engleski

Collocational Proficiency among the English Language Learners and the Role of L1 Transfer

Among the obstacles the learners of English language are faced with, collocations appear to be among the most difficult. Their troublesome nature is attested in numerous recent studies, among other: Granger 1998, Van der Meer 1998 & 2006, Leśniewska 2006, Nesselhauf 2003, Gilquin 2007, and Sadeghi 2009. One of the most prominent reasons for this is their somewhat elusive nature, as collocations are neither completely fixed nor completely free forms. Because of this, collocational restrictions are more liable to cross-linguistic influence (Arabski 2006). The way we perceive words in L1 language affects the way we perceive and learn new words in L2 (Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008: 74). However, despite numerous claims supporting this, the extent of L1 influence on collocational proficiency remains unclear (Arabski 2006: 66-67). The border between collocations and fixed phrases, such as idioms, is relatively hazy, which poses an additional difficulty for L2 learners. However, not only does the very concept of collocations pose the problem to English learners, but the process of their translation into and from a certain language represents a considerable handicap. Although collocations have various forms, seven basic types of collocations are listed as crucial for English language learners: adjective + noun, noun + noun, verb + adjective + noun, verb + adverb, adverb+ verb, adverb+ adjective, verb + preposition + noun (Lewis 2000: 51). The aim of this research is to examine the collocational proficiency among 100 native Croatian learners of English language in several learning institutions in the Zadar area, namely Vladimir Nazor Gymnasium and University of Zadar. The learners will be given a questionnaire containing 70 multiple- choice collocation tasks for translating Croatian expressions into English. This study intends to provide answers for the following research questions: 1. Does collocational proficiency improve with the time spent learning the English language and at what rate? 2. For which types of collocations do English language learners achieve better results and a better rate of improvement? 3. Do English language learners achieve better results with collocations which can be transferred from Croatian, or with those the meaning of which cannot be directly translated, and which may represent “false cognates”? The hypothesis is that the number of years spent learning the language has a positive effect on collocational proficiency, but also that the collocational proficiency and its improvement will be more noticeable for collocations containing nouns and adjectives, than among those involving verbs and adverbs, as English noun and adjective collocations appear to have form and meaning more similar to their Croatian counterparts which allows them to be more easily translatable into Croatian. It is also expected that better understanding will be shown for those collocations which can be transferred from Croatian into English, such as pay cash, than for those which cannot, such as pay attention.

kolokacije, podudarnost, utjecaj L1

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