESL/EFL
In comparison with other phenomena in second language
acquisition, collocations have not been adequately examined
nor has the concept, according to Cowie (1981), been
defined in a rigorous way. The research on collocations in
ESL/EFL, until recently, has been limited to recognizing
the difficulties collocations pose to ESL/EFL learners in
vocabulary as manifested in spoken and written discourse
errors.
More recently, however, researchers, especially in
Europe, have recognized the great need to account for
learners' collocation errors in both their oral and written
communication. As Halliday (1966) points out "lexical
information is relevant to foreign language teaching; many
errors are best explained collocationally" (p. 160) .
Among the advocates of teaching collocation in the
ESL/EFL classroom are Brown (1966) and Nattinger and
34
DeCarrico (1985, 1992). These researchers have made
laudable efforts in examining the L2 learners'
collocational problems that they face in various language
skills and situations.
Realizing advanced ESL students' needs in university
courses, Brown (1974) provides a number of exercises that
are intended to facilitate the learning of collocations.
She points out that collocations are helpful in improving
students' oral communication, listening comprehension, and
reading speed. One of the many advantages of teaching
collocations, according to Brown, is that students will
come to realize that written and spoken language is used in
chunks by native speakers, and therefore, learning it as
such will enable learners to "get the feel" of using words
in natural combination with other words.
Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992) follow a similar
approach to that of Brown (1974) in the treatment of
collocations. In their book Lexical Phrases and Language
T e a c h i n g . Nattinger and DeCarrico present an account of the
nature of lexical phrases and their role in language
acquisition and use. They also provide a comprehensive
35
pedagogical approach for integrating lexical phrases,
including collocations, into the teaching of reading,
writing, conversation, and listening comprehension. They
place a special emphasis in their book on the importance of
lexical phrases in the comprehension of academic lectures
by ESL university students.
In their attempt to categorize lexical phrases, they
have grouped them according to their structural and
functional characteristics as follows: (1) Polywords: such
as for the most part, and SQ._far_SO good,; (2)
Institutionalized expressions, which include proverbs,
aphorisms, and formulas, such as give me a b r e a k , how do
you d o . and once upon the t i m e : (3) Phrasal constraints,
such as a ago (filled by paradigmatic substitution),
and the er the e r . as in the sooner the better.
Aghbar (1990) has also underscored the importance of
collocations. He argues that the knowledge of formulaic
language, in which he includes idioms, proverbs, sayings
and collocations, is essential in the overall fluency of
the language of native and non-native speakers. Like
Bolinger (1976), Aghbar believes in the role of
36
overlearning in the acquisition of formulaic language. He
writes, "Although the construction of such chunks by and
large follow the lexical and grammatical rules of English,
we recognize them as formulaic only because we have a
previous memory of them" (Aghbar, 1990, p. 5) .
The significant role of formulaic language is also
stressed by Yorio (1980), who claims that such formulas aid
learners' communicative competence, for they "make
communication orderly because they are regulatory in
nature" (Yorio, 1980, p. 438) . Yorio's assertion about the
role of formulaic language in communication is an extension
of Fillmore's (1979) . Fillmore uses fluency as a generic
term that includes all properties of speakers' competence
and performance in language. One major component of
fluency, in Fillmore's view, is the knowledge of fixed
expressions, among which are collocations.
Experimental Studies in ESL/EFL
Other ESL/EFL researchers have conducted experiments
through which they examined the learners' collocational
37
knowledge using a variety of instruments including blank-
filling, (e.g., Aghbar, 1990), writing tasks and blank-
filling (e.g., Zhang, 1993), translation, writing task, and
blank-filling (e.g., Gitsaki, 1996), translation and cloze
test (e.g., Bahns & Eldaw, 1993).
The findings revealed by these studies have indicated
that ESL/EFL students do face problems in collocations as
manifested by their performance on the collocation tests in
such studies.
Bahns and Eldaw (1993) conducted a study using
translation and cloze tasks to examine the knowledge of
collocations among 58 German EFL university students.
Twenty-four of the students took a cloze test and 34
students completed a German-English translation task. The
translation task consisted of 15 sentences, each including
a collocation in context that had been translated into
German. The translation of such sentences, according to
the authors, would likely include either the targeted
English collocation or its paraphrase. The cloze task, on
the other hand, included 10 sentences, each of which
contained a verb-noun collocation with the verb missing.
38
The collocations used in their study were selected from a
variety of sources including collocational dictionaries and
a bilingual dictionary. Among the lexical verb-noun
collocations were keep a d i a r y , admit d e f e a t , achieve
perfection. Bahns and Eldaw's results revealed that
students performed poorly on both tests, in that 51.9% of
the responses in the cloze test and 46.1% of the responses
in translation task were answered unacceptably. The
authors point out that certain collocations were more
difficult to paraphrase than certain others. According to
them, the collocations take a c a l l , withdraw money, rafuse
admission were easier to paraphrase than keep d i a r y , cancel
an o r d e r , whip c r e a m , and achieve, perfection- The authors
come to the following conclusions: (a) students' knowledge
of collocation did not expand with their knowledge of
general vocabulary inventory. They state, "Our analysis of
translation reveals that, whereas verbal collocates made up
23.1 % of all the lexical words which could occur in the
sentences, they made up 84.2% of all errors" (p. 108), (b)
knowledge of collocations is necessary to achieve full
communicative mastery of English, (c) not all collocations
39
should be included in the curriculum; rather, only those
that could not be readily paraphrased should be taught.
Bahns and Eldaw (1993) conclude that students'
collocational knowledge does not develop with their overall
knowledge of vocabulary and assume that "This may be due in
part to the fact that collocations have been largely
neglected in the EFL/ESL instruction and that learners are
therefore not aware of collocations as a potential problem
in language learning" (p. 108). Another interesting
observation that the authors make is the claim that, even
though students may be able to comprehend and translate
certain English collocations, they cannot produce the same
collocations in their discourse.
Aghbar (1990) also used the verb-noun combinations to
assess ESL and native speakers' knowledge of collocations.
The participants in his experiment were 27 faculty members
teaching college level English courses, 44 American
sophomore and junior students, and 97 advanced ESL
students. His test included 50 items. Each item included
a collocation with the verb missing. Participants were
required to provide a verb from formal written register to
40
complete each sentence. Aghbar's results showed that the
English faculty provided the most appropriate responses.
The results also showed that native students, who were
noticeably less familiar with collocations, were better
able to provide more appropriate responses than ESL
students. Aghbar points out that ESL students, who
provided the least number of common and appropriate
responses, performed well only when the verb 'get' was the
most appropriate as in "Where did you_______ this
information?" Aghbar convincingly argues that ESL
students' poor performance is not due to a lack of
vocabulary acquisition, simply because the required verbs
are simple, high frequency words such as a c h i e v e , f i n d , and
win. "Rather, the reason is lack of acquisition of those
language chunks that make discourse fluent and idiomatic"
(Aghbar, 1990, p. 6).
In a similar study, Zhang (1993) examined the
knowledge and use of grammatical and lexical collocations
by native and non-native college freshmen. Zhang employed
two instruments; a writing task and a blank-filling task.
He analyzed the writing of 3 0 native speakers of English
41
and 30 non-native speakers in an attempt to examine the
association between their collocational knowledge and
writing quality, on the one hand, and the use of
collocations and writing quality, on the other. His
conclusion is summarized in the following: "(1)
collocational knowledge is a source of fluency in written
communication among college freshmen, and (2) quality of
collocations in terms of variety and accuracy is indicative
of the quality of college freshmen writing" (Zhang, 1993,
p. v) .
One of the most recent studies on English
collocational knowledge is Gitsaki's (1996). Gitsaki's
study is a valuable contribution to the area of
collocations. She is the first to closely examine the
English collocational knowledge from a developmental
perspective. Gitsaki investigated English collocational
knowledge of 275 Greek junior high school learners of
English at three different proficiency levels of p o s t
beginning, intermediate, and post-intermediate to examine
the developmental patterns between and across the three
proficiency levels. She used three tests to measure
42
students' knowledge of collocations: an essay writing, a
translation test, and a blank-filling test. The writing
test was used to measure the free production of
collocations, whereas the translation test, which was
comprised of 10 sentences in Greek, measured the cued
production of collocations. The blank-filling test was
designed to measure the cued production of collocations.
The collocations included in both the translation and the
blank-filling tests were selected from three textbooks used
in the teaching of English in Greek junior high schools
(Gitsaki, 1996).
Gitsaki's study yielded a number of interesting
findings in relation to the free production and the cued
production of both types of collocations among the three
groups of students. Using the accurate use of collocations
produced in the writing test as an evidence of the
acquisition of collocations, Gitsaki found that there were
significant differences in the production of certain
collocations between and within the three groups. Since
Gitsaki selected her collocations from the textbooks for
these three different levels, she concludes that the
43
frequency of correct responses may be due to students'
exposure to the targeted collocations, and that the more
exposure students have had to certain collocations, the
more likely they would be to use them correctly in their
writing. Gitsaki's translation test consisted of ten Greek
sentences, which elicited English collocation that were
different from their equivalents in Greek.
Results obtained from the blank-filling test were
similar to that of the translation test in that they showed
significant differences within and between the three
groups. Gitsaki reports a peculiar finding with regard to
the intermediate level students (group 2) in that their
accuracy in the production of lexical collocations does not
improve with their overall improvement in grammatical
competence (Gitsaki, 1996).
Gitsaki also considered some factors that affect the
acquisition of English collocational knowledge. She argued
that the development of the knowledge of collocations is
affected by the 'salience' of the collocation types. That
is, simple grammatical collocations that are commonly used
in everyday communication were acquired earlier than
44
lexical collocations. The acquisition of the latter type,
according to Gitsaki, was affected by factors such as
arbitrariness, predictability, and idiomaticity. Another
factor affecting the development of collocational
knowledge, according to Gitsaki, was the frequency of the
input as reflected by their frequency of use in the
students' textbooks. Gitsaki also found that the
difference between the students' LI and L2 had an influence
on the salience and thus the acquisition of certain types
of collocations. Students, according to her, had more
difficulty in the translation of certain collocations that
were structurally different from the students' LI. Finally,
and more importantly, Gitsaki found that the students'
production and accuracy in the translation test and the
blank-filling tests were influenced by their overall
proficiency.
Biskup (1992) investigated the difficulty L2 learners
have with lexical collocations in general and verb-noun
collocations in particular. Biskup conducted a comparative
study of 34 Polish and 28 German students of English in an
attempt to examine the role of LI interference in both
45
their comprehension and production of lexical collocations
and the role of the distance between students' LI and
English. The findings showed that students produced more
restricted collocations than the German group. German
students, on the other hand, were found to use strategies
such as definition and paraphrasing. For example, they
used make the clock working for winding a w a t c h , a trade
within the country for domestic t r a d e , to know somebody
briefly for a passing a c q u a i n t a n c e . Comparing the two
language groups, Biskup writes "Polish students, perceiving
the distance between these two languages, and their errors
reflect assumed semantic similarities instead . . . The
German students, on the other hand, tended to produce
errors resulting from assumed similarity" (p. 91).
Difficulties in collocation learning have also been
echoed by Korosadowicz-Struzynska (1980), who states that
L2 learners have intralingual and interlingual problems in
the use of collocations. Korosadowicz-Struzynska,
therefore, considers the teaching of collocations a high
priority in the EFL classroom. He also pints out that even
46
learners with high proficiency in EFL make collocational
errors.
The teaching of collocations in the L2 classroom has
been encouraged by a number of linguists. Among the early
advocates of the importance of collocations is Brown
(1974), who suggests that increasing L2 learners' knowledge
of collocations will lead to an improvement in their oral
and listening comprehension and their reading speed.
The importance of collocation in ESL/EFL has been
stressed by Cowie (1992). In his words, "It is impossible
to perform at a level acceptable to native users, in
writing or speaking, without controlling an appropriate
range of multiword units [i.e., collocations]. These are
realities which communicative language teaching in
particular has to accommodates itself to" (Cowie, 1992, p.
10) .
Realizing the difficulties collocations pose to
ESL/EFL learners, other researchers have strongly called
for including collocations in the L2 learners' curricula.
Smith (1983) is one of those advocates of the teaching of
collocations in ESL/EFL classrooms. She argues that the
47
teaching of collocations facilitates vocabulary building
for university-bound ESL students. She provides different
types of exercises for teaching collocations that make use
of both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations between
lexical items.
Other researchers have proposed using contrastive
analysis in teaching collocations to EFL/ESL students.
Similar to Bahns (1993), Newman (1988) used a contrastive
analysis of Hebrew and English in the teaching of dress and
cooking verb + noun lexical collocations. He argued that
"Describing words in terms of meaning components derived
from contrastive analysis and collocation restrictions
provides the learner with useful devices for making
conscious distinctions and avoiding mistakes arising from
negative transfer from the first language" (p.303).
Gitsaki (1996) provides a set of criteria for the
teaching of collocations: (1)Priority of the collocations
to be used; (2) the quantity of the collocations to be
taught; (3) level of proficiency in which collocations can
be taught; and (4) the acceptability of collocation
(Gitsaki, 1996) .
48
In sum, the studies reviewed above have clearly shown
that ESL/EFL students' knowledge of collocations in various
levels of proficiency is deficient, and thus teaching
collocations deserves a special attention among ESL/EFL
teachers and curriculum designers. One step to help such
students overcome difficulties in the use of collocations
is to include those collocations which do not have
equivalent in the students' LI.
Collocational Studies with Arab Learners of English
One of the early studies that examined Arab EFL
learners' lexical problems is Elkhatib's (1984). Elkhatib
analyzed four freshmen students' writing samples in an
attempt to classify their Lexical problems, determine their
causes, and to examine whether students were attuned to the
form or the substance of the language. Elkhatib's analysis
of the writing of Arab students gives a good account of the
lexical problems that some Arab EFL students have in
expressing their thoughts in writing. He identified eight
major lexical errors, one of which is "unfamiliarity with
49
word collocations." Some of the examples that show
students' lack of knowledge of lexical collocations are:
. the aircrafts or ships which can remove us in a
short time to many countries . . . " and "any one lives in
glass house should not shooting s t o n e ." According to the
author, the use of the verb remove instead of transport in
the first example and shoot instead of throw or hurl in the
second is due to the students' unfamiliarity with word
collocations.
To help alleviate collocational problems, Elkhatib
(1984) recommends that students would benefit from an
approach of vocabulary teaching in which new words are
presented along with the most typical collocations in the
form of example sentences or of collocational grids like
the ones used by Channell (1981).
The knowledge of collocations of Arab EFL students was
also examined by Fyez-Hussein (1990). Fyez-Hussein
conducted a study on 200 undergraduate Arab EFL students
majoring in English using a multiple choice test that
included 40 sentences of noun-noun, adjective-noun, and
verb-noun collocations. Each sentence contained an
50
incomplete collocation which students were required to
provide. The findings of his study showed that students'
knowledge of English collocations is inadequate as
reflected by their poor performance in the collocation
test. The author attributes students' insufficient
collocational knowledge to the following r e a s o n s : (1)
students' insufficient reading experience, (2) the
reduction and simplification in the teaching materials in
foreign language curricula, (3) overuse of guessing
strategies, and (4) the neglect of vocabulary, including
collocations, in the teaching and learning of English as a
foreign langu a g e .
In their article titled 'Collocations: A Neglected
Variable in EFL," Farghal and Obiedat (1995) addressed the
issue of collocations as used by Jordanian EFL students.
They administered two tests, an English blank-filling
version and an Arabic translation version to two groups of
Jordanian students: Group A consisted of 34 senior and
junior English majors and Group B consisted of 23 senior
English majors at the Higher College for the Certification
of Teachers. The blank-filling test was given to Group A
51
to complete, whereas the Arabic version was given to Group
B to translate into English.
To assess students' lexical collocational knowledge,
the authors used ten common collocations related to common
themes such as food, color, and weather. The results of
their study have shown that both groups of students did
well in predictable collocations; that is, whenever there
was a convergence between Arabic and English (e.g., hot
food and salty s o u p ) . Both groups, however, performed
poorly when there was a divergence between the two
languages in the use of certain collocations (e.g., depth
Qf water, Stormy sea, and height of the summer) . This
conclusion supports the findings of Bahns and Eldaw (1993)
and Biskup (1992) , who have suggested that only the
necessary collocations, (i.e., the ones that do not exist
in students' LI) need to be taught.
Farghal and Obiedat also note that when students did
not know a collocation, they relied heavily on lexical
simplification strategies, such as synonymy, avoidance,
transfer, and paraphrasing, all of which are listed below
in their order of frequency:
52
(1) Synonymy. Students provided collocations such as
Steady color, Stable,color/ static color where the targeted
collocation was fast c o l o r .
(2) Avoidance . The authors state that both groups
employed the avoidance strategy of lexical simplification
in which "the learners avoid the target lexical item in
favor of another, thus altering the meaning of the
collocation" (p. 322). For example, students provided soft
l£2d, extravagant d r i n k e r , for the targeted collocations
light food and heavy drinker, respectively,
(3) Transfer. Both groups, according to the authors,
relied on their LI for providing some of the targeted
collocations resulting in both positive and negative
transfer. For example, students correctly provided the
targeted collocation striped s h i r t , which has an
equivalent collocation in Arabic. However, they provided
heavy tea for the targeted collocation strong tea since the
Arabic collocation for the concept is "heavy t e a " .
(4) Paraphrasing. This strategy, according to the authors,
was a frequently used technique by both groups. Students
in Group B, who were given the translation version of the
53
collocation test, used more paraphrasing than Group A.
Such a difference, according to the authors, could be due
to the nature of task, in that "Group B had more freedom in
paraphrasing because their task was fsi c l translate given
sentences from Arabic into English, while group A had to
confine themselves to the provision of a single lexical
item in each empty slot" (p. 325). To illustrate the
paraphrasing technique used by students, the authors list
the following examples: does not change for running color.
drinks too much for heavy drinker.
Realizing the magnitude of the EFL Arab students'
problem with collocations, Farghal and Obiedat (1995) offer
a number of valuable sugges t i o n s :(1) Syntagmatic lexical
relations should be taught to complement the pragmatic
relations (2) Not only should collocations be singled out
in the foreign language syllabus, but there should be
pedagogic dictionaries that include collocations as well.
(3) Before factors such as nature of the syllabus and
methodology can be blamed, English teachers qualifications
should be carefully examined. (4) Because translation
requires a solid lexical competence, particularly the
54
knowledge of collocations, "it is very important . . . that
prospective translators be made aware of the collocational
nature of English through extensive training that takes
collocations as a central concern" (Farghal & Obiedat,
1995, p. 327).
In conclusion, all of the studies reviewed thus far
have yielded evidence to support the claim that ESL/EFL
students' knowledge of collocations is deficient, and that
the ESL/EFL classroom would benefit from a pedagogical
approach that regards lexis and its properties as valuable
avenues in language learning.
The present study is in line with the above studies in
acknowledging the difficulty L2 learners have in the area
of collocations. It, nonetheless, takes a different
approach to the examination of students' knowledge of
collocations in relation to their proficiency. Unlike many
other studies, which have examined students collocational
knowledge against the academic level as the sole
measurement of students' proficiency, this study examined
knowledge of collocations against TOEFL and a writing test
as well as the academic level.
55
Students' knowledge of collocations is examined using
a Test of Collocation that was designed differently from
the collocation tests used in previous collocational
studies (see Chapter I I I ) . Such a test was designed with
the following objectives in mind: First, it was hoped that
by including 50 lexical verb-noun collocations, more valid
and reliable results would be obtained. Second, to account
for the variety of the test items, collocations formed
three levels of difficulty, ranging from the most commonly
used collocations, such as do homework, to the least common
ones, such as enhance one's knowledge. Third, to ensure
better validity of the collocation test, the first
letter/phoneme of each targeted verb was provided. It was
hoped that this modified c-test format would easily trigger
the targeted collocation and lessen the chances of guessing
by participant (see Chapter III for advantages of this
format).
56
CHAPTER III
THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the research design, the
setting of the study, the participants, the data
collection, the instruments, and the procedures of data
collocation and analysis.
The Research Design
The present study was conducted utilizing quantitative
research methods. The data was gathered by using a
demographic questionnaire, an institutional version of the
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), a blank-
filling Collocation Test, and a 35-minute writing test. The
data was coded, scored, and analyzed to test the following
two hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. There is a differences in the knowledge
of lexical collocations among students from one
academic level to the next.
57
Hypothesis II: There is a relationship between
students' language proficiency as measured by their
TOEFL and Writing Test scores and the knowledge of
lexical collocations as measured by their performance
on the Test of Collocations.
Setting of the Study
This study was conducted at the Department of
Languages and Translation at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic
University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University was
established in Riyadh, the Capital of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia in 1976. Before its establishment, however, it
started with a number of institutes and colleges in
different disciplines. In 1950, the late King Abdul Aziz
Al-Saud ordered that Riyadh Religious Institute be
established. Later, the College of Islamic Law was founded
in Riyadh in 1953, the College of Arabic in Riyadh in 1954,
and the Higher Judiciary Institute in Riyadh in 1965, with
an overall current enrollment of approximately 20,000
students.
58
Since its early days, the university has been going
through a process of continuous development. Several
colleges and institutes have been added to go along with
the progress of the kingdom. Now, it consists of 11
colleges and graduate programs. In 1982, King Fahad laid
down the corner stone for the university new campus with
the objective of expanding the university continuous
expansion. The campus, located in the Northern part of
Riyadh and close to King Khalid International Airport, was
constructed on an area of 3,800,000 square meters and is
surrounded by four highways, allowing an easy access from
any part of Riyadh.
One of these colleges is the College of Arabic, under
which is the Department of Languages and Translations.
The Department of Languages and Translations was started at
the beginning of the academic year 1983-1984. It is called
by this name because there were plans to offer programs in
languages other than English. At present, however, the
only program offered is the one that leads to a B.A. in
English. The total enrollment is approximately 150
students in all four college levels.
59
The department currently implements an e i g h t -
level/semester curriculum. Students are required to
complete a total of 195 credit hours throughout the eight
levels of their B.A. study. This consists of 145 credit
hours in language skills, English literature, and
translation, and 50 elective hours in Arabic-related
subjects such as Arabic syntax, Quran, Islamic Culture,
etc.(see Appendix A)
Participants
The participants in this study were 81 male students
majoring in English at the Department of Languages and
Translation at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Prior to their admission to the
department, students are required to take a placement test,
in which they are required to score at least 80%. The
department has an intensive English course program,
equipped with the latest technology in EFL teaching to
accommodate those who score less than 80% in the placement
60
test. Students remain in this program until they satisfy
the department's admission requirement.
Participants in the present study belonged to four
groups according to their academic l e v e l . Group 1
consisted of 21 students in the second semester of their
freshmen year. Groups 2, 3, and 4 consisted of 20
students, each in the second semester of sophomore, junior,
and senior years, receptively. All subjects were Saudi
nationals and native speakers of Arabic.
The Teaching Materials
Over half of the verb-noun lexical collocations
elicited in the Test of Collocation were selected from the
following two textbooks used in courses on reading
comprehension in students' first year of college.
1. Interactions I : A Reading Skills B o o k , by Kirn, E. &
Hartmann, P. Second Edition, 1996. McGraw Hill Co, Inc.
2. Interactions II: A Reading Skill Book, by Kirn, E &
Hartmann, P. Third Edition, 1996. McGraw Hill Co, Inc.
61
These two textbooks were selected to ensure that all
students including those in higher levels had had them in
their freshman year. Both Interactions I and Interactions
XI were written for in-college and college-bound nonnative
English students, with the former for high-beginning or
low-intermediate students and the latter for low-
intermediate to intermediate students. As such, the
lexical collocations selected were basic and common in
usage. In the preface of Interactions I . the authors
state:
Vocabulary items presented in one chapter of
INTERACTIONS are recycled in subsequent chapters to
prevent students from forgetting them. This constant
recycling enables students to make rapid progress;
their vocabulary will increase dramatically as they
use the book, and yet this process won't be perceived
as difficult. (Kirn & Hartman, 1996, p. XI)
Lexical collocations are treated as vocabulary items and
recycled as the authors mentioned above. However, the
authors do not identify them as collocations.
62
Data Collection
This section discusses the four instruments used for
the collection of the data and the three pilot studies used
to evaluate the instr u m e n t s .
Instruments
The instruments used to collect the data of the
present study were a demographic questionnaire, an
institutional version of the TOEFL, a blank-filling test of
collocations, and a writing test.
The Demographic Questionnaire
Using this instrument, participants were asked to
complete a questionnaire that was designed to elicit
background information about them. All the information
obtained from this questionnaire, especially names of
participants and their academic level, was kept
confidential.
63
The questionnaire included questions about the
participants' extra-curricular activities. This item was
divided into two parts: Extra-Curricular Activity I and
Extra-Curricular Activity II. In the former, participants
were required to provide information about whether they had
attended English lessons in a private institution for
foreign languages. The latter gathered information about
sources that students may have used for their English
language development such as newspapers and books, English
songs, and communication with English-speaking people (see
Appendix B ) .
The TOEFL
The TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign
Language. It is produced by the Educational Testing Service
(henceforth E T S ) . It is the most widely used test to
measure the English proficiency of ESL/EFL students
intending to attend American and Canadian institutions.
TOEFL consists of three co m p o n e n t s :
64
a. Listening comprehension. This component is used to
measures the ability to understand spoken discourse.
b. Structure and written expression. This component
is used to measure the ability to recognize
grammatical structures and word usage of standard
written English, and
c. Reading comprehension. Reading comprehension
measures the ability to read and understand short
passages (TOEFL Preparation Kit, 1995, p. 6,8).
The researcher obtained a permission from the ETS to
use the Institutional Version of the TOEFL in this study.
The Test of Collocations
In designing the Collocation Test used in the present
study, the researcher used a modified version of the c-test
format that was suggested to him by Dr. Aghbar (personal
commu n i c a t i o n ) . In this format only the first
letter/phoneme of each verb was provided e.g., t the
initiative for "take the initiative". in order to elicit
the specific collocations intended for this study and to
65
reduce the possibility of guessing by participants. As
such, it is believed to have avoided some of the
disadvantages of both the standard cloze test and c-test
outlined below.
According to Bersnihan and Ray (1992) , the cloze test,
in which the whole word is often deleted, students would
rely on the context only to provide the targeted word.
More impotently, the authors point out that the blanks in
the cloze test can be often filled with a variety of words.
They provide the following example to illustrate some of
the cloze weaknesses: "can get ________varying scores, would
you as a test scorer accept any or all of these responses:
somewhat, extraordinarily, quite, more, wildly, very,
unusually, nicely, such, slightly, some?" (p. 10). In the
c-test, according to the authors, the second part of every
other word in a text is deleted e.g., "scho " for
"school." With these visual clues provided to students,
the vagueness of the cloze test is reduced and thus
students are more likely to provide the targeted word.
66
Taken, all these variables together, the modified
format used in the present study is hoped to have the
following advantages:
1. Providing only the first letter/phoneme serves as a clue
that would be sufficient to trigger the targeted
collocation if it is known to the learner. That is, since
these combinations are stored as whole chunks, as argued by
various researchers (see the Review of the Literature for
details) and a participant already knew the collocations in
question, the first letter would enable him to easily and
rapidly retrieve it from his memory.
2. Unlike the cloze test, this format did not allow
students to employ strategies such as guessing, for such a
strategy might have resulted in providing free combinations
instead of collocations.
3. The combination of the above advantages and the fact
that the blanks in this test could be filled with one and
only one verb gave this test a greater validity, in that it
more accurately examined participants' knowledge of these
coll o c a t i o n s .
67
In selecting items for the Collocation Test used in
this test, I borrowed ten collocations from Aghbar (1990)
and one from Zhang (1993). Other items were selected from
both the students' text books (see above) and from the BBI
Combinatory Dictionary of English compiled by Benson, et
al. (1986).
In order to maintain the validity of the test, I
selected the verb-noun collocation in a manner that would
represent a hierarchy of difficulty ranging from the most
common collocations such as take a course and do homework
to the least common ones such as enhance one's chances (see
Item Analysis section b e l o w ) .
To further ensure that the test was within reasonable
limits of difficulty, collocations were reviewed by an
expert in vocabulary and collocation research who was also
experienced in teaching EFL/ESL for his approval of the
quality of each collocation. Also, native speaker
participants' responses in the pilot study were used as a
guide for determining whether or not certain collocations
needed to be excluded.
68
The Writing Test
This test was a 35- minute writing task patterned after
the Test of Written English as administered by the (ETS).
It was intended to be used as a holistic measure of
language proficiency. Student were asked to write about
the following topic, which was suggested to the researcher
by Aghbar (personal communication, February, 1997) :
Imagine you have a pen-pal, named Adam, in the United
States who has asked you to write about the most
unforgettable experience you have had. Please write as
much as possible, explaining all the details. Since
your pen-pal is not familiar with your culture, try to
explain every thing clearly. Be sure to include
background information about yourself, your family, and
your culture so that your friend will completely
understand your experience. Also, write about what
happened after the experience. You will have 3 5
minutes to write this letter.
In order to elicit as much writing as possible, a
number of aspects were considered in the selection of this
69
topic. First, students had written letters before, either
to friends or as a fulfillment of an academic requirement.
Second, writing a letter to a friend about an unforgettable
experience was a personal matter and thus was assumed to be
stimulating and thought-provoking. Third, topics such as
friends, family, and culture are familiar enough to
generate 3 5 minutes of writing.
Pilot Studies
The Test of Collocation was piloted three times to
assess the difficulty level of the test items and to
determine the approximate time it would take students to
answer the 50 questions. The first version was given to 10
ESL Saudi students residing in Western Pennsylvania in
February 1997 (see Appendix C ) . Three of these
participants had Master's degree in linguistics from US
universities and were currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program
in linguistics, three had a bachelor's degree in English
and had been in the US for three months and were currently
enrolled in a master's program in teaching English as a
70
second language, and four were advanced students in an
intensive English language program.
The second pilot study was conducted in March 1997.
Nine ESL students enrolled in freshman English at Indiana
University of Pennsylvania. They represented different LI
backgrounds and majors.
Finally, to rule out the possibility that certain test
items were not within the desired difficulty level, I
administered a third pilot study to 18 native speakers of
English enrolled in English 101 College Writing, at Indiana
University of Pennsylvania. The responses obtained from
the three pilot studies were carefully reviewed. It was
noted, from the responses given to these three versions,
that some items contained collocations that were either too
difficult or not clear enough for the students
(see Appendix D ) . Consequently, such items were either
eliminated or changed. For example, items 36 and 38, were
answered incorrectly by all groups in the three pilot
studies and therefore had to be omitted:
36. You will be well advised to t________ heed of what he
has to say. ( take heed)
71
38. I will strive to r _______ my ideals, (realize my
ideals)
Similarly, item 4 5 below was not answered by any student
in the first and second pilot studies:
45. The employee o_ his resignation after he
found a better job somewhere else. (offered his
resig n a t i o n ) .
Since the verb 'offer' was not provided by any student, it
was replaced by 'hand in' below:
45. The employee h_________________ in his resignation after
he found a better job somewhere else. ( handed in his
resi g n a t i o n ) .
Also, it was noticed form the responses of both the ESL
and native students that some of the test items elicited
two possible answers as in items # 29, 35, 47, and 48
below:
29. Where did you g this information? (get
this i n f o r mation),
35. I d____________ an apology from you for that terrible
insult you hurled at me in public, (demand an apology)
72
47. People who work for the government continue to receive
retirement salary, whereas those who work for the private
sector do not e____________ this benefit, (enjoy this
benefit)
48. The injured person was taken to the emergency room and
he was given some medicine to r___________ his pain.
(relieve his pain)
In item 29, some students provided "gather" instead of
the targeted verb "get." Because "gather" was a possible
collocation, as listed in BBI Combinatory Dictionary of
E n g li s h , it was considered a valid response.
(see section on Data Analysis below for more details on the
use of the BBI Dictionary and other sources used to
validate certain responses)
Procedures
This study was conducted in two consecutive days, a
few weeks before the end of the school year. At this point
in the academic year, students had had ample opportunity to
73
have encountered collocations in their academic year
curriculum.
The dissertation advisor wrote a letter of request to
the Chairman of the Department of Language and Translation
for conducting this research. Also, the researcher
contacted the head of the Department of Languages and
Translation and obtained a written approval to conduct this
study. He, then, went to the Department and met with the
faculty and the head of the Department to discuss with
them, in details, the intended study as well as the
necessary steps to be taken to conduct it. Among those
steps was providing an auditorium where volunteering
students could be grouped to take the tests so that similar
testing conditions were provided to all participants and
that the test security was assured. He visited each class
in the department for approximately 15 minutes and
introduced himself as a doctoral candidate conducting a
research for the fulfillment of the doctorate degree. In
each classroom, the researcher wrote the title of the study
on the blackboard along with some examples on collocations
to ensure that students understood the tasks they would be
74
required to perform. After explaining the intended study
to all students, the researcher asked them for their
voluntary participation, assuring them that confidentiality
would be maintained. Each student was then given an
Informed Consent Form (see Appendix E) as well as a cover
letter (see Appendix F) that requested participating
students to sign and bring to the designated test room the
following day.
Session I
On May 19/1997, with the help of two faculty members,
the researcher placed test packets along with an
identifying number (ID) on 81 desks in the auditorium. All
test materials were numbered so that they could be grouped
together after testing and scoring. Also, at the end of
the session, each student was given his test ID number so
that he could claim his TOEFL scores, later. In order for
students to complete the tests in an orderly fashion and to
keep the test materials organized, participants were asked
to keep their folders closed and open them when they were
75
told to do so. Each folder contained materials for the
Writing Test, the Demographic Questionnaire, and the Test
of Collocations.
After all students were seated and given the necessary
instructions for completing the tests, they were asked to
start writing on the designated topic for 35 minutes.
After the time was up, students were asked to fill out the
Demographic Questionnaire. Subsequently, the students were
instructed to take out the Test of Collocation. When they
finished, the researcher asked them to take their
identifying numbers and leave behind all of the test
materials placed on desks. Then, he collected the test
packets along with the accompanying numbers and placed them
in a secure place to be added to the students' TOEFL
answers in the next session.
Session II
On May 20, 1997, the same participating students from
session I took the TOEFL, going through similar procedures
to that of session I. Prior to the students' arrival, the
76
researcher placed TOEFL materials on 81 desks along with
the same numbers assigned to students from the previous
session, so that the answers of each student will be easily
sorted later.
In this session, only the researcher administered the
TOEFL, strictly following the ETS guidelines. Students
were given detailed instructions on how to take the TOEFL
and fill out the form, stressing the time element, since
most of them had not taken the TOEFL before.
Once students finished taking the test, the researcher
instructed them to leave behind their test materials on the
desks. After they left the room, he collected the test
materials and sorted them by name and numbers, separating
the TOEFL testbooks from the answer sheets to be sent to
the ETS for scoring.
Data Analysis
Coding
The coding procedure was initiated at the beginning of
the data collection. All test materials were placed into
77
folders, with an identifying number on each. To maintain
participants' anonymity and confidentiality, each
participant's name was replaced by an identifying number
that was used throughout the subsequent procedures. Later,
after receiving the TOEFL scores from the ETS, the
researcher copied the scores of each student on a sheet of
paper and matched them with each student's other test
scores before entering them in a database. For example, if
Ali's number was 45 and he had scored 3 in the Writing
Test, 512 in the TOEFL, 86 in the Test of Collocations, and
6 in the Demographic Questionnaire, his score would be
entered in the database as follows: 45. 03 512 86 06
Scoring
The Test_of Collocations
The Test of Collocations, which was in a blank-filling
format, consisted of 50 sentences. Each correct answer was
assigned 2 points, totaling 100. The researcher scored the
test, and when there was a possible answer other than the
required one, and that was not expected prior to giving the
78
test or was not encountered during the piloting procedure,
the researcher sought the help of professionals in ESL/EFL
vocabulary instruction, the BBI Dictionary, and Alta Vista
Web Search Engines. Some of these instances are reported
below under their respective sources.
The...use of BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. The
BBI Dictionary was used as a major reference guide
throughout the stages of the designing and the analysis of
the data. After the administration of the Test of
Collocations, it was found that some participants provided
certain responses that were not anticipated prior to the
designing of the test. For example, in items #15 and #2 9
below, some participants provided the verbs press and
gather as collocates with the nouns button and information,
respectively:
15. The scientist ran an experiment on a number of people
(subjects). He asked them to watch a video screen and
p_________ a button whenever they saw a line pattern, (press
a bu t t o n ) .
79
29. Where did you g____________ this information? (gather
this info r m a t i o n ) .
When the BBI Dictionary was consulted, press and gather
were found to be possible collocates with the nouns
provided in the above items and therefore such responses
were considered valid.
The use of Web Search Engines. The use of Web Search
Engine as a source of validating certain responses was
suggested to the researcher by Aghbar (personal communication,
July 1997) . This source became convenient in instances when
certain responses were not listed in the BBI Dictionary. For
example, in item #4 7, where the targeted verb was enjoy
benefit. the majority of the participants provided earn
benefit, instead. Since the BBI Dictionary does not list earn
+ benefit as a possible collocation, the researcher used the
Alta Vista Search Engine as a source for validating such a
response. He entered both the targeted collocation "enjoy
benefit" and the provided response "earn benefit" in Alta
Vista search engine to see if the latter was used at all, and
if so, how frequently they were used. To search for a
collocation in Alta Vista, one needs to put it in quotes to
80
search only for contiguous occurrences. The result showed
that "earn benefit" was used 69 times, whereas the targeted
collocation "enjoy benefit" was used 108 times. Since the
provided response was used quite frequently, as was found in
Alta Vista, it was considered a valid answer. The following
table lists all such instances as well as the number of times
they were used in Alta Vista Search Engine.
Table 3
rarcrecea uoilocations ana vaiia froviaea responses as usea

in Alta Vista Search Enaine
TC #used PR #used
Demand apology 134 deserve apology 36

Enjoy benefit 108 earn benefit 69
Relieve pain 1235 reduce pain 965
Bring honor 219 bestow honor 95
Get information 5000 gather info. 1100
Achieve success 1200 attain success 135
Note: TC = Targeted Collocation PR = Provided Response
Participants also provided responses that were hardly
used in Alta Vista. Therefore, those responses were not
considered valid. The following table includes the
targeted collocations and the unacceptable provided
r e sp o n s e s .
81
Table 4
Targeted Collocations and Invalid Provided Responses as

Used in Alta Vista
TC #used PR #used
Dye + hair 168 darken + hair 3

File + complaint 3780 forward + complaint 14
Express + opinion 958 explain + opinion 1
Deny + access 4245 deprive + access 3
Achieve + success 1200 accomplish + success 9
Relieve + pain 1235 remedy + pain 8
Note: TC = Targeted collocation

PR = provided response
The Demographic Questionnaire
The Demographic Questionnaire was intended to examine
whether students learned English from any source other than
that of the classroom. It was divided into two parts:
Extra-Curricular Activity I and Extra-Curricular Activity
II. In the first part, students were asked whether they
had attended any private institution for English as a
foreign language, and, if so, for how many hours. In the
second part, students were asked how often they watched
movies, read newspapers and books and listened to songs in
English and how often they communicated with English-
speaking people. Students were required to choose one of
82
the following answers: often, sometimes, seldom, or never.
These choices were later quantified for analysis purposes
as follows:
Often = 3 points
Sometimes = 2 points
Seldom = 1 points
Never = 0
However, after analyzing the data, it was found that
such information was insignificant. Some of the
participants did not complete some items of the
questionnaire, while some others provided multiple answers
for certain questions. In sum, responses were found to be
sporadic and subjective; therefore it had to be excluded
from the analysis and discussion.
The Writing Test
In the scoring of the Writing Test, a holistic
approach was followed. This approach to writing assessment
has been advocated by several researchers in NSs' writing
assessment (e.g., Williamson 1993), and in EFL writing
83
assessment (e.g., Janopoulos, 1993). These researcher have
placed a special emphasis on the issue of validity of
holistic scoring.
The validity as well as the reliability of the Writing
Test in this study have been accounted for through the
following procedures: (1) Writing samples were scored on a
scale of 1-6, with 1 being the least competent and 6 the
most competent. According to Williamson (1993, p. 16), the
larger the scale, the more variance among the scores, thus
enhancing the scores' statistical reliability, (2) Each
writing sample was scored by two raters, both of whom were
native speakers of English and are Ph.D. candidates in
linguistics. More importantly, both raters were
experienced ESL writing instructors and had extensive
formal training and long experience in scoring the ETS's
Test of Written English (TWE). The experience of raters
plays a crucial role in the writing assessment. Williamson
(1993) discusses this aspect in regard to scoring placement
tests. He convincingly argues that
knowledge of students' and their abilities are
precisely the expertise of trained, experienced
84
teachers in any discipline. This knowledge grows out
of their experience with a wide variety of data . . .
Expert teachers require considerably less data than
novice raters to form opinions of students' abilities
(p. 17)
(3) At the outset, the two raters, the dissertation
adviser, and the researcher held a practice session. Four
compositions were randomly selected for practice, each of
which was scored by the two raters. To further enhance the
reliability and validity of the Writing Test, a scale
similar to the TWE holistic scoring guideline was adopted.
After all the scoring had been completed, the two sets of
scores were compared. Only six compositions received
scores with a difference greater than one point. In
instances when the difference was 1 point, an average score
was assigned to the composition. For example, when rater #
1 gave a certain essay 3 and rater #2 gave it 4, the score
of that essay was 2.5. When the difference was greater
than 1 point, two experienced ESL/EFL writing teachers
reread the composition and gave it a score independently,
and then the average of their scores was the final score.
85
Scoring the TOEFL
Prior to collecting the data, the researcher contacted
the ETS and obtained 110 official copies to be used in this
study. Upon the completion of the data collection, the 81
answer sheets were sent back to the ETS for computerized
scoring. Once the scores were received, they were entered
in a database with the rest of test scores. Later, a copy
of the scores was sent to the head of the Department of
Languages and Translation at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic
University to give to the participating students.
Measuring the Variables
The following steps were used to measure the dependent
and independent variables in this study:
86
Variable I : Academic Level
Like most English departments in Saudi Arabia, the
Department of Languages and Translation requires students
to score 80% in an in-house placement test before they
could be admitted to the department. In cases where
students scored less than 80%, they would be admitted to an
intensive English program for one semester. At the end of
that semester, they would take another placement test. In
addition, after being admitted to the department, students
would continue taking language skills courses throughout
their first two years of college, e.g., writing skills,
listening comprehension and conversation, reading
comprehension etc., and linguistics and English literature
courses throughout their four college years. Therefore,
students admitted to their freshmen level are assumed to be
quite proficient in English and capable of coping with the
university requirements.
In the present study, the academic level of student is
used as an independent variable to examine whether the
87
students' knowledge of lexical collocations increases as
students move form one level to the n e x t .
TOEFL. Despite some criticism advanced throughout the
past couple of decades about its reliability, the TOEFL is
still considered the best available measure of English
language proficiency in N o rth America. Therefore, it has
been widely used by researchers in applied linguistics and
officially recognized in the American educational system as
a measure of proficiency. The TOEFL, therefore, was used in
this study as one of the two measurements to assess the
participants' proficiency level; the other instrument being
the Writing Test.
The Writing Test. The Writing Test used in this study
was similar to the ETS's Test of Written English (TWE), in
that it holistically measured students' writing ability. A
scale similar to the ETS's TWE guidelines were followed in
the scoring of the W r iting Test. The Writing Test was used
as an additional measurement of participants' proficiency.
The combination of the TOEFL and the Writing Test was hoped
88
to give an accurate assessment of the participants'
proficiency.
Variable II; Knowledge of Collocations
Students' knowledge of collocations was measured by
their performance on the Test of Collocation, which
included verb-noun collocations only. As such, students'
knowledge of these combination does not necessarily reflect
their overall collocational knowledge (see the Limitation
sub-section in Chapter V ) .
Reliability Test
Being a newly designed instrument, the Test of
Collocation was piloted three times to ensure that its
items were adequately measuring the participants' lexical
collocational knowledge, and that the test level of
difficulty was equally distributed.
After the data was collected and the results were
obtained and entered in a database, a reliability analysis
89
was performed utilizing SPSS 7.5 version. The following
table summarizes the results:
Table 5
Results of the Reliability Analysis
N o . oil cases 81
Reliability coefficient 47
Alpha .7785
Standard item alpha .7663
Table 5 shows that only 47 out of the 50 items
included were computed. The three missing items were
answered correctly by all students; therefore, they were
automatically excluded from computation. Those three items
were classified in this study as "super easy", since they
were answered by all students. They were:
Item # 1. My teacher was disappointed because I didn't
d my homework, (do)
Item # 2 2 . I am very tired. I need to t__________ a
vacation, (take)
Item # 39. She g a great satisfaction from doing
research, (gets)
90
It is worth noting that Test of Collocations did not
include items that were answered incorrectly by all
participants, otherwise they would have also been
automatically excluded in the reliability analysis.
Despite the exclusion of the three items above, result of
the reliability analysis showed that the Test of
Collocations is acceptably reliable.
Item .Analysis
After the data collection, the researcher ran an item
analysis utilizing SPSS version 7.5 in an attempt to obtain
a general distribution of the test items as well as an
estimate of the difficulty level of the collocations
included in the test. For computation purposes, each
correct response was coded as 1, and the incorrect response
as 0. The researcher entered all coded responses in a
database in an IBM compatible computer. Results yielded
three categories according to the answer frequency of each
item: low, medium, and high. Items that were answered
correctly 50% of the times or less were classified as low-
frequency items. Items that were answered correctly 51%-
91
94% were classified as medium-frequency, and finally, those
that were answered correctly 95%-100% were classified as
high-f reque n c y .
The low-frequency collocations constituted 12 items or
24% of the total number of collocations tested as shown in
Table 6 below.
Table 6
Low-frequency Verb-Noun Collocations
Test Item Number Collocation
7 Take the initiative

10 meet three condition
13 express an opinion
14 dye hair
16 perform a task
27 seek admission
28 deny smn access
35 demand an apology
41 hand in resignation
44 file a complaint
48 reduce his pain
49 enhance smn's chance
Total 12
Note: percent = 24%
The medium-frequency collocations constituted the bulk
of the test items. Out of the 50 collocation, 28 items or
56% were medium in frequency. Table 7 below shows the
medium-frequency collocations.
92
Table 7
Medium-Frequency Verb-Noun Collocations
Test item Number Collocation
2 offer advantage
3 provide nutrition
5 give a lecture
6 make a choice
8 take action
9 make money
11 take one's time
12 solve a problem
16 push a button
19 commit a crime
20 keep a promise
21 catch cold
25 attract attention
26 take control
29 get information
30 find a solution
31 pay attention
32 bring an honor
33 make an assumption
34 find a justification
36 achieve success
38 win smn's confidence
40 commit suicide
42 have an impact
43 give an indication
45 find time
46 cause smn inconvenience
47 enjoy benefit
Total 28
N o t e : percent = 56%
Finally, ten items were found to be the most
frequently answered by most participants and were thus
NOTE TO USERS
Page(s) not included in the original manuscript are

unavailable from the author or university. The manuscript
was microfilmed as received.
93
UMI
Figure 1
Distribution of the collocation test by frequency of
correct r e sponses.
95
CHAPTER IV
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter includes three major sections. The first
section presents the findings of the study and discusses
them in relation to the two hypotheses using descriptive
and non-parametric statistics, followed by a further
analysis of the relationship between the participants'
collocational knowledge and their writing and TOEFL scores.
Though this particular relationship was not included in the
two hypotheses of the study, the patterns that emerged were
thought to be worth reporting and discussing. The second
section touches on some observations on individual
collocations and some implication on the acquisition and
development as reflected by participants' performance on
the Test of Collocation.
96
Section I
Knowledge of Lexical Collocations Among the Four Academic
Levels
Before the finding of the hypotheses of this study are
discussed, a restatement of the limitations of this study
is needed. As mentioned in the Chapter III, participants
of this study were not randomly selected; rather, their
participation was voluntary-based. As such, the findings
of this study cannot be generalizable to Saudi EFL
students, nor can such findings be generalizable to the
whole student population at the Department of Languages and
Translation, at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University
(the site of the s t u d y ) .
In the analysis of the results for the first
hypothesis, three statistical measures were used. First,
descriptive statistics of all levels were used to show the
means, the standard deviations, the minimum and the maximum
scores of each of the four groups to obtain a picture of
the general distribution of the data. Second, to examine
97
the between-group and within-group differences, a One-Way
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for hypothesis I.
Third, after the results of the One-Way ANOVA were
obtained, a post hoc multiple comparison test was done to
determine which means were significantly different from
each other.
Descriptive Statistics
As far as the first hypothesis is concerned, results
of statistical analysis have shown that there is an
increase in the students' scores in the Test of
Collocations from one level to the next, as shown by the
mean scores in Table 9 below.
98
Table 9
Summary Table of the Differences among the Four Academic

Levels in the Test of Collocations
95%
CIM
N Mean SD SE LB UB Min Max
Level 1 21 64.71 10 .22 2 .23 60.06 69 .37 50 84
Level 2 20 70 .25 9.99 2 .23 65.58 74 .92 44 87
Level 3 20 73 .20 8 .62 1 .93 69.17 77.23 58 88
Level 4 20 84.85 4.31 .96 82.83 86 .87 78 92
Total 81 73 .15 11.26 1 .25 70.66 75.64 44 92
SD = Standard Deviation
SE = Standard Error
UB = Upper Bound
LB = Lower Bound
Table 9 shows observable differences among the mean
scores of the four academic levels. Such differences are
shown to be greater between the first and the second levels
than the second and the third levels. The first level
students' scores ranged from a minimum of 50 to a maximum
of 84, with a mean score of 64.71. On the other hand, the
second level students' scores ranged from 44 to 87, with a
mean of 70.25, indicating a higher jump from the first to
the second academic level. However, the third level
students' scores showed a minimal difference as compared to
99
the first and second level students' scores. That is,
their scores ranged between a low of 58 and a high of 88,
with a mean score of 73.20 and a standard deviation of
8.62. Another high jump in the mean score was found
between the third and the fourth levels. Fourth level
students' mean scores are significantly higher than the
third level students'; the lowest is 78 and the highest is
92, with a mean score of 84.85 and a standard deviation of
4.31, suggesting another high jump similar to that between
the first and second level students. Looking at the
confidence intervals of means, however, it can be seen that
differences are less obvious, as shown by the standard
deviations 10.22, 9.99, 8.62, and 4.31 for levels 1, 2, 3,
and 4, respectively.
In sum, while there are overall differences throughout
the four levels, the magnitude of such differences between
certain groups vary. That is, there is a significant
difference in students' performance on the Test of
Collocations, as shown by their mean scores, as students
pass the first year, with a difference of 5.54. However,
the difference between the performance of the second and
100
third years is minimal, i.e. 2.95. The performance of the
fourth level students, on the other hand, is significantly
higher, i.e. 11.65, as compared to that between the second
and the third level students'. In other words, the
performance/improvement of students in the four academic
levels can be described as if students pass through three
stages; one in which they show a high improvement as they
pass their first year, followed by what may be called a
"passive stage" where they show only a minimal improvement,
and later, they pass through a stage where they exhibit a
remarkable improvement.
The pattern that emerged in the differences in the
participants' mean scores of the Test of Collocations above
encouraged the researcher to perform a similar analysis on
the students performance on the Writing Test and the TOEFL
in an attempt to find out whether such differences would
follow a similar pattern. Table 9 below shows the results.
Looking at the mean scores of the four academic levels
in the Writing Test, 2.5, 3.3, 3.47, and 4.3, and the
TOEFL, 410.19, 450, 460, and 511.6, respectively, it can be
seen that the difference pattern among the four groups'
101
mean scores resembles the difference pattern found among
the four groups' mean scores in the Test of Collocations.
For example, the difference between the first and the
second levels in the Writing Test was higher than that
between the second and the third levels in the three tests.
Similarly, the small difference found between the second
and the third levels in the Test of Collocations was
reflected by the participants' performance on the Writing
Test and the TOEFL s c o r e s .
Table 10
Summary Table of the Four Academic Levels in the Writing

Test
N Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Level 1 21 2.5 .6519 1.5 4.00

Level 2 20 3.3 .9787 2.0 6 .00
Level 3 20 3 .47 .7340 2.0 4 .50
Level 4 20 4.3 .4974 3.5 5.00
Note: N = 81
Moreover, the higher difference found between the
third and the fourth levels in the Test of Collocations was
also found to be high in both the Writing Test and the
TOEFL.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission
102
Such a consistency in the differences among the
students' scores in the three tests leads us to think that
not only do differences exist, but also there are some
underlying developmental patterns involved in the
acquisition of lexical collocations. This conclusion was
reached by Gitsaki (1996), who examined the knowledge of
collocations from a developmental perspective. Gitsaki
assessed the collocational knowledge among 275 Greek
learners of English in their junior high school. They
represented three proficiency levels. Some of Gitsaki's
findings are in line with the present study in that her
students' performance in the blank-filling collocation
test, in the three proficiency levels, increased as their
level of proficiency increased, and that there were group-
specific patterns of development in the acquisition of
coll o cations.
The present study, too, supports the issue of the
acquisition of collocations in that students' knowledge of
collocations, as was found by students' performance on the
Test of Collocations, was reflected in their academic level
and their performance on the Writing Test and the TOEFL.
103
One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
Having only one dependent variable, namely the
knowledge of lexical verb-noun collocations, the most
suitable statistical measure is a One-Way Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA). It is widely known that among the five
main assumptions needed for ANOVA is that each group should
be randomly selected from a normal population so that a
generalization of the finding can be made about the entire
population. Nonetheless, ANOVA was performed with the
following understandings in mind: (1) The findings of this
study are by no means intended to be generalizable to all
Saudi EFL students, nor are they generalizable to all
students in the Department of languages and translation,
since the study was based on voluntary participation. (2)
This study was conducted with the intention of using
inferential statistics as an exploratory tool to examine
the knowledge of lexical collocations among students from
the four academic levels at the Department of Languages and
Translation. (3) The results of this study may be used as
a stepping-stone for future research that could yield more
104
generalizable findings (see the Limitation sub-section in
Chapter V for more d e t a i l s ) .
The results of the One-Way A N OVA showed the
variability in the knowledge of lexical collocations within
each academic level as well as between the four academic
levels. Table 11 shows the between-group and within-group
variability in the knowledge of collocation.
Table 11
One-Way Analysis of Variance for the Knowledge of

Collocations
Sum of Squares df Mean Square F sig
Between 4400.437 3 1466.812 19.650 .000

Groups
Within 5747.786 77 74.647
Groups
Total 10148.222 80
Note: Difference is significant at the .05 level
The results of the O n e-Way ANOVA, as shown in Table
11, clearly show that there was a significant difference in
the knowledge of lexical verb-noun collocations both
between and within the four academic levels, F (3,77) =
19.650, at the p < .05 level.
105
Post Hoc,..Test (Multiple Comparisons)
After the results of the One-Way ANOVA were obtained,
a post hoc multiple comparison test was performed using
Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) in an attempt
to determine which pairs of means were significantly
different from each other. Table 12 shows the differences.
Table 12
Multiple Comparisons of the Means of the Four Academic

Levels in the Test of Collocations
95%
Confidence Interval
LB UB
(I) (J) MD
Level Level (I-J) SE Sig
Level 1 L2 -5.54 2.699 .179 -12.62 1.55
L3 -8.49* 2.699 .012 -15.57 -1.40
L4 -20.14* 2 .699 .000 -27.22 -13.05
Level 2 L3 -2.95 2.732 .703 -10.12 -4 .22
L4 -14.60* 2.732 .000 -21.77 -7.43
Level 3 L4 -11.65* 2.732 .000 -18.82 -4.48
Note: * = mean difference is significant at the .05 level
LB = Lower Bound
UB = Upper bound
MD = mean Difference (I-J)
SE = Standard Error
Table 12 above shows that the means are significantly
different from each other when level 1 is compared with the
106
other three levels. The highest significant difference was
found between level 1 and level 4, at p = .000, followed by
difference between level 1 and 3, at p = .012, and finally
a difference between level 1 and 2, at = p .179.
As far as level 2 and 3 are concerned, table 12 shows
that there is a much less significant difference between
them, as shown by the significance level, .703. On the
other hand, there was a significant difference between the
mean scores of level 2 and level 4, as shown by significant
level .000. As for the difference in the mean scores of
level 3 and level 4, table 10 shows a significant
difference at p = .000.
The question that may be posed, however, is why the
greatest differences were found in the beginning and final
year of college, as found by the three measures of this
study. The following reasons may, at least partly, account
for these differences:
1. As mentioned in Chapter III, one main requirement for
the students' admission to the Department of Languages and
Translation is passing a placement test, in which they have
to score 80% or above. In instances where students score
107
below 8 0%, they have to be enrolled in an intensive
language program to improve their language skills. One way
of justifying the increase from the first to the second
levels is to consider the quantity of language courses in
the Intensive Course Program and throughout the beginning
years of college. Students, as shown by the course plan of
the Department of Languages and Translation, (see Appendix
A), continue to take language skill courses. Five of the
seven core courses in level 1 (freshmen) are language skill
course, namely, English grammar, writing skills, reading
comprehension, and listening comprehension. The number of
these courses gradually decreases in higher levels. For
example, out of the eight core courses, in the second year,
only three language skill courses are offered. This
decrease is more apparent in the third and fourth years
curricula, where only an essay writing course is offered.
Therefore, the large doses of language courses in the
Intensive Course Program and the first year, and the
gradual decrease of such courses as students move to
subsequent years, may have contributed to the significant
difference in the students' performance on the three tests.
108
2. It can also be assumed that as students move from the
second level and get involved with the core courses (i.e.,
English literature and linguistics courses), they become
pre-occupied with the subject matter of those courses and
consequently give less attention to the form of the
language.
3. The improvement in the students performance in the
fourth level may be explained by the fact that, at this
stage of their schooling, students have already acquired
sufficient linguistic knowledge from the total number of
courses throughout the previous four years of college.
As for the marginal difference found between the
performance of the students in the second and third levels,
it may be argued that had the difference in the scores of
the second and third levels been found in the Test of
Collocations only, and no similar differences were found in
the Writing Test and TOEFL scores, it may be assumed that
the students' knowledge of collocations may not have been
reflected accurately, and thus such differences could have
been due to factors.such as the test complexity and the
testing conditions. However, similar patterns in the
109
students' overall knowledge of English may imply that their
knowledge of collocations, and thus their acquisition of
them, run parallel to all other language skills.
The results of the first hypothesis has at least two
implications to the current literature on collocations.
The first implication is in regard to the use of the
academic level as an independent variable to measure
students' collocational knowledge. Based on the finding of
the first hypothesis of this study, academic level is a
sufficient measure of students' collocational knowledge.
More accurate assessment, however, is attainable if other
measures such as students' writing, and their TOEFL scores
are used, as will be shown below. The second implication
is in regard to the issue of the difficulty ESL/EFL
students have with collocations. While students had some
difficulties with certain collocations, (see Section III of
this chapter) their overall knowledge of collocations,
according to the results above, has been reflected by their
academic l e v e l .
The findings thus far have shown that there are
statistically significant differences in the mean scores of
110
the four level groups, with the exception of the second and
the third levels. These differences are more clearly seen
if the first and the fourth levels are compared. Based on
these findings, such statistical differences clearly show
the increase in students' knowledge of lexical
collocations, thus strongly supporting the first hypothesis
of the present study.
Section II
Knowledge of Lexical Collocations and Proficiency Level
The second hypothesis of this study is that there is a
relationship between the knowledge of lexical collocations
and the proficiency level of students. To test this
hypothesis, three steps were taken; a scatterplot, Pearson
correlation coefficient, and a regression analysis.
Pearson Correlation Coefficient
After the scatterplot had shown a linear relationship
between students' knowledge of collocations and their
Ill
overall proficiency as measured by the Writing Test and
TOEFL, the researcher used Pearson correlation to quantify
the strength of such a relationship. Table 13 shows the
results of the correlations.
Table 13
Pearson Correlation of the Dependent and Independent
Variables
Test of Collocations
TOEFL .648**
Writing Test .676**
Combination of
Writing Test St .709**
TOEFL
Note: **. Correlation is significant at the .01 level.
As can be seen in Table 13, there is a significant
relationship between the TOEFL and the Test of
Collocations, as shown by the r value of .648. Also, there
is a slightly stronger relationship between the Writing
Test and the Test of Collocations, r = .676. When the two
are combined, the association is even stronger, as shown by
the r value of .709.
112
Regression Analysis
The relationship between students' knowledge of
lexical collocations, on the one hand, and their writing
and their performance in the TOEFL on the other, is
examined further using a regression analysis in an attempt
to know which of those two proficiency measures has a
greater predictive power of students' knowledge of lexical
collocations. Table 14 below shows the results of the
regression analysis.
Table 14 shows that the Writing Test and the TOEFL are
good predictors of the students' collocational knowledge.
Interestingly, while the two measures were positive
predictors, the Writing Test was found to be a slightly
better predictor.
Table 14
Summary of Regression Analysis for predicting the Knowledge

of Lexical Collocations by the Writing Test and the TOEFL.
B SE Beta
(Constant) 7.574 8 .735

1. TOEFL .143 .019 .648
(Constant) 46.567 3 .388

2. Writing Test 7.858 .963 .676
(Constant) 23.471 9 .249

3. TOEFL 7.118E-02 .027 .322
Writing Test 5.060 1.400 .435
: For Predictor # 1 , R2 = .457, for predictor 2 R2 =
419, and for predictor 3 R2 = .573. To calculate the
last R 2 , the combination of Beta values for the TOEFL
and the Writing Test were squared.
P < .05 for all predictors.
N = 81
The statistical measures performed thus far clearly
indicated that the relationship between students' knowledge
of lexical verb-noun collocations and their language
proficiency does exist. More importantly, there is a
strong correlation between the knowledge of lexical verb-
noun collocations and the writing ability on the one hand,
and the students' performance on the TOEFL on the other.
114
Item Analysis
As was discussed in the Methodology Chapter, the
collocations included in the Test of Collocations used in
the present study were selected from various sources, among
which are students' textbooks and the BBI Combinatory
Dict i o n a r y . One of the major concerns was the difficulty
level of the test items, since the test was newly designed
and quite different from previous test formats used in
assessing collocational knowledge. For this reason, three
major steps were taken both before and after the designing
of the test. One of such procedures was the piloting
procedures through which a number of changes were made (see
the Chapter I I I ) . After the data analysis, a reliability
test and an item analysis were performed. Results from the
reliability test have shown that the test was acceptably
reliable with an alpha value of .7785 (see Chapter III).
The item analysis was intended to ensure the validity of
the test and to explore the level of difficulty so that
results may be useable in future research. The results of
the item analysis yielded three different categories of
collocations based on students' answer frequency; 12 high-
115
frequency items, 28 medium-frequency, and 10 low-frequency
items, thus presenting a normal distribution.
Such a distribution of the test items by answer
frequency revealed two important observations. The first
is that the frequency of correct responses seemed to
reflect the type of collocation in each category. For
example, those in the low level frequency tend to occur in
formal discourse (e.g., demand an apology, deny someone
access (see Table 6). At the other end of the continuum,
namely in the category of collocations that were used
correctly most frequently, we find collocations that are
common in usage and mostly used in everyday communication
(e.g., do homework, take a course, get satisfaction, etc.)
The second observation that can be made about the
distribution of the collocations is in regard to the
validity of the test. Though, the classification of the
test items into three categories was done after
participants had taken the test, it showed a relatively
fair distribution. While there are 24% of the high-
frequency and 20% of the low-frequency, the majority of the
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test items were in midrange category (56%) , thus giving an
additional support to the test validity.
Speaking about difficulty, various EFL researcher such
as (Elkhatib, 1984, Farghal & Obiedat, 1995, Fyez-Hussein,
1990) , have argued that collocations pose a great deal of
difficulty to learners. According to the results of this
study, Saudi EFL students' collocational knowledge was
reflected by their general proficiency. That is, their
performance on the Test of Collocations correlated strongly
with their performance on the Writing Test and TOEFL. This
finding contradicts previous EFL research on collocations.
The present study, however, does not underestimate the
argument of difficulty, since, as mentioned earlier,
participants of the present study are not representative of
the EFL population or of Saudi EFL learners. The important
remark that the present study makes is in regard to the
assessment of collocational knowledge as related to other
language skills. It is the contention of this researcher
that, before a decisive conclusion can be made about the
knowledge of collocations, a number of variables need to be
taken into account. First, the validity and reliability of
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the measurements used to test students' collocational
knowledge need to be reassessed. Second, the quantity and
quality of such measurements need to be carefully examined.
Third, collocational knowledge needs to be assessed in
relation to students' overall language proficiency.
Section III
Observations on Individual Collocation Items
This section includes a discussion of some of the
observations about individual items in the Test of
Collocations, the implications about the acquisition and
development of lexical collocations as reflected in Saudi
students' performance on the Test of Collocation. It also
includes a discussion of lexical collocations as related to
the curriculum used in the Department of Languages and
Translation (the site of the S t u d y ) .
Cultural Factors
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As many as 95% of the participants used the verb
darken in the collocation dye h a i r , despite the fact that
there is an exact equivalent of such a collocation in
Arabic. Since both dye hair and darken hair have Arabic
equivalents, one possible explanation of the use of the
verb darken could be that students did not know the verb
d y e and since the first letter 'd' was already provided,
it may have triggered the verbal form from the commonly
used English adjective d a r k . Considering the students'
culture, however, a more likely explanation is that the use
of the verb darken was a result of cultural interference,
since people in Saudi Arabia usually darken their h a i r ,
which is a less formal collocation than the targeted
collocation dye h a i r , which involves changing hair color as
well as different hues in the color spectrum.
Semantic Factors
Many students were found to have problems with the
verb enjoy in the collocation en joy b e n e f i t , in that most
of them provided earn ben e f i t , instead. Unlike in English,
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in which the verb e n joy is used to convey a variety of
concepts that have little to do with gaining pleasure, the
equivalent Arabic lexeme enjoy does not. In Arabic, the
equivalent of the verb e a r n , is commonly used with material
concepts such as money, benefit, and living. In other
words, the subtle semantic difference between the two verbs
could be a possible reason behind the problem students had
with the collocation enjoy b e n e f i t .
Positive Transfer Factors
Despite the fact that this study did not include a
translation test, through which performance of participants
could be compared, it was clear that in responding to
certain test items, participants were aided by positive
transfer from Arabic. That is, some verb-noun collocations
had equivalents in Arabic, and thus were easy for students
to respond to.
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The following items are among the positively-transferred
items listed by their number in the Test of Collocations:
1. do homework
4. take a course
17 . take medication
18. Change o n e 's mind
22 . take a vacation
5. give a lecture
12 . solve a problem
15. push a button
19 . commit a crime
20 . keep a promise
25 . attract attention
30 . find a solution
34 . find a justification
36. achieve success
45 . find time
The researcher, who is a native speaker of Arabic,
arrived at the above conclusions in consultation with one
other educated Arabic scholar.
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Predictably, the first five collocations in the list
above, were classified as high-frequency collocations,
which, as shown by the item analysis above, were answered
by the largest number of students, while the remaining
items of the list were classified as medium-frequency.
Learners' reliance on their first language (LI) in
learning English was examined by various SLA researchers.
Such a strategy was found to be used by L2 learners in the
use of collocations as well. Biskup (1992), Bahns and
Eldaw (1993), and Gitsaki (1996) found that, in ESL,
collocations that had equivalents in students' LI were
easier, and thus were more likely to be elicited than the
ones having no equivalents in students' LI. For this
reason, Bahns and Eldaw (1993) and Biskup (1992) suggested
that, since the number of collocations is too large to
cover, the deliberate teaching of collocations should be
limited to collocations that have no equivalent in
students' first language.
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Negative Transfer Factors
Farghal and Obiedat (1995) have also reached the same
conclusion in EFL. They have found that Jordanian students
performed well when targeted collocations had an Arabic
equivalent. For example, students found items such as hot
f o o d , striped shirt, and salty soup easy. On the other
hand, students had problems with collocations that had no
equivalents in Arabic. For example, students used heavy
tea for the targeted collocation strong tea (Farghal &
Obiedat, 1995) .
The present study, too, found that collocations that
had no Arabic equivalents were problematic for students.
As a result, when students did not know a certain
collocation, they negatively transferred collocations from
their LI. Table 15 shows such responses.
Note that with the exception of offer advantage and
make m o n e y , which were classified as medium-frequency, all
other collocations in Table 15 were classified as low-
frequency collocations.
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Table 15
Collocations Having no Arabic Equivalents
Targeted Collocation Arabic Equivalent

Deny someone access deprive someone access
Meet three condition fulfill three conditions
Offer many advantages obtain many advantages
Demand an apology deserve an apology
Hand in his resignation present his resignation
File a complaint present a complaint
Make money gather money
Like positive transfer, negative transfer/
interference, is a common phenomenon among L2 learners. In
addition to the studies under Positive Transfer above,
Elkhatib's (1995) analysis of four Egyptian students'
writing samples showed that the students used word-for-word
translation from Arabic, as in "And my dream became truth
again . . Although Elkhatib uses one of his students'
use of became truth as a translation problem and does not
use it to illustrate the collocational interference, it is
obvious from the context of the sentence that the desirable
combination was come t r u e , which is a verb-adjective
collocation in English.
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Similarly, Saudi students had a problem with certain
collocations which did not have exact equivalents in
Arabic. The collocation file a complaint, for instance,
was one of the problematic collocations. In addition to
the fact that such a collocation does not have an Arabic
equivalent and thus pose a difficulty to students, it also
differs from other collocations in that it enjoys a
relatively high degree of idiomaticity and thus it is
semantically less transparent. As such, the difficulty
students had with file a complaint may be explained by
either the nature of the collocation or negative transfer
factors. While some English collocations consisted of a
verb and a noun, the Arabic equivalent was expressed by a
verb only. Whereas, in English, one often can choose
between a verb-noun collocation and a single verb, this is
not possible in Arabic with certain items on the Test of
Collocations. Table 16 include such instances:
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Table 16
English Collocations and their Arabic Equivalent: Expressed

by the Use of a Verb Only
English Collocation Arabic equivalent
Provide nutrition nourish

Make a choice choose
Take control control
Make an assumption assume
Give an indication indicate
Take revenge revenge
Furthermore, Saudi students had a problem with certain
collocations because their Arabic equivalents are expressed
by adding a proposition to the collocation in question. For
example, the collocations express an o p i n i o n , seek
admi s s i o n , and cause someone inconvenience are translated
as express about an o p i n i o n , seek about admission, and
cause for someone inconvenience, respectively.
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Section IV
Implications for the Acquisition and Development of
Collocations by Saudi EFL Students
In spite of some difficulties participants in this
study have had with certain test items, they have shown an
ability to use more sophisticated collocations than some of
the targeted ones. One such instance is replacing the
targeted collocation with an even more formal collocation.
In item # 29, for example, where the missing verb was get
in:
Where did you g___________ this information? (get
information),
many participants provided gather information, which is a
more formal and sophisticated collocation than get
information•
Also, when participants did not know a particular
collocation, they filled the blank with a verb starting
with a different letter. For example, in item #2, where
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the targeted verb was o f fer, many participants provided
have,
2. Ever-green trees o________ many advantages to campers,
they can hike, fish, swim, and hunt. (Required = offer,
advantages, Provided = have advantages).
Another unique finding was that when participants did
not know the targeted collocation, they still provided a
different, yet valid collocation. Such instances are
listed below.
10. In order for you to qualify for a loan from the bank,
you must m_____________ three conditions: character,
capacity, and collateral (Required = meet three conditions,
provided = maintain three conditions).
28. After he was fired, he was d_____________ access to all
computer files. (Required = denied access, Provided =
deprived access)
32. He b___________ honor to his family when he graduated
from college. (Required = brought honor, Provided =
bestowed h o n o r ) .
Such instances reveal that participants were familiar
with collocations. This claim is further supported by the
128
findings of this study that have shown that the students'
knowledge of collocations was relatively equal to their
general language proficiency, as reflected by their
performance on the Writing Test and TOEFL. The conclusion
that can be drawn, therefore, is that students'
collocational knowledge develops alongside their
proficiency level. This conclusion became even more
significant when we consider that collocations are not
taught explicitly at the Department of Languages and
Translation, which suggests that collocations are acquired
unconsciously.
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CHAPTER V
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This chapter presents a summary of the main findings,
discusses some pedagogical implications, lists the
limitations of the study, includes a sub-section on the
research Methodology as findings, and offers suggestions
for future research.
Summary
The present study tested the following two hypotheses:
First, there is a difference in the knowledge of lexical
collocations among students from one academic level to the
next. Second, there is a relationship between students'
language proficiency and their knowledge of lexical
coll o c a t i o n s .
The participants were 81 male Saudi EFL students
majoring in English at the Department of Languages and
Translation, at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.
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They represented four groups, each of which represented one
academic level, i.e. freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and
seniors.
Three tests were used to collect the data: a writing
test, a collocation test, and an institutional version of
the TOEFL. The Test of Collocation was a blank-filling
task consisting of 50 sentences, each of which contained
one collocation from which the verb was missing except the
first letter/phoneme. This test was designed to measure
students' knowledge of collocations. The Writing Test and
the TOEFL were used as measures of students' overall
language proficiency.
Regarding the first hypothesis, the results of
the statistical analyses of the present study showed that
there was a difference in the knowledge of lexical
collocations among the four levels tested. Though such
differences existed, their extent varied. Participants'
scores in the Test of Collocations showed that there was a
statistically significant difference between the first and
second levels, followed by a smaller difference between the
second and the third level, and then, another significant
131
between the third and the fourth levels. This last
difference was the highest.
To rule out the possibility that such differences were
not limited to students' knowledge of collocations, the
researcher carried out a further a n a l y s i s . He analyzed the
participants' scores in the Writing Test and the TOEFL.
Although, this particular analysis was not included in the
research design, its results revealed that there were
strikingly similar patterns in participants' performance on
the three tests. In other words, just as it was the case
with the Test of Collocations, there was a significant
difference between the first and the second levels in the
Writing test and the TOEFL. Also, the small difference
between the second and the third levels in the Test of
Collocations was found to be the same in both the Writing
Test and the TOEFL. Finally, the most significant
difference was found between the third and the fourth
levels.
Although the above analyses revealed significant
differences in the knowledge of lexical collocations among
the four academic levels, a one-way ANOVA was further used
132
to examine such differences between-groups and within-
groups. The results obtained from the One-Way ANOVA
provided an additional evidence that there were significant
differences both between-group and within-groups in the
knowledge of collocations, F (3,77) = 19.650, p < .05.
After the results of the One-Way ANOVA were obtained,
a post hoc test multiple comparisons was used to determine
which pairs of means were significantly different from each
other. Results showed that there were significant
differences at the .05 level. The pairs of means
differences are listed below in their order of
significance:
1. level 1 and level 4, p = .000
5. level 1 and level 2. P = .179
As can be seen in the above list, the differences in
the pairs of means supported the first hypothesis of this
study. With the exception of the small difference between
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the second and the third levels, all other differences were
statistically significant.
The results of the statistical analyses above
indicated that there was a difference in the participants'
collocational knowledge from one academic level to the
next. In addition, such analyses yielded some important
implications. The first implication is that lexical
collocations seem to be acquired alongside overall language
skills as reflected by students' performance on the Writing
Test and the TOEFL. Interestingly enough, while such
skills were taught explicitly and participants attended to
them consciously, lexical collocations were not taught
explicitly, suggesting that they had been acquired
unconsciously.
The analysis of test items, however, showed that
participants encountered some problems with certain
collocations. Among such problems were collocations that
had no Arabic equivalents. For example, the majority of
participants provided present a complaint for the targeted
collocation file a complaint, since the collocation file a
complaint had no Arabic equivalent. On the other hand,
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participants were aided by their LI when there was a
convergence between Arabic and English. Most of
participants, for instance, had no problems with
collocations such as commit a crime and find a
justification. since both had Arabic equivalents.
In sum, when there was a convergence between the
English collocations and their Arabic equivalents, the
students tended to provide the correct collocation.
Conversely, when there was a divergence between the
collocations in the two languages, students found the test
items difficult.
Another interesting observation was that culturally-
loaded collocations tended to pose a difficulty for
students. The majority of participants in this study were
found to have a difficulty with the targeted collocation
dye h a i r . There are two ways of expressing the concept of
coloring hair in the Arabic language; one is the equivalent
of the English dye h a i r , which is a formal Arabic
collocation, and the other is the equivalent of the English
darken h a i r , which is more common. The majority of
participants, however, provided darken h a i r . Since darken
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
135
hair is a culturally more practiced activity, especially
among the male population, its use by the participants can
be seen as an instance of cultural interference.
Another difficulty was due to semantic factors. The
majority of participants had a difficulty with the targeted
collocation enjoy b e n e f i t . They provided earn benefit,
instead. The Arabic equivalent lexeme for the verb enjoy is
limited in its semantic meaning to concepts involving
gaining pleasure, whereas the Arabic equivalent of earn is
generally used with material concepts such as money and
living.
The second hypothesis of the present study was also
confirmed by the results. The results of Pearson
correlations and the regression analysis showed that there
was a strong correlation between students' knowledge of
lexical collocations and their general proficiency, as
measured by the Writing Test and the TOEFL. It was found
that participants writing and TOEFL were good predictors of
their collocational knowledge. More interestingly, writing
as compared with the TOEFL, was a slightly better
predictor. The combination of the two measures, which one
136
may assume is a better indicator of general proficiency,
was found to be the best in predicting collocational
kno w l e d g e .
The results of both Pearson correlations and the
regression analysis supported the claim that collocational
knowledge developed alongside other language skills. An
implication of such a finding is that the curricula used at
the Department of Languages and Translation are global
enough to encourage the development of collocational
knowledge in tandem with the development in general
language proficiency.
The findings of the present study offered four main
contributions to the current body of research on lexical
collocations. The first contribution of this study is the
fact that it is an addition to the very few collocational
studies to be conducted on Arab EFL learners and the first
to examine the knowledge of lexical collocations among
Saudi EFL students.
The second contribution of this study lies in the
quality, the quantity, and the design of the Test of
Collocations. While some collocational tests of studies on
137
EFL students' collocational knowledge used relatively few
items to test the knowledge of lexical collocations, the
Test of Collocations in this study included 50 items.
Moreover, the verb-noun collocations included in the Test
of Collocations were selected from multiple sources
including students' textbooks and a dictionary of
collocations.
The design of the Test of Collocations combined
certain positive aspects of both the c-test and the cloze
test formats (see Chapter I I I ) . The fact that only the
first letter/phoneme was provided had, to a great extent,
limited the choices and, at the same time, lessened chances
of guessing. Such a design was suggested to the researcher
by Aghbar (personal communication), who is an expert in
collocational research and testing.
Considering the fact that the Test of Collocations was
piloted three times and that the final version achieved a
reliability coefficient of .7785, it may be assumed to be
an effective measure of the knowledge of collocations.
The third contribution of the present study derives
from the fact that it was the only study that examined the
138
knowledge of lexical collocations against two variables,
namely, the academic level and the general proficiency.
One of its major findings was that the TOEFL, and more
importantly, the writing of students were valid predictors
of their collocational knowledge.
The fourth contribution of this study is a pedagogical
one. It showed that the knowledge of collocations among
Saudi EFL students at the Department of Languages and
Translation increased as their academic level and
proficiency increased. One of the implication of this
finding is that the curriculum and the teaching methods
used at the Department of Languages and Translations aided
the improvement of students' collocational knowledge.
Pedagogical Implications
Despite the fact that participants' knowledge of
lexical collocations was found to increase wit h their
academic levels and proficiency level, students did have
some difficulties with certain collocations. Previous
collocational research showed that due to the vast number
139
of collocations in the English Language, which is estimated
in the hundreds of thousands, only those collocations that
are linguistically distinct from the students' LI should be
taught. This study added to such a suggestion a cultural
dimension, which other studies had not yet explored.
Taking into account the quality of the input Saudi EFL
learners have, and the distance between the Arabic and the
Western cultures, culturally-loaded collocations should be
on the top of teachers' and curriculum designers' list.
Teachers and curriculum designers at the Department of
Languages and Translation should work together to implement
EFL syllabi in a way that incorporates a variety of
collocations with a special emphasis on collocations that
do not have linguistic and cultural equivalents in Arabic.
Such an implementation is probably ideal in the curriculum
of the Intensive Course Program at the department a b o v e .
Instructors at such a program, should include different
lexical collocations in carefully selected reading
comprehension passages. They should also make use of
authentic English materials from various sources of the
media, which often have good cultural content. Doing so
140
will not only enhance students' collocational knowledge,
but it can also enhance their overall cultural awareness of
the English language. In brief, textbooks should include
collocations in natural manner similar to the way they
occur in authentic texts. In addition, teachers should
include a focus on collocations in their classroom
activities to enhance their acquisition.
One of the most common complaint of EFL teachers is
that their students use bilingual dictionaries. One way to
improve EFL students' collocational knowledge is to
encourage them to use English collocational dictionaries,
such as the BBI Combinatory dictionary (Benson, Benson, and
Ilson, 1986), and The Oxford Dictionary of Current
Idiomatic English (Cowie, Mackin, and McCaig, 1975-1983).
In sum, while Saudi EFL students' knowledge of lexical
collocations develops alongside their general language
proficiency, they would still benefit from a curriculum
that includes a variety of collocations, and one that
emphasizes collocations that are linguistically and
culturally distinct from those in Arabic.
141
Limitations of the Study
The first limitation of this study is related to its
scope of collocations. As stated in Chapter III, this
study examined only the verb-noun lexical collocations.
While such collocations are among the most common
collocations, as stated by Benson et al (1986) and have
been examined by other researchers such as Aghbar (1990),
Bahns and Eldaw (1993), Biskup (1992), and Newman (1988),
they may not necessarily reflect students' overall
collocational knowledge.
The fact that the participants of the present study
were not randomly selected limited the generalizability of
its findings. As such, while this study revealed
interesting findings about Saudi EFL students' knowledge of
lexical collocations, these findings cannot be generalized
beyond the participants of the study. However, they do
indicate a trend that should be examined by similar studies
in the future.
142
Methodology as Findings
This section is divided into two sub-sections. In the
first sub-section, I discuss the piloting procedures of the
Test of Collocations. In the second, I discuss my
experience with data collection.
The Piloting of the Test of Collocations
One of the major components of this study is the
construction of the Test of Collocations. The importance
of such a task lies in the validity and the reliability of
the test. In order to control the validity, I piloted the
test three times on three different groups of students (see
Chapter I I I ) . After the second pilot study, I made a
number of changes to the test items. Some items were too
wordy causing students to spend more time to read the
sentence containing the test item. Therefore, I rephrased
the long sentences, making sure that the clarity and
briefness were maintained. For example, the wording of
item # 10, was changed in the following manner:
143
10. (Original) When a person wants to start a business,
he/she applies to a bank to get a loan and the banker
interviews him/her. In order for a person to qualify for a
loan, he/she has to m__________ three conditions: character,
capacity, and collateral.
10. (Revised) In order for you to qualify for a loan from
the bank, you must m_____________ three conditions:
character, capacity, and collateral.
In the third pilot study, native speakers were found
to have a difficulty with the collocation realize ideal,
whereas Saudi and ESL students in the first and second
pilot studies had a problem with the collocation take h e e d;
therefore such items were substituted with easier ones.
Other changes were made on the level of individual
words to ensure comprehension. The word vengeance was
substituted with its synonym revenge in item # 37 below.
37. In a movie I saw recently, a father tries to s__________
vengeance on his son's killer.
These changes resulted in the final version of the
Test of Collocations (see Appendix G ) . After the data was
collected, I ran a reliability test and an item analysis.
144
The reliability test showed that the test was acceptably
reliable, as shown by the reliability coefficient of .7785
(see Chapter III for d e t a i l s ) . The item analysis was done
to examine the general distribution of test items in terms
of frequency of correct responses. Results yielded three
categories: low-frequency, medium-frequency, and high-
frequency items. Such a classification was done in an
attempt to explore the difficulty level of test items (see
Chapter I V ) .
Data Collection
The data of this study was collected in the final
weeks of the academic year. At such a time, students were
preparing to take their final exams. One major concern was
that the number of participating students would be
negatively affected. Another concern was related to the
TOEFL. Ninety-eight percent of the participants reported
that they had not taken the TOEFL b e f o r e . This made me
worry about whether students' were able to adjust with the
multiple choice format and the time factor, for they were
used to essay questions, whose time is rather flexible.
145
Neither of these concerns, however, affected the data
collection. The number of the participating students was
81, which was approximately 50% of the population of
students at the department. Also, students, as revealed by
their TOEFL score, performed relatively well for their
levels on the TOEFL, indicating that the format of the
TOEFL was not a major difficulty for students.
Suggestions for Further Research
It was stated, in the review of the literature, that
collocations as an area of investigation is still in its
infancy and requires much more attention from applied
linguists and ESL/EFL researchers and educators. Where EFL
research is considered, the need for more research on
collocations is even much greater.
The present study has yielded some interesting and
encouraging findings. Yet, for the findings to be
generalizable, a replication of this study on a randomly
selected EFL populations in different sites is needed. For
example, if such study were to be conducted on Saudi EFL
146
students, a sample could be randomly drawn from all seven
Saudi universities.
To examine the knowledge of lexical collocations among
Saudi EFL students at the Department of Languages and
Translations, another study could be conducted using the
same instrument on a new cohort. That is, after the
participants of this study graduate, another four groups
could be tested, so that an assessment of their
collocational knowledge could be obtained.
Another study could go even further to examine where
students' collocational knowledge starts. An investigation
using similar methodology to Gitsaki's (1996) study, yet
focusing on lexical collocations, could be done on either
high school, junior high school or both. Such a study
would be able to validate both the present study and
Gitsaki's, in that it would examine whether there are
certain patterns of developments in adult EFL students'
collocational knowledge.
Future studies could also consider using the format of
the Test of Collocations used in the present study on a
larger and randomly selected sample, yet with more lexical
147
collocations such as verb-adjective, verb-adverb, etc (see
the BBI Combinatory Dictionary for types of lexical
c o ll o c a t i o n s ) , placing a special emphasis on issues such
as, difficulty and semantic complexity, culture of students
and quantity and quality of the collocations included.
Doing so, would enable researchers to accurately assess
students' knowledge of lexical collocations.
Although translation tests of collocations have been
used previously, such tests have not been validated. It is
thus recommended that a translation version of the Test of
Collocations, used in the present study, be prepared and
cross-validated against the test of collocations.
Moreover, such a translation test should be designed by
more than one expert and should be checked for accuracy
through b a c k -translation.
Future studies on collocations could also investigate
different research methodology in assessing EFL students'
knowledge and use of collocations in spoken discourse. One
of the questions that could be addressed is how frequently
do students use lexical collocations in their spoken
discourse as opposed to their written discourse. This may
148
be achieved by conducting interviews with students and
having the same students write on a certain t o p i c . The
analysis of both discourse types might reveal more accurate
assessment of students' collocational knowledge.
149
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Al-Rufai, M. H. (1979) . Ability transfer and teaching
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Ard, J. and Hamburg, T. (1083). Verification of
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Bahns, J. & Eldaw, M. (1993) . Should we teach EFL
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160
Appendix A: Course Plan
First Year
First Semester
Course No. of Credit Hours
1. Introduction to English Literature 4

2. Phonetics 2
3. English Grammar 3
4. Listening Comprehension and 2
Conversation
5. Writing Skills 3
5. Reading Comprehension 2
6. Translation 2
First Year
Second Semester
Course No. Credit Hours
1. English Literature 4
2. Phonetics 2
3. Grammar 3
4. Listening Comprehension and 2
Conversation
5. Writing Skills 3
6. Translation 2
161
Second Year
First Semester
1. English Prose 2
2. English Drama 2
3. English Poetry and Practical Criticism 2
4. English Grammar and Introduction to Linguistics 4
5. Writing Skills 2
7. Translation 3
Second Year
Second Semester
1. English Prose 2
2. English Drama 2
3. English Poetry and Practical Criticism 2
4. English Grammar and Introduction to Linguistics 4
5. Writing Skills 2
6. Listening Comprehension and Conversation 3
7. Translation 3
162
Third Year
First Semester
1. History of English Literature 3

2. English Prose 2
3. English Drama 2
4. English Poetry 2
5. English Syntax 2
6. Essay Writing 3
7. Written and Oral Translation 3
8. Education and English Teaching Method 2
Third Year
Second Semester
1. English Prose 2
2. English Drama 2
3. English Poetry 2
4. Literary Criticism 2
6. English Syntax 3
8. Essay Writing 2
163
Fourth Year
First Semester
Course N o . of Credit Hours
1 . English and American 2

2 . English and American Drama 2
3 . English and American Poetry 2
4 . Theories of Grammar and Semantics 2
5 . Essay Writing 2
6 . History of English Language 2
7 . Written and Oral Translation 3
8 . Education and English Teaching Methods 2
9 . Seminar ( Special Topic: English Language) 2
Fourth Year
Second Semester
1. English and American 2

2. English and American Drama 2
3. English and American Poetry 2
4. Theories of Grammar and Semantics 2
5. Essay Writing 2
164
6. Literary Criticism 2
8. Education and English Teaching Methods 2
165
Appendix B: Demographic Questionnaire
1. Academic Level_______________________ Year_______________
2. A g e :______________________________
3. Have you attended English lessons in a private
institution for foreign languages. ______ Yes No
4. If so, how many hours per week?_______________
5. Have you ever taken the TOEFL? ______ Yes No
6. If yes, what was your last score?_________________________
7. How often do you watch English movies?
Often _____ Sometimes Seldom Never
8. How often do you read English newspapers and/or books?
9. How often do you listen to English songs?
Often _____ Sometimes Seldom _____
Never
10. How often do you speak English with your friends?
11. How often do you communicate with English-speaking
people?
Often Sometimes Seldom Never
166
Appendix C: Test of Collocation Version I
In each of the following sentences only the first letter of

each verb is provided. Supply the required verb.
1. My teacher was disappointed because I didn't

d____________ my homework assignment.
2. Ever-green areas o____________ many advantages to

campers, they can hike, fish, swim,and hunt.
3 . A balanced diet is the one that p____________ good

nutrition for the body.
4 . My advisor recommended that I t____________ a course in

cross-cultural communication, so that I can become
culturally sensitive.
5. Professor Johns g___________a good lecture on

cholesterol, and I started worrying that I have too much
of it in my diet.
6. Many people think that advertising does not affect them.

Because the have the freedom to choose, they like to think
that they the can m__________ wise choice.
167
7. The advantage of the educational system in Northern

America is that students learn to think for themselves.
They learn to t____________ initiative without someone
telling them what to do.
8. John was supposed to appear before the judge. He was

notified several times, but he never showed up. Finally,
the police had to t___________ action against him.
9. Most of the college students in the U.S. go to college

because they want to have good jobs after graduation and
m__________ a lot of money.
10. When a person wants to start a business, he/she applies

to a bank to get a loan and the banker interviews him/her.
In order for a person to qualify for the loan, he/she has
to m___________ three conditions, character, capacity, and
collat e r a l .
11. For those who want to travel from country to another in

a short time, an airplane is the best means of
transportation, whereas those who want to t___________ their
time to enjoy travelling, a cruise ship may be the suitable
one.
12. Industrialized nations f__________a number of problems,

namely crimes, pollution, and crowed.
168
13. An artist usually e____________ his opinion about certain

social or political problems through his paintings.
14. People with gray hair often d__________ it black.
15. The scientist ran an experiment on a number of

peopl e ( s u b j e c t ) . He asked them to watch a video screen and
p______________ a button whenever they saw a line pattern.
16. While the subjects in the experiment were p_________ the

task, they were given disturbed by a sudden noise.
17. A patient has to t___________ his medication as directed

by his doctor.
18. My roommate and I were on our way to the restaurant.

Suddenly, he ch____________ his mind and decided to go back
to the dorm.
19. When the criminals are punished they will not

c___________ other c r i m e s .
20. A clergyman p_____________ a special ceremony during the

wedding.
21. Some people believe that if you do not put on enough

clothes when it is cold outside, you may c____________ a
cold.
169
22. I am very tired. I need to t_________a vacation.
23. Fatty food may cause a person to h________ a heart

attack.
24. I will t__________ your suggestion into consideration.
25. Mary was not able to a her parents' attention

as they were always busy.
26. Patrick t___________ control of the business after his

father died and turned it into a totally successful
e nt e r p r i s e .
27. My best friend s____________ admission from Indiana

University of Pennsylvania, and until now he had not
received it.
28. After he was fired, he was d_________ access to all

computer files.
29. Where did you g_____________ this information?
30. John has been trying to f____________ a solution to his

financial problems.
170
31. You will be well advised to t____________ heed of what

he has to say.

from college.
33. I will strive to r__________ my ideals.
34. I can f_________ no justification for your behavior.
35. I d____________ an apology for that terrible insult you

hurled at me in public.
36. Diligence is one good means to a_____________ success.
37. In a movie I saw recently, a father tries to s________

vengeance on his son's killers.
38. In order for you to w_______ his confidence, you have

to work very hard.
39. She g__________ great satisfaction from doing research.
40. The criminal c___________ suicide few hours after he had

killed his victim.
171
41. The employee o__________ his resignation after he found

a better job somewhere else.
42. The death of his father h___________ an impact on his

life.
43. He g________ no indication that he was going to kill

himself.
44. I f____________ a formal complaint against the company.
45. I do not understand where he f__________ the time to do

much research on to of his responsibilities at work.
46. Make an appointment before you go to see Professor

Smith so that you do not c_ him inconvenience.
47. People who have worked for the government continue to

receive retirement salary, where are those who worked for
the private sector do not e____________ this benefit.
49. This a good opportunity for you to e___________ your
knowledge in your field of study.
50.George m___________ many friends soon after he arrived

Indiana, PA.; now he knows many people.
173
Appendix D: Test of Collocations Version II
In each of the following sentences, only the first

letter of each targeted verb is provided. Please provide
the required verb.

d ____________ my h o m e w o r k .

campers; they can hike, fish, swim,and hunt.
3 . A balanced diet is the one that p____________ good

4 . My advisor recommended that I t_____________ a course in

cross-cultural communication so that I can become
5 . Professor Jones g___________ a good lecture on

cholesterol.
6. You m _______ a wise choice by deciding to go to that

college.
174
7. Students should learn to t initiative without

the teacher telling them what to do.
8. The police had to t___________ action against the

shopkeeper who was overcharging his customer.
9. Most of college students in the U.S. go to college

m___________ a lot of money.
10. In order for you to qualify for a loan from a bank, you
must m___________ three conditions: character, capacity,
and collateral.
11. He never responds to my letters right away. He likes

to t_________ his time.
12. Industrialized nations are f___________ a number of

problems, such as crime and pollution.
13. Artists often e__________ their opinions about certain

social or political problems through their works.
14 . Some people with gray hair d__________ their hair in

order to look younger.
175

people ( s u b j e c t s ) . He asked them to watch a video screen
and p___________ a button whenever they saw a line pattern.
16. While the subjects in the experiment were p__________

the task, they were disturbed by a sudden noise.
17. A patient has to t__________ his medication as directed

by his doctor.

to the dorm.
19. It is assumed that when criminals are punished, they

will not c___________ other crimes.
20. A clergyman p_________ a special ceremony during the

wedding.

clothes when it is cold outside, you may c___________ a
cold.
22. I am very tired. I need to t__________ a vacation.
176
23. Fatty foods may cause a person to h_________ a heart

attack.
25. If you do not want people to notice you, try not to

a____________ attention to yourself.
26. Patrick t___________ control of business after his

enterp r i s e .
27. My best friend is s____________ admission to Indiana

University of Pennsylvania.
28. After he was fired, he was d access to all

computer files.
29. Where did you g_____________ this information?
30. John has been trying to f_____________ a solution to his

financial problems.
31. You will be well advised to t___________ heed of what

he has to say.
177

from college.
33. The teacher m___________ an assumption that John was

guilty without having all the facts.
34. I can f_________ no justification for his behavior.

insult you hurled at me in public.
36. Hard work is one good means to a____________ success.
37. In a movie I saw recently, a father tries to t_________

revenge on his son's killers.
38. In order for you to w________ his confidence, you have

to work very hard.
40. The murderer c___________ suicide a few hours after he

had killed his victim.
41. The employee O__________ his resignation after he found

a better job somewhere else.
178
42. The death of his father h___________ a great impact on

his life.
43. He g_______ no indication that he was going to move to

another city.
44. After he was fired from his job, he f____________ a

formal complaint against the company.
45. I do not understand where he f__________ the time to do

so much research.

Smith so that you do not c____________ him any
inconvenience.

sector do not e____________ this benefit.
he was given some medicine to r_____________ his pain.
49. Improving your English will e___________ your chances of

getting a scholarship.
50.George m___________ many friends soon after he arrived to

Riyadh; now he knows many people.
179
Appendix E : Informed Consent Form
I am a graduate student at Indiana University of

Pennsylvania and am conducting this study to fulfill the
requirement for the Ph.D. degree.
You are invited to participate in this research study.

The following information is provided in order to help you
make an informed decision whether or not to participate.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
You are eligible to participate because you are a student
at the Department of Languages and Translation at Imam
Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.
The purpose of this study is to measure your knowledge

of English lexical collocations(word combination).
Participation in this study will require approximately
three and half hours in two sessions, today and tomorrow.
In session I, you will complete a 3 5 -minute writing task.
Next, you will fill out a questionnaire whose purpose is to
gather demographic information followed by a blank-filling
test. In session II, you will take the TOEFL, and perform
a writing task.
Your performance in the tests in session I will be
correlated with your performance in session II, (TOEFL).
180
The information gained from this study may help us

evaluate the teaching of vocabulary in your d e p a r t m e n t .
Your participation in this study is strictly

voluntary. You are free to decide not to participate or to
withdraw at any time, without adversely affecting your
relationship with your department or university. Your
decision will not result in any loss of benefits you are
otherwise entitled. You can withdraw from the study by
simply expressing your desire to withdraw to the researcher
and remain in your seat quietly. Upon your request to
withdraw, all information pertaining to you will be
destroyed. If you choose to participate, all information
will be held in strict confidence and will have no bearing
on your academic standing. Your response will be
considered only in combination with those from other
participants. The information obtained from this study may
be published in scientific journals or presented in
scientific meetings but your identity will be kept strictly
confidential.
You are required to write your name on all test
materials. Your name will be replaced by the identifying
number you will receive. All materials used while
performing the tasks will be retained for three years in
compliance with federal regulations.
181
If you are willing to participate in this study,

please sign the statement below and return it to the
res e a r c h e r .
Researcher Mr. M. Al-Zahrani Advisor: Dr. Ali Aghbar

Rank IUP Student Rank: Professor
Dept. English/R&L Program Dept.: English/R&L
Indiana U. of PA Program
Address: 2334 Byron C t . Address: English Dept.

Indiana, PA 15701 110 Leonard
Hall
Indiana University
Indiana, PA 15701
T e l :412-357 2261
Tel: 412-357 8330
This project has been approved by the Indian University

of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board for the
Protection of Human Subjects (Phone: 412/357-2223).
Informed Consent Form
I have read and understood the information on the form

and I consent to volunteer to be a participant in this
182
study. I understand that my responses are completely

confidential and that I have the right to withdraw at any
time. I have received an unsigned copy of this Informed
Consent Form to keep in my possession.
N a m e :___________________________________________________________
(Please Print)
S i g n a t u r e :_____________________________________________________
D a t e :___________________________________________________________
Phone number and location where you may be r e a c h e d ______
Best days and time to reach you:___

I certify that I have explained to the above individual
the nature and purpose, the potential benefits, and
possible risks associated with participating in this
research study. I have answered all questions that have
been raised and have witnesses the above signature.
Date Investigator's Signature
183
Appendix F: Participation Request
Dear st u d e n t :
I am a doctoral candidate at the Rhetoric and

Linguistics Program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania
and am conducting a research on English lexical
collocations to examine first, the collocational knowledge
of Saudi EFL students, and second to see whether their is a
relationship between their collocational knowledge and the
academic level and proficiency level of students.
I am kindly asking you to participate in this research.

I hope that this study will contribute positively to
vocabulary learning and instruction in our department.
If you agree to participate, please complete the tests

following the instructions stated at the beginning of each
test component and sign the attached Informed Consent Form.
Your answers will be strictly confidential. No one at

the department or university will see your answers. If you
wish to receive a copy of your TOEFL scores, please fill
out the attached TOEFL SCORES REQUEST.
I highly appreciate your help. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mohammad S. Al-Zahrani, researcher.
184
Appendix G: Test of Collocations Version III
In each of the following sentences, only the first

letter of each targeted verb is provided. Please provide
the required verb.

d____________ my homework.

campers, they can hike, fish,swim, and hunt.
3 . A balanced diet is the one that p________ good

4 . My advisor recommended that I t________ a course in

cross-cultural communication so that I can become
5 . Professor Jones g___________ a good lecture on

choles t e r o l .
6. You m ________ a wise choice by deciding to go to that

co l l e g e .
7. Students should learn to t_________ __ initiative without

the teacher telling them what to do.
185
8. The police had to t___________ action against the

shopkeeper who was overcharging his customer.
9. Most of the college students in the U.S. go to college

m___________ a lot of money.
10. In order for you to qualify for a loan from a bank, you
must m___________ three conditions: character, capacity,
and collateral.
11. He never responds to my letters right away. He likes

to t_________ his time.
12. When I have a problem that I cannot s___________ , I

talk to my best friend about it.
13. Artists often e__________ their opinions about certain

social or political problems through their works.
14. Some people with gray hair d__________ their hair in

order to look younger.

people(su b j e c t s ) . He asked them to watch a video screen
and p____________ a button whenever they saw a line pattern.
186
16. While the subjects in the experiment were p__________

the task, they were disturbed by a sudden noise.
17. A patient has to t____________ his medication as directed

by his doctor.

to the dorm.
19. It is assumed that when criminals are punished, they

will not c___________ other crimes.
20. An honorable person will k_________ his or her promise.

clothes when it is cold outside, you may c___________ a
cold.
22. I am very tired. I need to t__________ a vacation.
23. Fatty foods may cause a person to h_________ a heart

attack.
25. If you do not want people to notice you, try not to

a____________ attention to yourself.
187
26. Patrick t___________ control of the business after his

enterprise.
27. My best friend is s____________ admission to Indiana

University of Pennsylvania.
28. After he was fired, he was d__________ access to all

computer files.
29. Where did you g____________ this information?
30. John has been trying to f____________ a solution to his

financial problems.
31. You will be well advised to p____________ attention to

what he has to say.

from college.
33. The teacher m___________ an assumption that John was

guilty without having all the facts.
34. I can f_________ no justification for his behavior.

insult you hurled at me in public.
188
36. Hard work is one good means to a____________ success.
37. In a movie I saw recently, a father tries to t________

revenge on his son's killers.
38. In order for you to w_______ his confidence, you have

to work very hard.
40. The murderer c___________ suicide a few hours after he

had killed his victim.
41. The employee h__________ in his resignation after he

found a better job somewhere else.
42. The death of his father h___________ a great impact on

his life.
43. He g_______ no indication that he was going to move to

another city.
44. After he was fired from his job, he f____________ a

formal complaint against the company.
45. I do not understand where he f the time to do

so much research.
189

Smith so that you do not c_____________ him any
inconvenience.

sector do not e____________ this benefit.
49. Improving your English will e___________ your chances of

getting a scholarship.
50. George m___________ many friends soon after he arrived

to Riyadh; now he knows many people.
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Knowledge of English Lexical Competence

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Knowledge of English Lexical Competence

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Indiana University of Pennsylvania

We hereby approve the dissertation of

Candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Ce ,— ! -'*?? /l& ~ ~ 7________

Dan J. Tannfacito, Ph.D.

Virginia L. Brown, Ph.D.

Author: Mohammad S. Al-Zahrani

Dissertation Chairman: Dr. Ali-Asghar Aghbar

Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Michael M. Williamson

This study examined the differences in the knowledge

of English lexical collocations among four groups of Saudi

EFL students representing four academic levels (freshmen,

sophomore, junior, and senior) as well as the relationship

between knowledge of such collocations and the students'

overall language proficiency.

Participants in the present study were 81 male Saudi

students majoring in English at the Department of Language

and Translation at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic

University. Their knowledge of collocations was measured

by a blank-filling Test of Collocations that consisted of

50 items, each of which contained a verb-noun collocation

with the verb missing but the first letter/phoneme

provided. A writing test and an Institutional Version of

the TOEFL were used to measure students' English language

there was a significant difference in students' knowledge

of collocations between the first and second academic

levels followed by a smaller difference between the second

and the third academic levels, and another significant

difference between the third and the fourth academic

levels. Similarly, results of the Pearson's correlation

and the regression analysis showed that there was a strong

relationship between the students' knowledge of

collocations and their overall language proficiency. It

were good predictors of students' knowledge of

collocations, the Writing Test was a slightly better

predictor than the TOEFL.

The Test of Collocations used in this study was the

result of multiple piloting and may be used as a measure o

knowledge of verb-noun collocations in future research.

Implications of the study and suggestions for further

research are included in the final chapter.

I would like to thank all the people whose

contribution made this work possible.

I am deeply indebted to my advisor and friend Dr. Ali

Aghbar, who has always displayed a genuine concern for me

and my work. He has always been there for me no matter the

time or the circumstance. When I found myself lost and

floundering, Dr. Aghbar gently led me to the right

direction, showing the utmost respect for me and my

opinions. I have greatly benefited from Dr. Aghbar's rich

knowledge in SLA in general and in collocations in

particular. I cannot forget all he has done for me and

these words cannot begin to be enough to display my

I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr.

Michael M. Williamson and Dr. Jeannine M. Heny for their

valuable comments and insightful suggestions. Their

encouragement and support have inspired me as a researcher