Cover not available

Article In: International Journal of Learner Corpus Research: Online-First Articles

Noun-adjective collocations in L2 Portuguese

Exploring the effects of proficiency and native language in a large-scale learner corpus

ORCiD logo with link | Department of Linguistics and English Language Lancaster University
 | Centre of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon | LEAD Graduate School and Research Network University of Tübingen
 | Centre of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon
 | Department of Linguistics and English Language Lancaster University | LEAD Graduate School and Research Network University of Tübingen
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
In this study, we investigated the development of phraseological knowledge in Portuguese second language learners, focusing on noun–adjective combinations through the lenses of phrasal frequency, association strength, and accuracy. We analysed essays from 693 learners across five proficiency levels, representing 18 typologically diverse first languages (L1). Learners’ use of noun–adjective combinations was examined using four association measures — phrase frequency, mutual information, log dice, and delta P (ΔP) — as well as the accuracy of use. Findings reveal that phraseological development is not linear; advanced learners produced less frequent and less strongly-associated combinations, suggesting a shift toward more varied or creative expressions. L1 word order typology did not influence phrase frequency or association strength, but learners from noun–adjective dominant L1s produced collocations more accurately, indicating a dissociation between accuracy and idiomaticity. Accuracy followed a U-shaped developmental trajectory. Overall, the results highlight the complex interplay of learner and input-related variables in L2 phraseological development.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General background
    • 2.1Conceptualization of collocations
    • 2.2Variables affecting collocational knowledge
      • 2.2.1Item-related variables
      • 2.2.2Learner-related variables
  • 3.The present study
    • 3.1Research questions and hypotheses
    • 3.2Methodology
      • 3.2.1Data
      • 3.2.2Target collocations
    • 3.3Collocation measures
    • 3.4Statistical analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1The effects of proficiency on collocation use
    • 4.2The influence of L1 adjective position on collocation use
    • 4.3Effects of proficiency and L1 word order typology on accuracy
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Disclosure statement
  • AI use disclosure statement
  • Open data badge and data availability statement
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (52)
References
Arnon, I., & Christiansen, M. H. (2017). The role of multiword building blocks in explaining L1–L2 differences. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9(3), 621–636. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barreto, F., Branco, A., Ferreira, E., Mendes, A., Bacelar do Nascimento, M. F., Nunes, F., & Silva, J. R. (2006). Open resources and tools for the shallow processing of Portuguese: The TagShare project. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, A. Gangemi, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, J. Odijk, & D. Tapias (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’06) (pp. 1438–1443). European Language Resources Association (ELRA). [URL].
Bartoń, K. (2025). MuMIn: Multi-model inference (R package version 1.48.11) [Computer software]. [URL]
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., Finegan, E., & Quirk, R. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boone, G., De Wilde, V., & Eyckmans, J. (2023). A longitudinal study into learners’ productive collocation knowledge in L2 German and factors affecting the learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45(2), 503–525. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Branco, A., & Silva, J. (2006). A suite of shallow processing tools for Portuguese: LX-Suite. Proceedings of the 11th conference of the European chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 179–182). Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brezina, V., & Fox, L. (2021). Adjective + noun collocations in L2 and L1 speech: Evidence from the Trinity Lancaster Corpus and the spoken BNC2014. In S. Granger (Ed.), Perspectives on the L2 phrasicon: The view from learner corpora (pp. 152–177). Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlucci, L., & Case, J. (2013). On the necessity of U-shaped learning. Topics in Cognitive Science, 5(1), 56–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daelemans, W., Zavrel, J., van den Bosch, A., & van der Sloot, K. (2003). MBT: Memory-based tagger, version 2.0, reference guide (ILK Research Group Technical Report Series, Series 03–13). Faculteit Communicatie en Cultuur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeCock, S., Granger, S., Leech, G., & McEnery, T. (1998). An automated approach to the phrasicon of EFL learners. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learning English on computer (pp. 67–79). Addison Wesley Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Díez-Ortega, M., & Kyle, K. (2024). Measuring the development of lexical richness of L2 Spanish: A longitudinal learner corpus study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 46, 169–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, M. S., & Haspelmath, M. (Eds.). (2013). The world atlas of language structures online (v2020.3) [Data set]. Zenodo. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edmonds, A., & Gudmestad, A. (2021). Collocational development during a stay abroad. Languages, 6(1), Article 12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Phraseological use and development during a stay abroad: Exploring sensitivity to frequency and cue-contingency. Language Learning, 73(2), 475–507. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eguchi, M., & Kyle, K. (2023). L2 collocation profiles and their relationship with vocabulary proficiency: A learner corpus approach. Journal of Second Language Writing, 60, Article 100975. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2002). Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24(2), 143–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Ferreira-Junior, F. (2009). Construction learning as a function of frequency, frequency distribution, and function. The Modern Language Journal, 93(3), 370–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evert, S. (2008). Corpora and collocations. In A. Lüdeling & M. Kytö (Eds.), Corpus linguistics: An international handbook (pp. 1212–1248). Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, J., & Weisberg, S. (2019. An R companion to applied regression (3rd ed.). Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gablasova, D., & Brezina, V. (2025). Adjective + noun collocations in L2 spoken English: How robust is the effect of proficiency? International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 11(1), 79–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gablasova, D., Brezina, V., & McEnery, T. (2017). Collocations in corpus-based language learning research: Identifying, comparing and interpreting the evidence. Language Learning, 67(S1), 155–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garner, J., & Crossley, S. (2018). A latent curve model approach to studying L2 n-gram development. The Modern Language Journal, 102(3), 494–511. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Généreux, M., Hendrickx, I., & Mendes, A. (2012). A large Portuguese corpus on-line: Cleaning and preprocessing. In H. Caseli, A. Villavicencio, A. Teixeira, & F. Perdigão (Eds.), Computational processing of the Portuguese language (Vol. 7243, pp. 113–120). Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
González Fernández, B., & Schmitt, N. (2015). How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have? The effects of frequency and amount of exposure. ITL: International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 166, 94–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Granger, S., & Bestgen, Y. (2014). The use of collocations by intermediate vs. advanced non-native writers: A bigram-based study. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 52(3), 229–252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th. (2013). 50-something years of work on collocations: What is or should be next…. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(1), 137–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Statistics for learner corpus research. In S. Granger, G. Gilquin, & F. Meunier (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of learner corpus research (pp. 159–182). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howarth, P. (1998). Phraseology and second language proficiency. Applied Linguistics, 19, 24–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laufer, B., & Waldman, T. (2011). Verb-noun collocations in second language writing: A corpus analysis of learners’ English. Language Learning, 61(2), 647–672. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2012). The logic of the unified model. In S. M. Gass & A. Mackey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 211–227). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2017). Computational investigations of multiword chunks in language learning. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9, 637–652. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mendes, A., Antunes, S., Janssen, M., & Gonçalves, A. (2016). The COPLE2 corpus: A learner corpus for Portuguese. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, T. Declerck, S. Goggi, M. Grobelnik, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, H. Mazo, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, & S. Piperidis (Eds.), Proceedings of the tenth international conference on language resources and evaluation (LREC’16) (pp. 1997–2002). European Language Resources Association (ELRA). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monaghan, P. J., Chang, Y.-N., Welbourne, S., & Brysbaert, M. (2017). Exploring the relations between word frequency, language exposure, and bilingualism in a computational model of reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 93, 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nguyen, T., & Webb, S. (2017). Examining second language receptive knowledge of collocation and factors that affect learning. Language Teaching Research, 21, 298–320. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Öksüz, D., Brezina, V., & Rebuschat, P. (2021). Collocational processing in L1 and L2: The effects of word frequency, collocational frequency, and association. Language Learning, 71(1), 55–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Öksüz, D., Brezina, V., Monaghan, P., & Rebuschat, P. (2024). Individual word and phrase frequency effects in collocational processing: Evidence from typologically different languages, English and Turkish. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50(8), 1287–1314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paquot, M. (2017). L1 frequency in foreign language acquisition: Recurrent word combinations in French and Spanish EFL learner writing. Second Language Research, 33(1), 13–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paquot, M., & Granger, S. (2012). Formulaic language in learner corpora. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32, 130–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plonsky, L. (2023). Sampling and generalizability in Lx research: A second-order synthesis. Languages, 8(1), Article 75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2025). R: A language and environment for statistical computing (Version 4.5.2) [Computer software]. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Schepens, J., Van der Slik, F., and Van Hout, R. (2015). L1 and L2 distance effects in learning L3 Dutch. Language Learning, 66, 224–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siyanova-Chanturia, A. (2015). Collocation in beginner learner writing: A longitudinal study. System, 53, 148–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siyanova-Chanturia, A., & Spina, S. (2020). Multi-word expressions in second language writing: A large-scale longitudinal learner corpus study. Language Learning, 70(2), 420–463. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tokowicz, N., Warren, T., & Tolentino, L. (2024). The competition model and adult second language learning: Cross-language similarity and L2 morphosyntax learning. Language Teaching Research Quarterly, 44, 71–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Heuven, W. J. B., Mandera, P., Keuleers, E., & Brysbaert, M. (2014). Subtlex-UK: A new and improved word frequency database for British English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67, 1176–1190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vandeweerd, N., Housen, A., & Paquot, M. (2021). Applying phraseological complexity measures to L2 French: A partial replication study. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 7(2), 197–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Veloso, R., & Raposo, E. B. P. (2013). Adjetivo e sintagma adjetival. In E. B. P. Raposo, M. F. Bacelar do Nascimento, M. A. Coelho da Mota, L. Segura, & A. Mendes (Eds.), Gramática do português (Vol. 2, pp. 1359–1493). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue