The Importance of
Teaching English Collocations
Students:
Frank
(黃國桓 M94C0215)
Advisor：Professor Shaohua Zchang
I. Introduction
*Collocational competence is a key to language fluency
and accuracy.
.* Collocational errors are completely caused by differences
between the mother tongue of the students and the target
language they are learning.
II. Literature Review：
(Types of Collocations)
Collocations are strung together in a linear word to some
grammatical relationships. The restrictions on how words are
used together are called collocations.
Collocations are divided into two major types—lexical
collocation and grammatical collocation.
（i）Lexical collocation
Lexical collocations are further divided into free
collocation and fixed collocation.
a) Free collocation
The most frequent collocates are almost made with some of the
most common words in English, such as good, bad, big, small, old,
new, combine with almost any noun.
Adjective+Noun：heavy rain (＊big rain)
Verb+Noun：kick the ball (＊kick the idea)
Verb+Adverb：appreciate sincerely (＊cry sincerely)
Adverb+Adjective：badly-dressed (＊poorly-dressed)
Noun+Verb：The machine will work. (＊The stone will work.)
b) Fixed collocation
An idiom, phrase or proverb is a sequence of words operated as
a single semantic unit. They must be considered as one single
lexical item meaning.
1) Idioms： to rob Peter to pay Paul
(挖東牆補西牆)
2) Phrases： to have an eye for
(鑑賞)
under the rose
(秘密進行地)
to break through
(突破)
3) Proverbs：Where there is a will, there is a way.(有志者、事竟成)
Fish become stink with the head.(上樑不正、下樑歪)
（ii）Grammatical collocation
There are five basic sentence patterns.
Basic Sentence Patterns
Constituents
SV
S＋Vi
SVC
S＋LV.＋SC.
SVO
S＋Vt.＋O
SVOO
S＋Vt.＋IO＋DO
SVOC
S＋Vt.＋O＋OC
a) S＋Vi
Birds fly away.
b) S＋LV.＋SC.
I am a graduate student.
c) S＋Vt.＋O
I like English.
d) S＋Vt.＋IO＋DO
Father gave me a new watch.
e) S＋Vt.＋O＋OC
Joy makes our room cheerful.
However, syntactic restrictions operate between two lexical
items, a verb and a noun.
＊ The idea sleeps.
＊
Sincerity admired the teacher.
＊ The student eats frankness.
（iii）Grammaticalization
Definition:
Grammaticalization is defined as the development from
lexical to grammatical forms or from a less grammatical
to a more grammatical status, because the development
of grammatical forms depends on the constructions to
which they belong.
An Example of Grammaticalization
be going to ： I am going to visit Joy.
(1) Be Ving (正在）：I am now on my way to Joy’s house
(2) Future（表未來）：I intend to visit Joy.
Grammaticalization of the common verbs, such as “ have”, “give”,
“make”, “do”, “ take” can be seen in the following expressions:
have fun
give a visit to sb.
make an appointment
make a phone call
take a shower
do the dishes
do the cooking