The study investigated L2 learners' acquisition of verb-noun and adjective-
noun collocations following two kinds of instruction: input flood only and
input flood plus input enhancement (in the form of underlining). L1 Polish
learners of English as a foreign language were exposed to infrequent
collocations embedded in stories that were read during three consecutive
weeks. Their collocational competence was subsequently assessed in a battery
of delayed tests tapping into productive and receptive levels of collocational
mastery. Input flood plus input enhancement resulted in the acquisition of
collocations but only at the level of form recall and form recognition. The
findings are discussed with reference to the complexity of acquiring and
measuring L2 collocational knowledge. The article concludes with implications
for instructed second language acquisition.
Keywords: SLA, foreign language teaching methodology, corpus linguistics
Badanie dotyczylo przyswajania kolokacji czasownikowo-rzeczownikowych i
przymiotnikowo-rzeczownikowych przez ucza.cych sie. drugiego je.zyka na
skutek dw''ch r''z.nych form nauczania: zwie.kszonego wkladu je.zykowego i
zwie.kszonego wkladu je.zykowego wraz z graficznym uwydatnieniem (w
formie podkres''lenia). Przez okres trzech tygodni polscy uczniowie je.zyka
angielskiego jako je.zyka obcego czytali kr''tkie opowiadania zawieraja.ce
kolokacje o niskiej frekwencji. Naste.pnie ich kompetencja leksykalna zostala
oceniona za pomoca. odroczonych test''w sprawdzaja.cych produktywne i
receptywne poziomy wiedzy. Zwie.kszony wklad je.zykowy wraz z graficznym
uwydatnieniem doprowadzil do przyrostu wiedzy, ale tylko na poziomach
przywolania i rozpoznania form kolokacji. Wyniki przedstawione sa.w
odniesieniu do zloz.onos''ci procesu przyswajania i mierzenia kolokacji w
drugim je.zyku. Artykul kon''czy sie. om''wieniem zastosowania wynik''w
badan'' w nauczaniu je.zyka angielskiego w warunkach formalnych.
Slowa kluczowe: przyswajanie drugiego je.zyka, metodyka nauczania je.zyk''w
obcych, je.zykoznawstwo korpusowe
''
2014
John
Wiley
&
Sons
Ltd
doi:
10.1111/ijal.12092
2
.
Pawel
Szudarski
and
Ronald
Carter
Introduction
Collocations have been defined differently depending on the research
interests of particular scholars. Generally, they are regarded as habitually
co-occurring lexical partnerships with relative transparency of meaning that
contribute to L2 fluency (Keshavarz and Salimi 2007; Laufer and Waldman
2011; Henriksen 2013). In broader terms, collocations belong to formulaic
sequences, which have been described as a core characteristic of language
(Sinclair 1991; Wray 2002; Schmitt 2010). As recent research demonstrates,
formulaic sequences afford processing advantages (Conklin and Schmitt
2008) and help speakers fulfill many pragmatic functions (Bardovi-Harlig
2009). Consequently, the effective use of collocations needs to be perceived as
an important aim for second language (L2) learners.
Unfortunately, L2 learners, even those at advanced levels of proficiency,
experience difficulty in using collocations (Howarth 1998; Altenberg and
Granger 2001; Laufer and Waldman 2011). First, in comparison to native
speakers, learners use fewer collocations and, second, they tend to make
collocational errors (e.g. 'make homework'), which result mainly from
crosslinguistic phraseological differences (Nesselhauf 2003). Such errors
negatively influence the perception of L2 learners' linguistic performance
(Boers, Eyckmans, Kappel, Stengers, and Demecheleer 2006). There thus arises
a question of how formal instruction can assist L2 phraseological development.
However, despite a recent rise in interest in formulaic language, relatively
little research exists on how formulaic sequences should be approached in the
language classroom. Alali and Schmitt (2012) explored how idioms and
individual words are acquired by EFL learners in Kuwait. They found that
repetition was an effective teaching technique for both idioms and words,
leading to gains at receptive (recognition) and productive (recall) levels. Webb
and Kagimoto (2011) analyzed how the number of collocates (six, three and
one), the position of the node word (e.g. the word 'good' is in the +1 position
in 'good laugh,' and the word 'time' is in the -1 position in 'difficult time') and
synonymy (learning collocations for pairs of synonyms together) affected EFL
learners' learning of frequent collocations. Their results revealed that learning
more (six or three) collocates for the same word (e.g. learning 'laugh,' 'reason'
and 'behavior' as collocates of the word 'good') is more effective than learning
single collocates for a larger number of different words. Also, simultaneous
learning of collocations for synonyms was found to have a negative effect on
learners' results. Finally, Laufer and Girsai (2008) looked at the acquisition of
collocations by Israeli learners of English in three different treatment
conditions: meaning-focused instruction (reading comprehension and group
discussion), contrastive form-focused instruction (comparing collocational
patterns in learners' L1 and L2) and non-contrastive form-focused instruction
(two tasks emphasizing collocational patterns). Their results showed that
contrasting the use of collocations in learners' L1 and L2 was the most
effective way of enhancing L2 collocational knowledge.
''
2014
John
Wiley
&
Sons
Ltd
L2
input
types
and
acquisition
of
collocations
.
3
These findings, as well as her research on individual words, have led
Laufer (2010) to emphasize form-focused instruction (FFI) as a necessary
supplement to incidental vocabulary learning. Following Long's (1991) and
Ellis' (2001) earlier work, she perceives FFI as a dichotomy of focus-on-form
(FonF) and focus-on-forms (FonFs). The former consists of communicative
treatments during which learners' attention is drawn to linguistic forms,
while the latter can be understood as decontextualized activities that target
linguistic forms in a non-communicative way. Similarly, Doughty (2003) notes
that FFI embraces many types of pedagogical interventions including both
implicit (e.g. input flood or input enhancement) and explicit procedures (e.g.
FonFs or consciousness raising). Since all these treatments can potentially be
used in the classroom, it is vital to determine which of them constitute the
optimal conditions for teaching formulaic sequences. Szudarski (2012)
explored the acquisition of frequent collocations of delexical verbs (e.g. 'take
office' or 'do damage') by EFL learners in two different conditions: meaning-
focused instruction and meaning-focused instruction plus FonFs
(decontextualized activities targeting collocations). Findings suggested that
the addition of FonFs improved learners' knowledge of collocations at both
the productive level of form recall (being able to produce a collocation when
given its meaning) and the receptive level of form recognition (being able to
select a collocation from several response options). However promising these
results are, L2 learners need to acquire infrequent combinations as well and
little is known about this process. Additionally, not all collocations (and other
formulaic sequences for that matter) can be addressed explicitly through
time-consuming FonFs. Therefore, implicit interventions such as input
enhancement or input flood targeting infrequent L2 collocations are
considered in the present study.