The term
“Collocation” was first introduced by Firth (1957) to define a
combination of words associated with each other, to mean that the
meaning and the function of a word could be determined by a habitual
occurrence of the word with other words. This theory which is known as
the ‘contextual theory of meaning’ claims that the meaning of a word,
for example, dark can be determined by the neighbouring word light in the phrase dark light.
The term ‘collocation’ has its origin in the Latin verb ‘collocare’ which means ‘to set in order/to arrange’.
Although collocation has been defined
differently by quite large number of scholars, many have come to an
agreement that collocation is “the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text” (Sinclair, 1991) or the co-occurrence of two or more lexical items as realizations of structural elements within a syntactic pattern
(Cowie, 1978). Meanwhile, Bahns and Eldaw (1993) mention that the major
characteristics of collocations are that their meanings reflect the
meaning of their counterparts and that they are used frequently, spring
to mind readily, and are psychologically salient. Collocation ranges in a
continuum from very fixed expressions, i.e. idioms, particles, and
complex collocations of prepositions to less restricted collocations
(allow limited combinability with other words).
There are several approaches to studying collocation: lexical, semantics, and structural approaches, as follows:
- The Lexical Approach
Firth is widely regarded as the father
of collocation and the developer of a lexical and the most traditional
approach to this phenomenon. The supporters of the lexical approach
claim that the meaning of a word is determined by the co-occuring words.
Thus, a part of the meaning of a word is the fact that it collocates
with another word. However, those combinations are often strictly
limited, e.g. make an omelette but do your homework.
One of the Firth’s
revolutionary concepts was to perceive lexical relations as syntagmatic
rather than paradigmatic ones. Sinclair (1991) and Halliday (1966) are
Firth’s followers.
For Halliday, collocations are examples
of word combinations; he maintains that collocation cuts across grammar
boundaries. For instance, he argued strongly and the strength of his argument are grammatical transformations of the initial collocation strong argument. In his works he highlights the crucial role of collocations in the study of lexis.
Sinclair introduces the terminology: an
item whose collocations are studied is called a ‘node’; the number of
relevant lexical items on each side of a node is defined as a ‘span’ and
those items which are found within the span are called ‘collocates’.
Later on Sinclair slightly changes his attitude forming an ‘integrated
approach’ and dismisses the previous idea that lexis is rigidly
separated from grammar. In this new approach both the lexical and
grammatical aspects of collocation are taken into consideration. As a
result, Sinclair (1991) divides collocations into two categories: the
‘upward’ and ‘downward’ collocations. The first group consists of words
which habitually collocate with the words more frequently used in
English than they are themselves, e.g. back collocates with at, down, from, into, on, all of which are more frequent words than back.
Similarly, the ‘downward’ collocations are words which habitually
collocate with words that are less frequent than they are, e.g. words arrive, bring are less frequently occurring collocates of back.
Sinclair makes a sharp distinction between those two categories
claiming that the elements of the ‘upward’ collocation (mostly
prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns) tend to form grammatical
frames while the elements of the ‘downward’ collocation (mostly nouns
and verbs) by contrast give a semantic analysis of a word.
- The Semantic Approach
This approach goes beyond the sheer
observation of collocations and tries to determine their specific shape.
Its supporters attempt to examine collocations from the semantic point
of view, also separately form of grammar. Their main goal is to find out
why words collocate with certain other words, e.g. why we can say blonde hair but not blonde car. This question still represents a challenge for linguists today.
- The Structural Approach
According to this approach, collocation
is determined by structure and occurs in patterns. Therefore, the study
of collocation should include grammar (Gitsaki, 1996), which contrasts
with the two aforementioned approaches: the lexical and semantic ones.
Lexis and grammar cannot be separated and, consequently, two categories
are defined: lexical and grammatical collocation, which represent two
distinctive but related aspects of one phenomenon. Grammatical
collocations usually consist of a noun, an adjective or a verb plus a
preposition or a grammatical structure such as ‘to+infinitive’ or ‘that-clause’, e.g. by accident, to be afraid that.
Lexical collocations do not contain grammatical elements, but are
combinations of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs (Bahns 1993). Benson,
Benson and Ilson (1997) define collocation as specified, identifiable,
non-idiomatic, recurrent combinations. In their dictionary they divide
them into two groups: grammatical and lexical collocations. The first
category consists of the main word (a noun, an adjective, a verb) plus a
preposition or ‘to+infinitive’ or ‘that-clause’ and is characterized by 5 basic types of collocations.
Lexical collocations do not contain
prepositions, infinitives or relative clauses but consist of nouns,
adjectives, verbs and adverbs. There are 6 types of them:
| Type |
Examples |
Grammatical Collocations:
· Verb + Preposition
· Adjective + Preposition
· Adjective + Preposition + Preposition
· Preposition + Noun
· Dative movement transformation |
· (to) get at, (to) go for
· Different from, curious about, full of.
· Fed up with.
· For sale, on time.
· She sent the book to him/She sent him the book |
Lexical Collocations:
· verb + noun (pronoun, prepositional phrase
· adjective + noun
· noun + verb
· noun + of + noun
· adverb + adjective
· verb + adverb |
● (to) reach a verdict, (to) launch a missile, (to) lift a ) blockade, (to) revoke a license
● reckless abandon, sweeping generalization
● adjectives modify, alarms go off
● a bunch of flowers, a piece of advice
● deeply religious, fiercely independent
● (to) apologize humbly, (to) affect deeply |
Kjellmer (1990) tries to establish to
what extent individual word classes are ‘collocational’ or
‘non-collocational’ in character. The results of his research show that
articles, prepositions, singular and mass nouns as well as the base
forms of verbs were collocational in their nature whereas adjectives,
singular proper nouns and adverbs were not. Kjellmer claims that English
words are scattered across a continuum which extends from those items
whose contextual company is entirely predictable to those whose
contextual company is entirely unpredictable. According to his results,
most words tend to appear towards the beginning of the continuum, which
can also be described as a scale of fixedness of collocation. Then it
extends from totally free, unrestricted combinations to totally fixed
and invariable ones. Kjellmer’s theory about collocational continuum is
relevant also in regard to lexical collocations although they are linked
together in a different way than grammatical ones, that is they refer
more to semantics.
Lewis (2000) argues that most
collocations are found in the middle of this continuum, which means that
there are very few ‘strong’ collocations. He makes a distinction
between ‘strong’ collocation e.g. avid reader, budding author; ‘common’ collocation which makes up numerous word combinations, e.g. fast car, have dinner, a bit tired and ‘medium strong’ one, which in his view account for the largest part of the lexis a language learner needs, e.g. magnificent house, significantly different. Hill adds one more category – ‘unique’ collocation such as to foot the bill, shrug one’shoulders. In
terms of the strength of collocation, it is worth noting that it is not
reciprocal, which means that the strength between the words is not
equal on both sides, e.g. blonde and hair. Blonde collocates only with a limited number of words describing hair colour whereas hair collocates with many words, e.g. brown, long, short, mousy. It happens very often that the bond between the words is unilateral, e.g. in the phrase vested interest, vested only ever collocates with interest but interest collocates with many other words.
Hunston (1997) concluded that there are
correlations between grammatical patterns and lexical meaning. All words
can be represented by specific patterns and the meanings of words which
share patterns have a lot in common. That means that a word has a
specific meaning when it co-occurs with a certain word. This hypothesis
is followed by Hoey (2000), who maintains that some meanings of the same
word have their own grammatical patterns, which is called
‘colligation’. This concept started by Firth is concerned with
relationship between grammatical classes, whereas collocation is
concerned with the words which belong to these grammatical classes.
Grammatical pattern [verb+to-infinitive] is an example of colligation and [dread+think]
is an example collocation of this colligation. In short, colligation
defines the grammatical company and interaction of words as well as
their preferable position in a sentence. Another key point in the study
of collocation started by Firth is the notion of syntagmatic
(horizontal) as opposed to paradigmatic (vertical) relationship between
its elements. In the syntagmatic dimension we can clearly see the
relationship between linearly lined up words, which make up an
individual syntactic unit, here a collocation. In the sentence: It writhed on the floor in agonizing pain the syntagmatic relationship is the one between the words: writhed, floor, agonizing and pain, whereas the paradigmatic relationship is between a word and a group of words which can replace it in this sentence:
It writhed on the floor in agonizing pain.
bed burning
pavement stabbing
paradigm1 paradigm2
Lewis (1994) defines collocation as a
subcategory of multi-word items, made up of individual words which
habitually co-occur and can be found within the free-fixed collocational
continuum. In his opinion, they differ from another important
subcategory of multi-word items called institutionalized expressions
because collocations tell more about the content of what a language user
expresses rather than what the language user is doing, e.g. apologizing
or denying. Lewis (1997) points out that collocation is not determined
by logic or frequency but is arbitrary, decided only by linguist
convention. Dzierżanowska (1988) adds that words that make up
collocation do not combine with each other at random. Collocation cannot
be invented by a second language user. A native speaker uses them
instinctively. In every language collocations comply with the rules
characteristic of that language and therefore they cause serious
problems both for
learners and translators, e.g. menggapai tujuan has two English equivalents achieve/reach an aim but _____ can be translated with the verb reach but not achieve– reach an agreement. Consequently, collocations must be memorized or looked up in an adequate dictionary.
Celce-Murcia (1991) defines collocation
as a co-occurrence of lexical items in combinations, which can differ in
frequency or acceptability. Items which collocate frequently with each
other are called ‘habitual’, e.g. tell a story, whereas those which cannot co-occur are called ‘unacceptable’, e.g. *powerful tea instead of strong tea.
Similarly, in Carter’s view (1987),
collocation is a group of words that recurrently co-occur in a language.
He agrees with Benson that there are grammatical collocations which
result from grammatical relationship between the words and lexical
collocations which result not only from grammatical relationship, but
most of all from co-occurrence of lexical units in a specific company.
The total number of words which can collocate with an X word is called a
‘cluster’ of X. He also points out that certain elements of a cluster
are more central than other, which means that they are more likely to
co-occur with X. Carter divides collocations into four categories,
depending on how restricted they are: ‘unrestricted’, which collocate
freely with a number of lexical items, e.g. take a look/a holiday/a rest/a letter/time/notice/a walk; ‘semi-restricted’,
in which the number of adequate substitutes which can replace the
elements of collocation is more limited, e.g. harbor doubt/grudges/uncertainty/suspicion. The other two categories include ‘familiar’ collocations whose elements collocate on a regular basis, e.g. unrequited love, lukewarm reception and ‘restricted’ collocations which are fixed and inflexible, e.g. dead drunk, pretty sure. Carter
distinguishes between ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ words claiming that the
more core a lexical item is, the more frequently it collocates. Core
words are more central in a language than other, non-core words and that
is why the non-core words can be defined or replaced by the core items,
e.g. eat is a core word for gobble, dine, devour, stuff, gormandize because
its meaning is the basic meaning of every item from the group but this
relationship is not reciprocal.
In Carter’s view, words are scattered
across a core–non-core continuum and their position on this scale
determines their collocability. The nearer to the core end of the
continuum a word is, the more frequently it collocates,
e.g. bright >radiant>gaudy:
bright: sun/light/sky/idea/colour/red/future/prospects/child
radiant: sun/light/smile
gaudy: colour
According to a dictionary definition
(Szulc, 1984), collocation is an ability of lexical items to build
steady, conventionalized syntagmatic relationship with other words, e.g.
putrid, rotten, rancid and addled are synonyms which designate rotten food but they collocate only with a limited number of words: putrid fish, rancid butter/oil, addled eggs, rotten fruit. Individual collocations are determined by the lexical system of a language and can result from historical changes.
According to Oxford Collocations
Dictionary (2002), collocation is a means of combining words in a
language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. Incorrect
combinations such as heavy wind or strong rain do not
sound naturally in English. Apart from the prevalent grammatical/lexical
distinction, the authors also mention ‘word’ collocation, none of whose
elements can be replaced even with its synonym, e.g. small fortune but not *little fortune and
‘category’ collocation whose elements can collocate with any items of a
precisely determined group of words. This group can be quite large and
its elements- predictable because they make up the same category, e.g.
measurements of time for a noun walk: five minutes’ walk/three-minute walk.
Why are collocations important?
Collocations have been claimed to be dominant in academic texts
especially in the texts of specialised disciplines (e.g.. law, medicine,
biology, etc.) where they become the basic building blocks of
specialised language and constitute the expressions of knowledge,
concepts, and ideas in these discourses (Halliday, 1992). They also
perform specific functions and are the organising thoughts in those
texts (Fuentes, 2001). Students who are competent in collocation (have
collocational competence) are regarded as those who have attained an
advanced or higher level of English fluency or communicative competence
(Hill, 2000). Collocation knowledge becomes the determinant factor for
students’ success in their academic and professional careers (Howarth
1998). In addition, learning vocabulary in chunks may expedite the
second language acquisition process. Since our short term memory (STM)
can only remember a few words at a time, storing word phrases which are
meaningful rather than discrete single word items may facilitate and
ease the retrieval of the phrases from our mental lexicon. In this way,
it resembles the acquisition of one’s first language (Wray, 2002).
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*Excerpt from my S2 Thesis