Development of collocational competence in a second language

Abstract

The present study aims to search how second language learners learn collocations. In particular, the development of collocational competence in the second language was investigated. The variables of the study are time, collocation type, native language influence and transparency of collocations. The study was carried out in the Faculty of Education, Uludağ University, Turkey. 43 subjects participated in this study. They were all EFL learners. The compositions written by students during the sit-in exams for the writing course over two years were taken as data for this study. The data were analysed for lexical collocation types. The lexical collocations were analysed on coding sheets, according to type, native language influence, and the transparency. The data consisted of four time points, since each year had two sit-in exams for the writing course. The analysis of the results showed that less collocations were produced over time. It was also found that Turkish learners of English were better in producing the subtypes 'adjective+noun', verb+noun, and noun+noun'. The results also pointed out that the native language of the learners affected the production of second language lexical collocations less over time. A final result was that while the production of transparent collocations decreased with time, the production of non-transparent collocations increased.