Luận văn a study on common errors related to the usage of do and make collocations by english non major students at thai nguyen university of economics and business administration tueba

However, during the time working as a teacher of English at ation TURBA, T Thai Nguyen University of Eoonomics and Business Admini: have found out that English non- major students at

OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIEN CUU VE NHUNG LOI THUONG GAP TRONG VIEC DUNG QUAN NGU

CITUA DONG TU DO VA MAKE CXIA SINII VIN KIIONG CIIUYEN TIENG ANTI

Ở TRƯỞNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẦN TRI KINH DOANH THAT NGUYEN)

M.A MINOR THESIS

OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIÊN CỬU VẺ NHỮNG LỒI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIEC DITSG QUAN NGỮ

CHUA DONG TU DO VA MAKE CUA SINH VIEN KHONG CHUYEN TIENG ANH

G TRUONG DAI HOC KINH TE & QUAN TRI KINH DOANH THAI NGUYEN)

M.A MINOR TITESIS:

FIELD: ENGLISIT LINGUISTICS

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF DR VO BAI QUANG

Ha noi - 2012

TABLE OF CONTENT

Part A: INTRODUCTION 02.00.00

1, Rationale of the study

2, Aims and objectives of the study

3 Scope of the study

4 Significance of the study

5 Structure of the stUỦy 2 nh nà nhe

2.4, Collocations, free compounds, and idioms

2.5 Collecations with Do and Make

2.2.3 Data collection instruments

2.2.4 Data analysis teclniques

2.3 Summary

Chapter 3: Analysis, Findings and Discussion

3.1 Criteria for classification of the findings

3.2 Finding 1 & Discussion on this finding

3.3 inding 2 & Discussion on this finding

3.4, Finding 3 & Discussion on this finding

2.2.2, Remarks

¬ 3 Concluding remarks on objective 3

2.3.1, Objective 3 restated

2.3.2, Remarks

3 Limitations of the study

4, Suggestions for further studies

vị

List of abbreviations

CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learners’ Dictionary

CUB: Cambridge University Press

OCD: Oxford Collocations Dictionary

OCU: Oxford Collocations in Use

OUP: Oxford University Press

TƯBBA: Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Adttinistration

List of Tables

Table 1: Collocations under investigation in the thesis

Table 2: Nouns as object constituent in DO collocatians

Table 3: Nouns as object constituent in MAKE collocatians

Table 4: A summary of the results of the test on learmers’ understanding of DO

Table 7: A summary of the results of the test on leamers’ understanding of nouns as

object constituent in MAKE collocations

Table 8 A summary of the results of the test on learners’ use of both DO and MAKE

Definition of key technical terms

In this thesis, the key technical terms are to be employed in the senses as stated

below:

i Exror = Misuse or breach of the code arising from incompetence in the target

language

idea, and in Lerms of which it can be fully understood (Oxford Dictionary)

iii Pragmatic meaning = Meaning in context

iv Collocation= a group of words or phrase which is frequently used with

another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the

meaning (CALD, 2005)

Part A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

“No piece of natural spoken or written Linglish is totally free of collocation” (OCD, 2009) Therefore, learning collocation is important for EFL leamers For students, choosing the right collocation will make his/her speech and writing sound much more natural, more native-speaker-like Poor collocation in exams is also likely to lead to lower marks However, during the time working as a teacher of English at

ation (TURBA), T

Thai Nguyen University of Eoonomics and Business Admini:

have found out that English non- major students at different levels often make mistakes in using NO and MAKE collocations For this reason, I decided to choose this as the theme for my MA thesis

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The ultimate purposes of (he research are

ito help English non-major students gain an insight into DO and MAKE

collocations

i To examine the influenced factors 0 possible errors made by the studerits

iii Yo improve my own teaching of English at ‘T'UEBA

To achieve these aims, the following objectives are pursued forward:

© [Establishing the types of errors related to DO and MAKT collocations

commonly committed by English non-majar sinderts al TURBA

Finding out the causes of students’ errors related to the usage of DO and

MAKE collocations

«® Working out possible solutions to the problems encourilered Dy students in

using collocations with DO and MAKE

3 Scope of the study

Tho survey was conducted at TUEBA The population was nol large, only 300

Accounting students who were al pre-intermediate Ievel of English Only errors

related to the uses of DO and MAKE collocations in the form of “verb + noun”

pattem were taken into consideration,

4, gnificance of the study

Tt is much to the author’s expectation ibat the research results will help studenis

gain a more insightful look into Inglish MAKE and DO collocations And, on

account of this, well-formed ullerances containing DO and MAKE collocations

might be produced And, this constitutes the practical value of the rescarch

5 Structure of the thesis

The thesis cơnsisls of ee maim paris: Part A, Band C Part A is an mdroduction that gives a rationale behind the study It also presents the aims, objectives, the significance as well as scope of the study Part B is divided imo three chapters;

chapter 1 both reviewed some previous siudics related to the research area of the

thesis and provides theoretical background to the concerning matters In chapter 2, the methodology of the thesis including research-poverning principles and research

moetheds are introduced Chapter 3 analyzes data collected from the students’ tests

Additionally, some significant findings of the study are written up and discussed

Part C concludes the main issues which dealt with in the previous parts Acuordingly, some concluding remarks are drawn oul

Part B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Review of previous studies related 19 the research area of the thesis

Prior to this thesis, there have been the following related studies:

1.1.1 Related research 1

- Title of the researolx Applying semantic theary into vocabulary teaching

- Issue raised: The researcher carried out the study to examine collocational

knowledge of eight advanced FFT learners of English

- Contribution: ‘The results showed that these students did not succeed in completing

a collocational grid that included adjective-noun callocatians although vocabulary

was nol a problematic matter The researcher enmphazised that prosonling highly frequent collocates for learners when they start is really important

1.1.2 Related research 2

- Title of the research: The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of English

- Tssues raised: The ndings were based on lwo lypes of analyses, a corpus-hased

analysis to identify basic collocations and an empirical analysis to oxamine how Japanese learners develop knowledge of collocation

- Contribution The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a

significant positive relationship between learners’ general knowledge of vocabulary and their knowledge of collocations The knowledge of the leamers’ on receptive

collocation tasks of was better than their productive ones, and the learner had

difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in comparison with others

1.1.3 Related research 3

- Title of the research: Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating

dwersity with quaniiiative & qualitative approaches

- Issues raised: By using two instruments: pretreatment and post-treatment

translation tests, Marton investigated Polish leamers’ knowledge of collocations and their abilities to use them

- Contribution ‘The researcher found that there were no significant differences in the participants’ scores on the two translation tests, which confirmed leamers’ poor productive knowledge of collocations Marton, therefore, concluded that learners’ linited exposure lo collocation could nol improve their productive knowledge of

those structures

1.1.4, Related research 4

= Title of the research: The Acquisition of Basic Collocations by Japanese Learners

of English

Issues raised: Tn Malsumo and Sugiura’s study, the researcher probed the question

of whether the collocational expressions of L1 Japanese leamers of English resemble those of native speakers Two types of corpora were used to compare the performance of the wo groups The Japanese Toarners were asked to write about a certain topic as fast as possible and they were allowed to use dictionaries

- Contribution: The researcher’s conclusions also confirmed that Japanese learners

of English were poor at collocational nowledge

1.1.5, Related research 5

- Title of the research: Shauld we teach EFL students collocations

- Tssues raised: The pretrealment and post-irealment translation fests, consisting of a

translation task and a gap-filling task were conducted among advanced leamers of English with German as a native language

= Contribution: The sludy showed thal the students’ knowledge of collocations had not developed at the same rate as their Imawledge of vocabulary in general

1.1.6 Related research 6

= Title of the roscarch: Prefabricated patterns in Advanced EFL writing: collocations and formulae in A P Cowie (ed.): Phraeology Theory, analysis and applications

- Issues raised: The rescarcher investigated the rote of the first language and acquisition of collocations among French learners of Uinglish

- Contribution: Granger’s study confirmed the important role that leamers’ L1 plays

in the use and acquisition of collocations In this study, the researcher studied the difference between native speakers of Inglish and French learners of Lnglish in

producing English collocations, in particular adjective amplifiers, such as totally

and highly TL was found that amplifiers with dircel translation equivalents in French were the most frequent ones She attributed that finding to the L1 positive transfer

that facilitated learners’ acquisition of the siunlar amplifiers to their 1.1 (French)

1.1.7 Related research 7

- Title of the research: Do English language learners knaw collocations?

- Tssucs raised: Marlynska conducted the study of English collocalion compelencies

among, intermediate high school Polish students To collect data, the researcher used

different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined paris of sentences

- Contribution: ‘The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the longth of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short time performed better on the linglish tests than those who studied Linglish for longer time Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some siudenls gọi higher seores on the muiltiple-choice tasks bul lower scores ont ihe completion tasks This confirmed that the production of collocation among the

students was much lower than their receptive skills Therefore, more attention to

collocalions when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning

process

1.1.8 Related research 8

- Title of the researol: The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners

- Issues raised: L/lyildirm examined the comprehension and production of the target

collocalions of the first language (1.1) Turkish leamors of Rrglish By using threo

collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test

including two collocation categories, i.e verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun

collacations,

- Contribution: The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the

production of collocations was quite clear In fact, participants tended to generalize

unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently

encountered in the textbook Learners alsa have a lendeney io incorrectly

overgeneralize their L] collocational knowledge with unknown collocations, which

tesulled in 1.1 negative transfer The researcher also confirmed that acquiring

collocations that have L1 oquivalent was casior than that of acquiring collocations that have no LI equivalents Additionally comparing two types of test it was observed that the participants performed belter on the adjeclive-noun collocation

test than verb-noun-collocaHon test, which they found to be more difficult The

researcher recommended the teaching of common collocations and suggested learners (o spend much Line reading and listening to improve their knowledge of collocations instead of avoiding them

influence of the degree of restriction of a combination and the influence of the

learners’ 1.1 on the production of collocalions

- Contribution: The research showed that the highest rate of mistakes occurs in combinalion with a medium degree of resiniction in combination where the verb

only takes a few nouns, they are loss aware of restrictions in combination where the verb takes a wider range of nouns And, in free combinations and idioms, only a

few minor types of mistakes that, were nol observed in the analysis of collocalion

1

were idontiticd The findings pointed out that the major types of mistakes that

occurred were the same as in collocation The degree of restriction does not have a

major influence on the types and amount of mistakes leamers make, except that

collocations with a low degree of restriction are the most difficult kind of combination for the learners In short, the results showed that almost a quarter of the combinations contained one or several mistakes with non-lexical elements like the

articles and prepositions belonging 1a a combination, nol only verb-noun mismatches [owever, the most common type of mistake was the wrong choice of

verbs Therefore, the researcher recommended that leachers should focus on the verb in the teaching of verb-noun collecations

1.1.10 Related research 10

- Title of the research: A study of collocation behaviors on lexical pragmatios

- Issues raised: ‘Lhe study described how collocation behaviors of near synonyms can be recognized from contextual usage data in corpora to improve L2 lexical ineaning Concordance and compnlaHonal techniques were used lo analyze collocates in corpora ‘Three transitive verb; cause, promote and commit in students’ corpus were analyzed to explore the potential of lexical collocation information, and

to observe their collocation behaviors and pragmatic implications

- Contribution: The study showed that the use of collocation profile as an effective

instrument in recognizing and learning semantic meaning and pragmatic implications of lexical items was necessary The findings suggested that it could be beneficial for L2 learners to observe the collocates of near synonyms so that

recognition of pragmatic characteristics could help improve their lexical usage

Taken together, these studies focused on studying collocalions in use, and examined learners’ competence of using English collocations The instruments used to collect

tesulls were mainly the application of different lesls Tl could be said thal the use of

tests was effective for rescarchers to evaluate learners’ crrors on using collocation Most of the researchers reached conclusions that collocation knowledge of learners

studying English as foreign language was insulficient, and teaching or learning

collocations should be paid more attention due to the assumption that collocation teaching and leamers’ development of their collocation competence are necessary and important in order to achieve the globalized standards of English

My research differs from these previous studies in the following ways,

- First, its scale was much narrower and more specific and limited in a small piece

of language use, but directly relevant to students’ collocation leaming

- Second, the research was carried out in the real EFL classroom where Vietnamese

is the learners’ native language

- Finally, the study investigaled orrors related to the usage of collocalions by examining the use of cach element

2 Theoretical background

2.1, Definitions of “collocation”

Forming precise definition of collocation is nol easy, though there is a vast literate on this subject because there are both conflicting definitions and conflicting terminologies: ‘Regrettably, collocation is a term which is used and understood in many different ways’, (Bahns, 1993:57)

‘There have been a lot of ideas when considering the term ‘collocation’ Different linguists have their own ways to define what a collocation is A collocation is inairily considered as a lexival relalionship between words TL is assumed that words receive their meanings from words they occur with One of the works should be noticed is Second Interim Report on English Collocation (1933) by HE Palmer who

is considered the first linguist to use the term Collocation in the present-day sense According to Palmer, collocation is defined as ward combinations containing one or more words having meanings only in that collocation According to Halliday (1966:152), collovation is one of the main components and contra part in his lexico-grammatical system Le defines collocation as symtagmatic relation of words

which is linear co-occurrence logelher wilh some measure of significant proximily

13

It is a sequence of words or torms that co-occur more often than would be expected

by chance In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme An example of a phrasealogical collocation, given by Michael Halliday, is the expression ‘strong tea’ Although the expression ‘powerful tea’ could be roughly conveyed the same meaning, it is considered incorrect by Lnglish speakers Or the corresponding

expression for computer, ‘powerful computers’ is widely used rather than ‘strong

computers”

In his study, Greenbaum approaches collocation as an integration between lexis and

grammar which are different in lexical and syntactic pallerning but interrelated

“Collocation meaning is changed according to differont syntactic patterning” (Greenbaum, 1960:12) The term ‘collocation’ introduced by Firth (1957) is often defined as a characterise word combination whose lexical constituents developed

an idiomatic relation based on their frequent co-cecurence According to Cruse,

1984 a collocation, along with a lexeme and an idiom, is a kind of lexical item and

ig “Sequences of lexical items, which habitually co-nccer, but which are nonetheless fully twansparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent” (Cruse, 1986:40) Although there are a variety of views on the concept of collocation, variously defining it as a lexical, grammatical or research phenomenon, all contain a focus on the co-occurrence of words According to

Micheal Me Carthy and Felicity O’Dell (2005:4)

“a collocation is a pair or group of words that are often used together These combinations sound natural to native speakers, but students of English

have to make a special effort to learn them because they are often difficult to

guess Some combinations just sound ‘wrong to nutive speakers of English For example, the adjective fast collocates with cars, but not with a glance.” Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (CALD, 2005) defines collocation as

‘a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, ina way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language ail their

lives, but might not be expected from the meaning In the phrase ‘a hard

frost’, "hard' is a collocation of frost’ and ‘strong! would not sound natural’

or ‘the combination of words formed when two or more words are frequently used together in a way that sounds correct but difficult to guess.’

Here are some different definitions given by Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009)

(Ocb)

“ The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or

words with frequency greater than chance

- A pair or group of words that are juxtaposed in such a way

- the action of placing things side by side or in position”

- A grouping of words ina sentence

- Juxtaposition: the act af positioning close together (or side by side); "it is the result of the jwctaposition of conirasting colors"

- fCollocate) have a strong tendency to occur side by side; "Che words 'new'

and ‘world’ collocate"

- (Collncate) group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side

- Within the area of corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of words ar terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance

- Collocation is a procedure used in remote sensing to match measurements from two or more different instruments

- The grouping or juxtaposition of things especially words or sounds

- The tendency for words to ovcur regularly with others: sit/chair, house/garage

- The phenomenon of words/lexical items tending to co-occur in close

proximity to one another in spoken/writien discourse (Le habitual or greater-than-chance ca-selection of words}

- The likelihood that a particular word will occur in the neighborhood of

another word

- The action of setting in place, especially arranging in velation to others

- Group of words associated together as an expression in the lexicon Our

15

class has decided "in this particular case" is a collocation in MeGowan's idiolect

- A collocation consists of two or more wards that are commonly associated

in a particular language, such as ‘read about’ or ‘white lies’ A word may take on a specific meaning when collocated with certain other words

- Refers to how words occur together regularly and in a restricted way — e.g

blonde hair, lean meat, ete

Although there are different ways to define what collocation is, these definitions share a common view that a collocation is a word or phrase used frequently in a combination but it is not easy for learners to guess

be considered as lexical collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepls the structural view of collocation) A lexical collocation 1s a type off construction where a verb, noun, adjective ar adverb forms a predictable connection with another word, as in

Adverb + Adjective: e.g completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)

Adjective — Noun: e.g excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)

Noun + Verb c.g lions roar (NOT lions shoud)

Verb + Noun: e.g commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)

*®) Grammutical collacations

A grammatical collocation is a type of construction where, for example, a verb or an adjective must be followed by a particular preposition, or a noun must be followed

by a particular form of the verb, as in:

Verb + Preposition: e.g depend on (NOT depend of)

Adjective — Preposition: e.g afraid of (NOT afraid at)

Noun | Particular form of verb: e.g strength to lift it (not strength lifting it)

By Michael Me Carthy and Felicily O’Deil (2005: 9-12), collovations are classified

as following;

- Adjectives and nouns

Some adjectives arc typically used with particular nouns

“Jean always wears red or yellow or some other bright colour.”

“We had a brief chat about the exams but didn't have lime to discuss them properly.”

- Nouns and verbs

Some nouns and verbs often go logether The [ollowing examples are all to do with

economics and business

“The economy boomed in the 1990s.” [the economy was very strong}

“The company has grawn and now employs 50 more people than last year.”

“Lhe company has expanded and now has branches in most major cities

“The two companies merged in 2003 and now form one very large

corporation.”

“The company launched the product in 2002 [introduced the product]”

“The price increase poses a problem for us [is a problem]”

“The Iniernel has created upportunities for our business, [brought new opportunities]” Mc Carthy, M & Trelioity O'Dell, E (2005:12)

- Noun + noun

There are a lot of collocations with the pattern a of

“As Sam read the lies about him, he felt a surge of anger, fliterary: a sudden angry feeling/”

“Every parent feels a sense of pride when their child does well or wins something.”

“I felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the old photos of the village where I

grew up.”

Me Carthy, M & Felicity O'Dell, F (2005:12)

- Verbs and expressions with prepositions

Some verbs collocate with particular prepositional expressions

“As Jack went on stage to receive his gold medal for the judo competition

you could see his parents swelling with pride, [looking extremely proud]”

“I was filled with horror when I read the newspaper report of the explasion.””

“When she spill juice on her new skirt the little girl burst into iears, [suddenly started crying]”

Me Carthy, M & Felicity O'Dell, F (2005:12)

- Perhs and adverbs

Some verbs have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them

“She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety, [pulled firmly and eventy}”

“Ie placed the beautiful vase gently on the window ledge.”

‘love you and want to marry you, Derek whispered softly to Marsha

“She smiled proudly as she looked at the photos of her new grandson.”

Me Carthy, M & Felicity O'Dell, F (2005:12)

- Adverbs and adjectives

Adjectives oflon have particular adverbs which regularly collocale with thon:

“They are happily married.”

“1 am fully aware that there are serious problems [1 know well]”

“Harry was blissfully unaware that he was in danger [Harry had no idea at all, often used about something unpleasant”

Mc Carthy, M & ©’ Dell, F (2005:12)

2.3 Characteristics of collocations

Collocations can be deseribed in a number of ways The ways of thinking about them can be in terms af “degree of fixedness” or “degree of predictability”

Degree of fixedness

Degree of fixedness is the degree to which you can vary the basic pattern and still

have a collocation We can only define the fixedness or unfixedness of collocations

in terms of a continuum Some are more fixed than others but we can't make a neat dividing line between "fixed" and "unfixed"

- A very fixed collocation is one in which the pattem has very few expected

variations, So, for exataple, the phrase "kick the buckel is an idiom, a relatively

fixed collocation meaning “to dic" While we could substitute nouns and verbs in

this sentence and get other meaningful sentences (e.g "kick the door', “lift the

bucket"), the word combmations im these other sente

are no longer cohesive

patterns in the way that “kick the bucket" is Like "kick the bucket", most

collocations which are very fixed form a particular expected meaning rather than a

structure

- A less fixed collocation is often a more structural - common pattem that helps structure a sentence but don't carry as much specific meaning by itself For oxample, this is a commonly used structural pallorn into which you can insert a variety of words and still have commonly used patterns:

+ Let's move on to the next point

» Let's go back to the last chapter

+ Let's move away from this paragraph

» Let's laok at tomorrow's homework

+ Let's go on to the main point,

19

Another example is “take a photo”, whore no word other than take collocates with photo to give the same meaning Some collocations are more open, where several different words may be used to give a similar meaning for example, “keep to/stiok

to the rules.”

On the other hand, there are some less fixed collocations which are not as clearly structural Words that are commonly used with other words are examples of less

fixed collocalions which are not as structural im nature So for example, we use

"bus" and “car" with only certain sets of other words:

"climb on a bus" but usually nol "enter a bus" or "get in a

We say "get on a bus!

bus" However, we say "get in a car"

We say “take the bus!/"ride the bus"/'go there on the bus" but usually not "We can drive there on the bus" However we say "We can drive there in her car."

Degree of predictability

According to J R Firth, collocation can be classified as strong or weak due to the degree of predivtabitily in their association If we look deeper into collocations, we find that not only do the words "go together” but there is a degree of predictability

in their association Generally, in any collocation, one word will "call up” another word in the mind of a native speaker In other words, if one word appears, we can predict the other word, with varying degrees of success ‘his predictability 15 not perfectly understandable, but it is always much higher than with non-collocates The predietabihty may be strong: [or example "auspicious" collocates with very few words, as in: auspicious occasion, auspicious moment, and auspicious event Or the predictability may be weak: for example "circuit" collocates with a lot of words as

in: racing virewit, lecture circuit, talk-show circuit, short circuil, closed cireuil

2.4, Collocations, free compounds, and idioms

Tn order to determine learners’ difficulties with collocations, it is necessary to delimitate collocations from other types of word combination In his book, a practical guide to lexicography, Piet Van Sterkenburg assumed that if the user

wanls lo look up a mulliple-word ilemn and his gencral- purpose dictionary does not

provide sufficient information, he has to decide whether the lexical unit in question

is to be classified as a collocation, an idiom or a phrasal verb in order to choose the right reference work Therefore, delimitating collocation from other types of word combinations would be useful for learners of foreign language In this paper, the

“collocation” is used to denote a type of word combinations This part mainly focused on three kinds of word combinations: collocations free word combination

and idiann

Idioms are: ‘multi-word items that are not the sum of their parts: they have holistic meanings which canmot be retrieved from the individual meanings of the component words (Moon, 1997:46), for cxample, spill the beans However ‘idioms are by no means as fixed as conventional accounts suggest’

Collocation as mentioned above, howe:

1, corresponds (9 a conventional

combinations of words, which are not necessary contiguous and whose meaning is roughly speaking compositional Conventional combinations mean that native speakers recognize such combinations as the ‘correcl’ way of expressing a

particular concept For instance, substituting one term of a collocation with a

synonym or a near-synonym is usually felt by native speakers as being ‘not quite right’, although porfectly understandable For example, firing and burning are synonymous but firing ambition is different from burning ambition

Free word combination can be defined as sequences of words that occur most

frequently where the meaning of the whole is the sum of the meanings of its

constituent words and any word of them can be substituted by a large class of

words (e.g, the noun murder can be used with many verbs: to analyze, boast of,

condenm, describe, lili, forget, remember cto ) (Aisensladl, 1979)

In addition, criteria to distinguish collocation from other types of combinations were discussed here In fact, word combination is nol clearly delirmlable Differer

researchers have used different oriteria but only the most widely accepted defining criterion for collocation mentioned here is namely arbitrary restriction on substilutability In other words, a distimetion is made in which a possible restriclion,

21

on the substitutability of cloments is due to their somantic propertics and a combination in which the restriction is to some degree arbitrary lor example, we

have a combination between the verb read and @ haok (read a book) However, the substitution of read by drink (drink a book) in that combination is impossible or

unusual because drink requires a noun with the semantic property of “liquid” and

read requires a noun with the semantic property of “containing written language”

Tn another combination, for example, make a decision, in contrasl, decision can be

substituted by a number of nouns such as, make a plan, make a point, make a profit,

make @ promise, make a remark, make a sound, make a speech This restriction

doesn’t scom to be a result of the semantic propertics of the two clements concerned, but a somewhat arbitrary convention on language However, it is often difficull to draw a distincliou between semantic restriction and arbilrary restriction

In his research, Nadja stated that the distinction between these two types is even impossible to make with words which only combine with very few other words The tesearcher gaye Ulustralion of The combination ‘to dial a number’ The mearng of the verb dial is difficult to determine whether its meaning is so specific that it can

combine with a number or whether there has an arbitrary restriction that dial cannot combine with radio station (not dial a radio station) Nadja created a notion called

‘restricted sense’, therefore, a sense of a verb is considered restricted if it applies one of the two following criteria as follow,

« ‘the sense of the verb is so specific that it allows combination with only a small set of nouns

© The verb cannot be used in this sense with all nouns that are syntactically and semantically possible

The primary sense of the verbs DO and MAKE would be considered unrestricted

according to this definition because they can combine with a variety of nouns (do a

favor, do harm, do business, do housework, and make a cake, make food, make a

fortune, make friends, make a fuss, make a journey ) and there are no arbitrary

On the basic of this notion of restricted sense, three major classes of word

combinations can be distinguished as folowing:

Free combination the senses in which the verb and the noun are used are

unrestricted, so they can be freely combined according to these senses, for example,

want a book,

Collocations: The sense in which the noun is used is unrestricted, but the sense of

the verb used is restricted, so that the verb in the sense in which il is used could be only combined with certam nouns Ig take a picture but take a film

Tdioms: Poth the verb and the neun used are in a Testricled sense, so substitution is

either impossible or only possible to an extremely limited degree

Thus, a combination is classified as collocation if one of the criteria or both of them

mentioned above apphes lo the verb or noun of the cambinalion

2.8, Collocations with DO and MAKE

DO and MAKE are considered "light verbs" that lend relatively little semantic

content For people who are learning English, or cven who speak it moderately well, these two verbs present difficulties when it comes to many collocations ‘I'his part attempts to clear up some of the most common doubts and errors As discussed

above, collocations with Do and Make can be grouped into lexical ccllocations with

the form as in: verb + noun, for example, do harm, make money Some meanings

of these verbs are given by Cambridge Advanced Leamers’ Dictionary as follows:

+ Usage of Do provided by Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

(CALD)

- Lo act or take action:

£

right/did the right thing.”

"Was it wrong of me to go to the police?" "Oh no, I'm sure you did

- To arrange something:

You've done those flowers beautifully

- To be acceplable, suitable or enough (for)

23

Will this room do or would you prefer one with a shower?

This kind of behaviour just won't do

- To provide or sell something, or to cause sameone ta have something:

There's a special offer on and they're doing three for the price of two

Do you do travel insurance as well as flights?

The pub only does food at tunchtimes, not in the evenings

- To cheal someone:

Fifty bucks for that old bike! You've been done!

He did me for a thousand quid for that car

- To clean or tidy, or make something look attractive:

I want to do (= clean) the living room this afternoon

T cooked the dinner so you can do (= wash) the dishes

do your hair/make-up/nails

- To cook or prepare food:

Who's deing the food Jor your party?

- To deal with; to be responsible for:

Lucia is going to do the publicity for the school play

If they ask anv awkward questions, just let me do the talking

Af you say that you have done with something or someone, or have done performing

a particular action, you mean that you have finished what you were doing with

something or somcone, or what, you were saying to someone, or that you have

finished the action:

Have you done with those scissors yet?

Where the hell are you going? I haven't done with you yet

- Ta be unable to bear samething, or to have no patience with it:

T can't he doing with all this shouting and screaming

Do as you would be done by

- ‘Lo happen:

This town is so boring in the evening - there's never anything doing

- To make, produce or create something:

J can't come out tonight - I've got to do my history essay

Can you do me 20 photocopies of this repart/do 20 photocapies of this report for me?

- To develop or continue with the stated amount of suiccess; to manage:

Many shaps are doing badly hecause of the economic situation

I did rather well when T traded in my car - they gave me a good price for i Alexa has done weil for herself (= has achieved great personal success},

gelting such a highly paid job

- To perform, take part in or achieve something

That was a really stupid thing to do

Why were you sent home from school early? What have you done now?

What are you doing over the weekend?

- To do sth about sth to take action to deal with something:

It's a global problem - what can individuals do about it?

- Yo have/not have a strong and positive effect on someone, or to be/not be something or someone that they like ar enjoy:

Watching that film really did something to me

-To perform a play or to play the part of a character:

The children ave doing a play at the end of term

She's done all the important Shakespearean roles apart from Lady Macbeth

I hope she doesn't do a Helen (= do what Helen did) and get divorced six months after her wedding

- To spend time in prison,

He did three years for his part in the robbery

[you're nol careful you'll end up doing time again

- ‘Lo punish someone:

Ifyou mess with me again, I'll do you good and proper

25

I got done (— stopped by the police) for speeding on my way home last night -'L'o solve, or find the answer to something:

I've never been able to do crosswords’ to do a puzzle

- ‘Yo enter a building illegally and steal from it

Our house was done while we were away

- To study a subject:

Diane did anthropology al university

- To take an illegal drug:

How long have you been doing heroin?

I don't do drugs

- To travel a particular distance or to travel at a particular speed:

1s an old car und it's done aver 80 000 miles

My new car does 50 miles to the gallon/30 km to the litre (uses one gallon

of fuel to travel 50 miles, or one Titre to travel 30 lam)

We were doing 150 (fan an hour) along the motorway

- ‘Lo complete a journey:

We did the journey io Wales in five hours

- To visit tho interesting placos in a town or country, or to look around an

interesting place:

We didn't manage ta da Nice when we were in France

+ Usage of Make given by Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

(CALD, 2005)

- To arrive at or reach, especially successfully

She made it to the airport just in time to catch her plane

He made it to the bed and then collapsed

Could you muke a meeting al 8 am? ‘Could you make 8 um for the meeting?

- To be or become something, usually by having the necessary characteristics:

He's a competent enough officer, but I doubt he'll ever make general

Champagne and caviar make a wonderful combination

The story makes fascinating reading

- ‘To calculate as:

Tow much do you make the total?

I make the answer (10 he) 105.6

What do you make the time? (What time de you make it?

- To cause something:

The kids made such a mess in the kitchen

The bullet made a hole right through his chest

The photograph makes me look about 80!

- To cause lo be, to become or to appear as

It's the good weather that makes Spain such a popular tourist destination, She had to shout to make herself heard above the sound of the music

THỊ have a steak - no, make thal chicken

- To take action so that you are certain that something, happens, is true, etc

I'll just make sure I've turned the oven off

Make certain (that) we have enough drink for the party

J think J locked the door but I'll go back and check just to make sure

- To produce something, often using a particular substance or material:

Shall I make some coffee?

Te'd made a chocolate cake

She makes all her own clothes

© DO and MAKE with the same noun as object constituent but different

meanings

DO and MAKE are two different lexical items, therefore, their meanings are specific and not the same Based on the theory given in the previous part, collocation of the verb do (c.g, do time) is different from collocation of make (c.g, make time) with regard to the meaning According to CALD, to do time means to be

37

a prisoner in prison, but to make time for an activity means to arrange one's agenda

so that there is enough time to do that activity Clearly, we cannot substitute do by make in the collocation to do time In other words, it seems unacceptable or wrong

to say to make time means to be a prisoner in prison, and to do time for an activity

means to arrange one’s agenda so that there is enough time to do that activity In

fact, it is difficult to say that the combination of a verb and a nown in a collocation

is correct or wrong Native speaker norms scem lo be particularly variable in the

area of collocations; speakers differ in what they find acceptable, individual

speakers are offen uncertain about whether they find a combination acceptable or

not In addition, there can be differences between the acceptability, judements of speakers and their own uses The following examples are given to compare the meanings ol a pair of coHocalion with different verbs (do and make) but lhe same

noun However, their meanings in most cases are clearly differentiated as follows:

— Do’ for activities: “We use the verb 'do! to express daily activities or jobs These are usually activities that produce no physical object ’ e.g do homework, do housework, do the ironing, do the dishes, do ajob

"Do! for General Ideas: ‘We use the verb ‘do! when speaking about things in

general, im olher words, when we do nol exactly name an activity This Corn is olen used with the words 'something, nothing, anything, everything, etc.’

eg I'm not doing anything today

He does evervihing for his mother

She's doing nothing at the moment

| Make! for Constructing, Building, Creating: We use ‘wake! lo express am activily

that creates something that you can touch’ E.g make food, make a cup of tea / coffee, and make a mess It is said that in light-verb constructions "make" implies an active role by the subject, who causes something new to occur ur eome into

existence from pre-existing material or a pre-existing situation or the normal course

of events However, "Do" implies that the subject is active, but fitting into a pre- existing role

Cambridge Advanced Leamer’s Dictionary differentiates Do from Make as following;

Do usually means to perform an activity or job

I should do more exercise vs I should make more exercise

Make usually moans to create or prodnee something

Did you make the dress yourself? vs Did you do the dress yourself?

- Do one's best, make the best of:

If you do your best, it means you have acted correctly and that no-one can expect more from you

To make the best of a situation means to take as much advantage as possible trom a

bad situation

- Do an experiment, make an experiment

Generally, one does an experiment im a laboratory

One makes an experiment when one tries out an idea to see if it works

- Do an aperation on someone, make an operation

To do an operation means to operate medically on someone

‘Yo make an operation means to conchide a business transaction

- De time, make time

To do lime means to be @ prisoner im prison

To make time for an activity means to arrange one’s agenda so that there is enough

time to do that activity

- Do (some) work, make work

If you da some work, you are working,

You make work (for someone else, or for yourself) when your eflorls are

counterproductive

3 Summary

‘This chapter provides general review of the related matters for the study It covers

two main issues: literature review and theoretical background In the literature

review, the researcher gives a brief summary of the research which has the same

issues to study The raised issues and the researchers’ contributions are clearly

figured out The theoretical backpround provides and discusses some acceptable

definitions of collocation among researchers and linguists Although there are

different way to define what a collocation is, definitions of a collocation share one

common characterise thal a collocation is the combination af words logether, but

the meaning is difficult to guess, and collocations are important to become a native- like speaker Importantly this chapter differentiates collocations from other types of combination This part also makes a difference belween DO and MAKE

Accordingly, a lot of examples and usage are taken from reliable resources