The Use of Verb Noun Collocations in Writing Stories among Iranian EFL Learners

Bazzaz, Fatemeh Ebrahimi; Samad, Arshad Abd

doi:10.5539/elt.v4n3p158

Cited by 12 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…frequency of accurately produced collocations recorded in student English), and English writing fluency. There are other studies which focus on the development and relationship between collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998;Bazzaz & Samad, 2011;Hsu, 2002Hsu, , 2007. Al-Zahrani's findings are different from this study because Al-Zahrani did not take into account the use of verb-noun collocations, thus the frequency of verb-noun collocations in the Writing Test was not reported.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many researchers discussed the relationship between collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998;Bazzaz and Samad 2011;Farghal & Al-Hamly, 2007;Hsu, 2002;Zhang, 1993). Zhang (1993) was the first to study the correlation between knowledge and the use of collocations and the quality of collocations in 30 native and 30 non-native Indiana University of Pennsylvania freshmen .Al-Zahrani's study did not follow Zhang's because Al-Zahrani did not consider the use of collocations.…”

Section: Written Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a quite a few research concentrates on the development and relationship between verb-noun collocations and the productive language, especially writing (Al-Zahrani, 1998;Hsu, 2002;Zhang, 1993). Bazzaz and Samad (2011) scrutinized the correlation between knowledge of verb noun collocations and their use in writing stories. The subjects in the research were twenty seven PhD Iranian students in a Malaysian university.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

Samad

Ismail

et al. 2015

IJALEL

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When native speakers of English write, they employ both grammatical rules and collocations. Collocations are words that are present in the memory of native speakers as ready-made prefabricated chunks. Non-native speakers who wish to acquire native-like fluency should give appropriate attention to collocations in writing in order not to produce sentences that native speakers may consider odd. The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) among Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. To measure the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse, there was a 60-minute task of writing story based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year which indicate substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. The vital implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of writing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Written Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

Samad

Ismail

et al. 2015

IJALEL

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“…Unlike the mentioned studies, Bazzaz and Samad (2011) discussed the relationship between collocational proficiency and the use of verb-noun collocations in writing stories since collocational proficiency differentiates native speakers and foreign or second language learners and is a major issue in productive skills especially writing. To this end, twenty seven Iranian PhD students in a Malaysian university were selected.…”

Section: Collocation Studies In Iranmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The aforementioned studies in Iran discuss the different collocational proficiency of students and language proficiency; however their results are contradictory because some found that students' collocational proficiency improve as their language proficiency increases such as Bazzaz and Samad (2011), Ganji (2012) and Keshavarz and Salimi's (2007) while the others indicate that there is no relationship between collocational proficiency and language proficiency like Shokouhi and Mirsalari(2010) and Morshali (1995). Other studies worked on language transfer from L1 and found out that students use collocations incorrectly because of negative transfer and lack of exposure (Koosha and Jafarpour, 2006;Sadeghi, 2009;&Tajalli, 1994).…”

Section: Collocation Studies In Iranmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb-Noun Collocation Proficiency and Academic Years

Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

Samad

Ismail

et al. 2013

IJALEL

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Generally vocabulary and collocations in particular have significant roles in language proficiency. A collocation includes two words that are frequently joined concurrently in the memory of native speakers. There have been many linguistic studies trying to define, to describe, and to categorise English collocations. It contains grammatical collocations and lexical collocations which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverb. In the context of a foreign language environment such as Iran, collocational proficiency can be useful because it helps the students improve their language proficiency. This paper investigates the possible relationship between verb-noun collocation proficiency among students from one academic year to the next. To reach this goal, a test of verb-noun collocations was administered to Iranian learners. The participants in the study were 212 Iranian students in an Iranian university. They were selected from the second term of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. The students' age ranged from 18 to 35.The results of ANOVA showed there was variability in the verb-noun collocations proficiency within each academic year and between the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests demonstrated that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, and between the third and the fourth academic year; however, students require at least two years to show significant development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. These findings provided a vital implication that lexical collocations are learnt and developed through four academic years of university, but requires at least two years showing significant development in the language proficiency.

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