Tests of second language learners’ knowledge of collocation have lacked a principled strategy for item selection, making claims about learners’ knowledge beyond the particular collocations tested difficult to evaluate. Corpus frequency may offer a good basis for item selection, if a reliable relationship can be demonstrated between frequency and learner knowledge. However, such a relationship is difficult to establish satisfactorily, given the small number of items and narrow range of test-takers involved in any individual study. In this study, a meta-analysis is used to determine the correlation between learner knowledge and frequency data across nineteen previously-reported tests. Frequency is shown to correlate moderately with knowledge, but the strength of this correlation varies widely across corpora. Strength of association measures (such as mutual information) do not to correlate with learner knowledge. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for collocation testing and models of collocation learning.
2001“Collocation: A missing chain from Jordanian basic education stage English language curriculum and pedagogy”. Dirasat, Humand and Social Sciences, 28 (2), 582–596.
Barfield, A
2003Collocation Recognition and Production: Research Insights. Tokyo: Chuo University.
Barfield, A. & Gyllstad, H
2009“Introduction: Researching L2 collocation knowledge and developmenst”. In A. Barfield & H. Gyllstad (Eds.), Researching Collocations in Another Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–18.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E
1999Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.
Bonk, W.J
2001“Testing ESL learners knowledge of collocations”. In T. Hudson & J.D. Brown (Eds.), A Focus on Language Test Development. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 113–142.
Brashi, A
2009“Collocability as a problem in L2 production”. Reflections in English Language Teaching, 8 (1), 21–34.
1998Synthesizing Research: A Guide for Literature Reviewers. London: Sage.
Cowie, A.P
(Ed.)1998Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davies, M
2004-BYU-BNC (Based on the British National Corpus from Oxford University Press). Available at [URL] (accessed July 2014).
Davies, M
2008-The Corpus of Contemporary American: 450 million words, 1990-present. Available at: [URL] (accessed July 2014).
Durrant, P
2008High-frequency Collocations and Second Language Learning. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, Nottingham.
Durrant, P. & Doherty, A
2010“Are high-frequency collocations psychologically real? Investigating the thesis of collocational priming”. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 6 (2), 125–155.
Durrant, P. & Mathews-Aydinli, J
2011“A function-first approach to identifying formulaic language in academic writing”. Journal of English for Specific Purposes, 30 (1), 58–72.
Durrant, P. & Schmitt, N
2009“To what extent do native and non-native writers make use of collocations?”. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 47 (2), 157–177.
Durrant, P. & Schmitt, N
2010“Adult learners’ retention of collocations from exposure”. Second Language Research, 26 (2), 163–188.
Ellis, N.C
2001“Memory for language”. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and Second Language Instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33–68.
Ellis, N.C. & Larsen-Freeman, D
2006“Language emergence: Implications for applied linguistics – Introduction to the Special Issue”. Applied Linguistics, 27 (4), 558–589.
Ellis, N.C., Simpson-Vlach, R. & Maynard, C
2008“Formulaic language in native and second-language speakers: Psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, and TESOL”. TESOL Quarterly, 41 (3), 375–396.
2007Testing English Collocations: Developing Receptive Tests for Use with Advanced Swedish Learners. Lund: Lund University.
Halliday, M.A.K
1966“Lexis as a linguistic level”. In C.E. Bazell, J.C. Catford, M.A.K. Halliday & R.H. Robins (Eds.), In Memory of J. R. Firth. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 148–162.
Hoey, M
1991Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hoey, M
2005Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. London: Routledge.
Jaén, M.M
2009Recopilación, Desarrollo Pedagógico y Evaluación de un Banco de Colocaciones Frecuentes de la Lengua Inglesa a Través de la Lingüística de Corpus y Computacional. Unpublished PhD thesis. Universidad de Granada, Granada.
Jones, S. & Sinclair, J.M
1974“English lexical collocations. A study in computational linguistics”. Cahiers de Lexicologie, 24 (2), 15–61.
Kjellmer, G
1990“A mint of phrases”. In K. Aijmer & B. Altenberg (Eds.), English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in Honour of Jan Svartvik. London: Longman, 111–127.
Kurosaki, S
2012An Analysis of the Knowledge and Use of English Collocations by French and Japanese Learners. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of London Institute in Paris, Paris.
Lewis, M
1993The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward. London: Thomson Heinle.
Lipsey, M.W. & Wilson, D.B
2000Practical Meta-Analysis. London: Sage.
Manning, C.D. & Schütze, H
1999Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Milton, J
2009Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Nation, P
1990Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Nation, P
2001Learning Vocabulary in another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nattinger, J.R. & DeCarrico, J.S
1992Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nesselhauf, N
2004“What are collocations?”. In D.J. Allerton, N. Nesselhauf & P. Skandera (Eds.), Phraseological Units: Basic Concepts and their Application. Basel: Schwabe, 1–21.
1993Second Interim Report on English Collocations. Tokyo: Kaitakusha.
Pawley, A. & Syder, F.H
1983“Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency”. In J.C. Richards & R.W. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and Communication. New York: Longman, 191–226.
Read, J
2000Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Revier, R.L
2009“Evaluating a new test of whole English collocations”. In A. Barfield & H. Gyllstad (Eds.), Researching Collocations in another Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 125–138.
Schmitt, N
2010Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schmitt, N. & Zimmerman, C.B
2002“Derivative word forms: What do learners know?”. TESOL Quarterly, 36 (2), 145–171.
Shin, D. & Nation, P
2008“Beyond single words: The most frequent collocations in spoken English”. ELT Journal, 62 (4), 339–348.
Sinclair, J.M
1991Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J.M
2004“The search for units of meaning”. In J.M. Sinclair, Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse. London: Routledge, 24–48.
Siyanova-Chanturia, A., Conklin, K. & van Heuven, W.J.B
2011“Seeing a phrase ‘time and again’ matters: The role of phrasal frequency in the processing of multiword sequences”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37 (3), 776–784.
Stubbs, M
1996Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Webb, S. & Kagimoto, E
2011“Learning collocations: Do the number of collocates, position of the node word, and synonymy affect learning?”. Applied Linguistics, 32 (3), 259–276.
Wolter, B. & Gyllstad, H
2011“Collocational links in the L2 mental lexicon and the influence of L1 intralexical knowledge”. Applied Linguistics, 32 (4), 430–449.
Wolter, B. & Gyllstad, H
2013“Frequency of input and L2 collocational processing: A comparison of congruent and incongruent collocations”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35 (3), 451–482.
Wray, A
2002Formulaic language and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yamashita, J. & Jiang, N
2010“L1 influence on the acquisition of L2 collocations: Japanese ESL users and EFL learners acquiring English collocations”. TESOL Quarterly, 44 (4), 647–668.
Cited by
Cited by 36 other publications
Boone, Griet, Vanessa De Wilde & June Eyckmans
2023. A longitudinal study into learners’ productive collocation knowledge in L2 German and factors affecting the learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 45:2 ► pp. 503 ff.
Boone, Griet & June Eyckmans
2023. Exploring collocation development in L2 German from students’ perspective: A contrasting case study. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 13:3 ► pp. 571 ff.
Cao, Dung & Richard Badger
2023. Cross-linguistic influence on the use of L2 collocations: the case of Vietnamese learners. Applied Linguistics Review 14:3 ► pp. 421 ff.
Chen, Wang
2019. Profiling Collocations in EFL Writing of Chinese Tertiary Learners. RELC Journal 50:1 ► pp. 53 ff.
Danilina, Svetlana
2021. Collocational Knowledge Uptake by University Students under Online Learning. English Studies at NBU 7:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
2023. The Impact of Frequency of Occurrence of Verb-Preposition Collocations on Their Acquisition by Moroccan EFL Learners. In Language in Educational and Cultural Perspectives [Second Language Learning and Teaching, ], ► pp. 97 ff.
Fan, Kunmeng & Haixiao Wang
2024. The productive processing of formulaic sequences by second language learners in writing. Frontiers in Psychology 15
2018. Comparing learners’ and native speakers’ use of collocations in written Spanish. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 56:4 ► pp. 401 ff.
2021. L2 competence in Chinese correlative connectives: A case of discontinuous discursive formulaic sequences. Language Teaching Research► pp. 136216882110604 ff.
Macis, Marijana & Norbert Schmitt
2017. Not just ‘small potatoes’: Knowledge of the idiomatic meanings of collocations. Language Teaching Research 21:3 ► pp. 321 ff.
Mizumoto, Atsushi, Luke Plonsky & Jesse Egbert
2020. Meta-analyzing Corpus Linguistic Research. In A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, ► pp. 663 ff.
2020. History of English as punctuated equilibria? A meta-analysis of the rate of linguistic change in Middle English. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 6:2
2020. LEARNING FORMULAIC SEQUENCES THROUGH VIEWING L2 TELEVISION AND FACTORS THAT AFFECT LEARNING. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 42:3 ► pp. 525 ff.
Rastelli, Stefano
2019. The discontinuity model: Statistical and grammatical learning in adult second-language acquisition. Language Acquisition 26:4 ► pp. 387 ff.
Schmitt, Norbert, Suhad Sonbul, Laura Vilkaitė‐Lozdienė & Marijana Macis
2019. Formulaic Language and Collocation. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff.
Shi, Jinfang, Gang Peng & Dechao Li
2023. Figurativeness Matters in the Second Language Processing of Collocations: Evidence From a Self‐Paced Reading Experiment. Language Learning 73:1 ► pp. 47 ff.
2018. Using lexical bundles as a tool to analyze definite article use in L2 academic writing: An exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing 39 ► pp. 29 ff.
Sologuren, Enrique
2023. Student writing in the engineering curriculum: discursive rhetorical model of the laboratory report genre in Spanish. Frontiers in Psychology 14
Szudarski, Paweł
2023. Collocations, Corpora and Language Learning,
2022. To What Extent is Collocation Knowledge Associated with Oral Proficiency? A Corpus-Based Approach to Word Association. Language and Speech 65:2 ► pp. 311 ff.
Uchihara, Takumi, Stuart Webb & Akifumi Yanagisawa
2019. The Effects of Repetition on Incidental Vocabulary Learning: A Meta‐Analysis of Correlational Studies. Language Learning 69:3 ► pp. 559 ff.
Vuogan, Alyssa & Shaofeng Li
2023. A systematic review of meta-analyses in second language research: current practices, issues, and recommendations. Applied Linguistics Review 0:0
Wolter, Brent & Junko Yamashita
2018. WORD FREQUENCY, COLLOCATIONAL FREQUENCY, L1 CONGRUENCY, AND PROFICIENCY IN L2 COLLOCATIONAL PROCESSING. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40:2 ► pp. 395 ff.
2020. Idiomaticity in Intercultural Communication in English as Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based Study of Verb-Object Combinations. In Corpus-based Approaches to Grammar, Media and Health Discourses [The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ], ► pp. 73 ff.
Yoon, Hyung-Jo
2016. Association strength of verb-noun combinations in experienced NS and less experienced NNS writing: Longitudinal and cross-sectional findings. Journal of Second Language Writing 34 ► pp. 42 ff.
Öksüz, Doğuş, Vaclav Brezina & Patrick Rebuschat
2021. Collocational Processing in L1 and L2: The Effects of Word Frequency, Collocational Frequency, and Association. Language Learning 71:1 ► pp. 55 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.