How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure
Many scholars believe that collocations are difficult to learn and use by L2 learners. However, some research suggests that learners often know more collocations than commonly thought. This study tested 108 Spanish learners of English to measure their productive knowledge of 50 collocations, which v...
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| Format: | Article |
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John Benjamins Publishing
2015
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32289/ |
| _version_ | 1848794377379381248 |
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| author | González Fernández, Beatriz Schmitt, Norbert |
| author_facet | González Fernández, Beatriz Schmitt, Norbert |
| author_sort | González Fernández, Beatriz |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Many scholars believe that collocations are difficult to learn and use by L2 learners. However, some research suggests that learners often know more collocations than commonly thought. This study tested 108 Spanish learners of English to measure their productive knowledge of 50 collocations, which varied according to corpus frequency, t-score, and MI score. The participants produced a mean score of 56.6% correct, suggesting that our learners knew a substantial number of collocations. Knowledge of the collocations correlated moderately with corpus frequency (.45), but also with everyday engagement with English outside the classroom, in activities like reading, watching movies/TV, and social networking (composite correlation = .56). Everyday engagement also had a stronger relationship with collocation knowledge than years of English study (.45). |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:15:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-32289 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:15:13Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | John Benjamins Publishing |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-322892020-05-04T20:10:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32289/ How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure González Fernández, Beatriz Schmitt, Norbert Many scholars believe that collocations are difficult to learn and use by L2 learners. However, some research suggests that learners often know more collocations than commonly thought. This study tested 108 Spanish learners of English to measure their productive knowledge of 50 collocations, which varied according to corpus frequency, t-score, and MI score. The participants produced a mean score of 56.6% correct, suggesting that our learners knew a substantial number of collocations. Knowledge of the collocations correlated moderately with corpus frequency (.45), but also with everyday engagement with English outside the classroom, in activities like reading, watching movies/TV, and social networking (composite correlation = .56). Everyday engagement also had a stronger relationship with collocation knowledge than years of English study (.45). John Benjamins Publishing 2015 Article PeerReviewed González Fernández, Beatriz and Schmitt, Norbert (2015) How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure. ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 166 (1). pp. 94-126. ISSN 1783-1490 Collocations Productive Knowledge Frequency Exposure Acquisition https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/itl.166.1.03fer/details doi:10.1075/itl.166.1.03fer doi:10.1075/itl.166.1.03fer |
| spellingShingle | Collocations Productive Knowledge Frequency Exposure Acquisition González Fernández, Beatriz Schmitt, Norbert How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title | How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title_full | How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title_fullStr | How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title_full_unstemmed | How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title_short | How much collocation knowledge do L2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| title_sort | how much collocation knowledge do l2 learners have?: the effects of frequency and amount of exposure |
| topic | Collocations Productive Knowledge Frequency Exposure Acquisition |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32289/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32289/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32289/ |