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COLLOCATION

Lecture 4

MODULE 2Meaning and discourse in English

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Why do you say deep water

and not profound water? A word is nown !y the co"pany it eeps#

$%& 'irth(

) tre"!le with fear tre"!le with e*cite"ent+

) ,ui-er with e*cite"ent ,ui-er with fear+

.here is no defina!le reason why we choose to say

tre"!le with fear# !ut not ,ui-er with fear#/ 0t is

si"ply a ,uestion of OLLOA.0O/

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What is collocation?

OLLOA.0O refers to a relationship !etween words that fre,uently occur

together

.he words together can "ean "ore than the su" of their parts $The Times

of India, disk drive(

) other e*a"ples3 hot dog4 "other in law

E*a"ples of collocations

noun phrases lie strong tea and weapons of mass destruction

phrasal -er!s lie to make up4 and other phrases lie the rich andpowerful/

5alid or in-alid?

a stiff breeze!ut not a stiff wind$while either a strong breeze or a strong

wind is oay(/

Broad/bright daylight$!ut not narrow darkness(/

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ollocational "eaning $1( ollocational "eaning refers to the

associations that a word ac,uires in its

collocation3 e/g/ girl !oy !oy wo"an "an

pretty flower handso"e garden car colour o-ercoat -illage

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ollocational "eaning $2( A word can gain different collocational "eaning in

different conte*ts3

e/g/green on the 6o! white "angreen fruit white winegreen with en-y white noise

white coffee

.hese different "eanings of green#and white#arepolyse"ous!ut they are caused !y the differentcollocation4 i/e/ the change in -er!al conte*t

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riteria for collocations .ypical criteria for collocations3

) non)co"positionality

) non)su!stituta!ility

) non)"odifia!ility/

ollocations usually cannot !e translated intoother languages word !y word/

A phrase can !e a collocation e-en if it is notconsecuti-e $as in the e*a"ple knock. . . door(/

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on)co"positionality

A phrase is co"positional if the "eaning can predicted fro"the "eaning of the parts/

e/g/ new co"panies A phrase is non)co"positionalif the "eaning cannot !e

predicted fro" the "eaning of the parts e/g/ hot dog

ollocations are not necessarily fully co"positional in thatthere is usually an ele"ent of "eaning added to theco"!ination/ e/g/ strong tea.

0dio"s are the "ost e*tre"e e*a"ples of non)co"positionality/ e/g/ to hear it through the grapevine.

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on)su!stituta!ility

We cannot su!stitute near)synony"s for theco"ponents of a collocation/

e/g/ We can7t say yellow wine instead of white winee-enthough yellow is as good a description of the color ofwhite wine as white is $it is ind of a yellowish white(/

Many collocations cannot !e freely "odified withadditional le*ical "aterial or through gra""aticaltransfor"ations $Non-modifiability(/ e/g/ white wine4 !ut not whiter wine

"other in law4 !ut not "other in laws

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Linguistic 8u!classes of

ollocations Light -er!s3

) 5er!s with little se"antic content lie make4 take and

do.- e.g. make lunch4 take it easy,

5er! particle constructions- e.g. to go down

9roper nouns- e.g. Bill linton

.er"inological e*pressionsrefer to concepts ando!6ects in technical do"ains/

- e.g. !ydraulic oil filter

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ollocations at a distance

Many collocations occur at -aria!le

distances/ 'or e*a"ple noccollocates with door!ut at a distance

) she nocedon his door

) they nocedat the door) 1:: wo"en nocedon Donaldson7s door

) a "an nocedon the "etal front door

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'inding collocations 8oftware is a!le to scan te*ts for the

"ost fre,uently collocated words using

the criterion of fre,uency4 i/e/ !ycounting the words which "ost

fre,uently appear together

.his usually produces a lot of functionwordswhich need to !e filtered out

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An e*a"ple of a fre,uency

count .his shows the "ost

fre,uent collocations

of pairs of words$!igra"s( in a

corpus of

newspaper articles/

.he are all functionwords $e*cept ew

;or(

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0dio"s ) characteristics $1(

0dio"s are strictly non)co"positional

Although the word that "ae up the idio" ha-e

.heir own literal "eanings4 in the idio" they

ha-e lost their indi-idual identity/ ;ou canot

predict the "eaning of an idio" fro" the su" of

its parts3

e/g/ how do you do?

07" under the weather

to wear your heart on your slee-e

red herring

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0dio"s ) characteristics $2( 8tructural sta!ility $syntactic fro=enness(

1/ onstituents cannot !e replacede/g/ as good as gold > as good as play ?

2/ onstituents cannot !e deleted or added toe/g/ out of the ,uestion > out of ,uestion ?

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0n which areas of language

learning is collocation useful?ollocation is i"portant at all le-els for

Writing .ranslation

;ou will only !e a!le to write well if younow which words go together/

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ow do 0 learn collocations?

oticing collocations when you read

8toring collocations3 organised le*ical

note!oo

&e-ising and practicing collocations

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Which collocations should 0

learn?

Uni,ue collocations $foot the !ill4 shrug your shoulders( 8trong collocations $ulterior "oti-es4 rancid !utter4

trenchant criticis"4 to !e "o-ed to tears( Mediu" collocations $to "ae a "istae4 to !e reco-ering

fro" a "a6or operation( Wea collocations $white wine4 red hair4 a !lac "ood4 a

!lue "o-ie(

0t is !est to learn the strong collocations!ecause they are unusual

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ote down your collocation

"istaes

ollocation is "ostly a!out pairings ofwords so students will often use a "is)

collocation4 e/g/ high house

;ou should record your written "is)

collocations

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Learn e*tra collocations

ote down the e*tra collocations you learn

in class3e/g/ 83 0 ha-e to "ae an e*a"

.3 what -er! do we use with e*a"#?

83 tae#

.3 that7s right@ other -er!s we could use

are to pass#4 to fail# or also to

retae#

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.ry to e*tend what you now

E-en when you get so"ething right you

can e*tend your collocational

nowledge

e/g/ 83 0 was -ery disappointed

.3 ;ou could also say !itterly# ordeeply# disappointed

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'inding collocations in a te*t

Underline useful collocations and put

the" in your note!oos

&ead different types of te*t so you !uild

up your "ental le*icons in a !alancedway

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8o"e typical collocation

e*ercises 8ynony"s3 identify words appearing

fre,uently in si"ilar conte*ts

last -icti"s were helped !y the neigh!ours'lu -icti"s were helped !y the doctors

ri"e -icti"s were helped !y the police

ollocations3 identify synony"s that don7t

appear in si"ilar conte*ts'lu -icti"s4 flu sufferers

ri"e -icti"s4 cri"e sufferers??

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&ecord and recycle Always write down new collocations in

special note!oos in a syste"atic order

such as recording the" in topic groups/

0t is i"portant to repeat the content of

the note!oo in order to ac,uire it fully$recycling(

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Use special note!oos for

collocation 9repare a special le*icon for collocations/ 0t is

helpful to organise it lie this3

) do not record "ore

than fi-e collocates

) use only strong4fre,uent collocates

attract

be subject to

criticism deserve

react to

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Learning idio"s 8ince collocations and idio"s ha-e a lot

in co""on they should !e learned in a

si"ilar way

e/g/ identifying of idio"s4 guessing

"eaning fro" conte*t4 recording the"in note!oos

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Dictionaries .he L.9 Dictionary of 8elected

ollocations

O*ford ollocations Dictionary for8tudents of English

a"!ridge 0nternational Dictionary of

0dio"s ollins OU0LD Dictionary of 0dio"s O*ford Dictionary of English 0dio"s

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oncordancing software .apor freeware $this will gi-e you

concordances of any word in a te*t(

Words"ith .ools $e*cellent !ut

e*pensi-e(