Objective and subjective collocational frequency

Abstract

Research states that when deciding what target lexical items to focus in their syllabi, textbook designers tend to use their intuition and establish their framework for vocabulary teaching accordingly rather than using a systematic method. With the advent of computational methods for language analysis, contemporary EFL publishers also claim they have begun to design corpus-informed textbooks reflecting actual language use in their products as evidenced in a representative corpus. In an attempt to offer a more rational method to form corpus-oriented and pedagogically convenient target vocabulary lists, the present study, exploiting different association measures in a representative corpus, seeks to detect the collocational strength of 50 target word combinations presented in the two EFL textbooks as an initial step. Additionally, inspired by Ellis et al.’s (2008) research, the current study aims to investigate if/to what extent the association measures indicating collocational strength correlate with EFL instructors’ intuitions regarding collocational frequency. The results indicate that EFL instructors’ collocational frequency intuitions correlate strongly with an objective collocational frequency measure (t-score). The findings are likely to guide decision makers in tertiary level schools in constructing their vocabulary syllabi and designing materials for teaching collocations in particular.

Lexical Associations in the L1 Turkish Mental Lexicon: Can L1 Lexical Intuition and a Representative Corpus Guide Teaching of Turkish as a Foreign Language Materials?

“…The study also finds evidence for a positive correlation between the L1 Turkish users' collocational intuitions and the association strength measure (Delta-P word 1 > word 2) indicating how strongly a node triggers a collocate item (ADJ+N in this research). In similar studies with partly different methodologies (e.g., Cangır, 2021), researchers found evidence for a positive correlation between L1 and L2 user intuitions and objective frequency means. However, the findings of the current research seem to extend the previous view and could be regarded as another steppingstone because they provide evidence for a directional spreading activation from the node to the collocate with the help of the Delta-P value, which previous studies with similar aims lack.…”

“…If the aim is to design materials which include authentic texts and functional language to help learners master the language as it is used by native speakers, textbook designers may need to exploit representative corpora and consult L1 user intuitions (or experts like language instructors) as a complementary step. There is also research indicating that we need to be cautious with coursebooks writers' preferences for target vocabulary and that learner and native speaker experience may not be reflected in the coursebooks (Cangır, 2021;Jones and Durrant, 2010). There is also a need for an L2 Turkish learner corpus which can benefit both the students learning Turkish as a second language, teachers, and the decision makers.…”

“…She also suggests using corpora for designing materials for teaching Turkish as a foreign language program. The use of corpus to validate intuition and to design in-class activities has also been suggested by (Cangır, 2021). In addition, research (e.g., Çelik, 2011) indicates that learners can also benefit from using a corpus to observe the natural language through concordance lines, have better knowledge of formulas (e.g., collocations), and sound more fluent and natural in their second or non-native language.…”

“…However, native speakers of L1 Turkish have intuitive judgements regarding what nouns may follow certain adjectives which could also be taught to L2 users of Turkish to help them communicate better and more effectively in Turkish and sound more natural. Earlier research on native speaker intuitions about word level and collocational frequency indicate that there is a relationship between subjective judgements of collocational frequency (or familiarity) and association strength measures (Cangır, 2021), and it must be investigated further from the eyes of understudied languages, such as Turkish, to gather more conclusive results and enlighten the designers of language teaching materials. When constructing target vocabulary lists or designing materials for vocabulary teaching, designers can be informed by both corpora and native speaker intuitions.…”