Collocational Processing in L1 and L2: The Effects of Word Frequency, Collocational Frequency, and Association

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of individual word frequency, collocational frequency, and association on L1 and L2 collocational processing. An acceptability judgment task was administered to L1 and L2 speakers of English. Response times were analyzed using mixed‐effects modeling for 3 types of adjective–noun pairs: (a) high‐frequency, (b) low‐frequency, and (c) baseline items. This study extends previous research by examining whether the effects of individual word and collocation frequency counts differ for L1 and L2 speakers’ processing of collocations. This study also compared the extent to which L1 and L2 speakers’ response times are affected by mutual information and log Dice scores, which are corpus‐derived association measures. Both groups of participants demonstrated sensitivity to individual word and collocation frequency counts. However, there was a reduced effect of individual word frequency counts for processing high‐frequency collocations compared to low‐frequency collocations. Both groups of participants were similarly sensitive to the association measures used.

The Effects of Two Association Measures on L2 Collocation Processing

“…Several studies have looked at the impact of association measures on the processing of formulaic sequences by L2 learners of English. Two types of formulaic sequences were mostly examined, including lexical bundles, e.g., "at the beginning of", "I don't want that" (Ellis et al, 2008;McCauley & Christiansen, 2017) and collocations (González Fernández & Schmitt, 2015;Öksüz et al, 2020;Yi, 2018). While the lexical bundle studies reported similar findings, contradictory results were reported in collocation studies.…”

“…The participants were in their final or prefinal year in an English language undergraduate program because, at this stage, they are more likely to have reached the intermediate level. The present study examined intermediate English learners as most previous research focused on advanced learners (Öksüz et al, 2020;Yi, 2018). Purposeful sampling was used to recruit intermediate female Arab learners of English since this sampling technique would ensure the selection of participants with the required proficiency level.…”

“…Numerical and graphical analyses revealed that RT was non-normally distributed, with skewness of 1.2 (SE = 0.059) and kurtosis of 1.6 (SE = 0.118). The RTs were log transformed in R using the built-in log() function to reduce skewness in the distribution following prior research practice (Öksüz et al, 2020;Yi, 2018). The log transformed RT had a mean of 7.43 (SD = 0.40, Min = 6.41, Max = 8.50, bootstrapped 95% CI [7.41, 7.45]) and was normally distributed, with skewness of 0.24 (SE = 0.059) and kurtosis of -0.34 (SE = 0.118).…”

How Does Modification Affect the Processing of Formulaic Language? Evidence from L1 and L2 Speakers of Chinese

“…All of the studies mentioned above indicate that it is not the type of exposure (e.g., Hernández et al, 2016) but the amount of exposure that contributes to the FL processing advantage and the sensitivity to phrase frequencies in L2, with the greater the exposure, the more sensitive to FL and phrase frequencies. It is noteworthy that although L2 learners have been found to exhibit a processing advantage for FL and sensitivity to phrase frequencies, the magnitude of the FL facilitation and their sensitivity to frequencies is smaller than it in L1 users (e.g., Edmonds, 2014;Ellis et al, 2008;Gyllstad & Wolter, 2016;Hernández et al, 2016;Isobe, 2011;Jiang & Nekrasova, 2007;Kerz et al, 2020;Kim & Kim, 2012;Northbrook & Conklin, 2019;Öksüz et al, 2020;Shantz, 2017;Siyanova & Schmitt, 2008;Siyanova-Chanturia et al, 2011b;Sonbul, 2014;Sonbul & El-Dakhs, 2020;Wolter & Gyllstad, 2013;Wolter & Yamashita, 2018).…”

“…A number of existing studies have reported the processing advantage for literal FL over novel language in (L1 users and) proficient L2 learners (e.g., Ellis, Simpson-Vlach, & Maynard, 2008;Gyllstad & Wolter, 2016;Jiang & Nekrasova, 2007;Öksüz, Brezina, & Rebuschat, 2020;Siyanova & Schmitt, 2008, Study 3;Sonbul & El-Dakhs, 2020;Wolter & Gyllstad, 2013;Wolter & Yamashita, 2018;Yi, 2018;Zhao, Yasunaga, & Kojima, 2019). For example, in one of the earliest studies, Jiang and Nekrasova (2007) found in their grammatical judgment study that both L1 and proficient L2 speakers judged frequent n-grams significantly faster and more accurately than infrequent control sequences.…”