A Corpus-based Study On Chinese EFL Learners’ Use Of Delexical Verb+Noun Collocations

Verb-noun collocations have long been a hot topic in the field of second language acquisition.Delexical verbs,though weakened in meaning,are very productive in combining with a large number of nouns or noun phrases,thus delexical verb + noun collocations have assumed increasing importance.There is mounting evidence that delexicalized collocations facilitate L2 fluency,accuracy,coherence and idiomaticity.With the help of CLEC,the present study tries to investigate L2 learners’ collocational competence,with the native speakers’ corpus(COCA)as the benchmark,so as to better know the features of delexicalized collocations by learners across different L2 proficiency,and to bring to light the problems and challenges that such collocations pose for L2 learners.To be specific,taking make as a typical delexical verb,the present study investigates delexicalized collocations from the four distinct yet complementary aspects,namely,frequency,variety of collocates,complexity of patterns and accuracy.The research questions are as follows:1)What are the features of frequency of the delexical make + noun collocations by Chinese learners,and across different L2 proficiency?2)What are the features of variety of collocates of the delexical make + noun collocations by Chinese learners,and across different L2 proficiency?3)What are the features of complexity of patterns of the delexical make + noun collocations by Chinese learners,and across different L2 proficiency?4)What are the features of accuracy of the delexical make + noun collocations by Chinese learners,and across different L2 proficiency?The make + noun collocations and the corresponding concordances were first scrutinized,with the help of Ant Conc 3.2.1.Then,these collocations were manually examined to identify delexicality.Furthermore,Chi-Square Calculator is used to see whether there is a substantive difference between the two raw frequencies.The major findings are as the following:1)For the general frequency,the present study found an overuse phenomenon,namely,L2 learners produced more delexicalized collocations than native speakers.Moreover,there was an inverted U-shaped development as L2 learners’ language proficiency increased,with the intermediate learners producing more delexicalized collocations than the other two groups.2)For the variety of collocates,the present study found that native speakers employed far more types and a greater variety of collocates than L2 learners.In addition,L2 learners made progress in type and variety with the development of language proficiency.The higher frequency but lower variety of collocates showed that L2 learners used their familiar delexicalized collocations repeatedly.3)For the complexity of patterns,the present study found that L2 learners failed to produce complex delexicalized collocations as native speakers.Specifically,L2 learners produced more pattern A collocations(make +(a/an/the)+ N),a narrower semantic scope in pattern B collocations(make +(a/an/the)+ adj + N)and fewer types in pattern C collocations(make +(a/an/the)+ adj + N + preposition)than native speakers.No significant change in complexity happened with L2 proficiency.4)For the accuracy,the present study found a U-shaped development with the growth in language proficiency,with the intermediate learners being the least accurate group.The beginners made more errors related to articles and prepositions while errors of verb-choice were more common in the intermediate and upper-intermediate learners.The findings of the present study have both theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,as for the acquisition of delexicalized collocations,a small set of fixed delexicalized collocations were stored as single entities in L2 learners’ mental lexicon.L1 influenced learners’ choice of noun collocates at two different levels.Specifically,at the lexical-syntactical level,L2 learners had a strong preference for the delexicalized collocations translatable word-for-word in L1.At the conceptual level,under the influence of cultural conventions,they preferred the collocates that flags a proactive stance.Practically,under the influence of curriculum-based instruction and exam-oriented L2 learning context,the delexicalized overuse phenomenon happened.In comparison with native speakers,L2 learners failed to achieve linguistic productivity and richness.L2 learners’ collocational competence needed to be strengthened.Moreover,L2 learners had different difficulties in producing delexicalized collocations.The beginners had trouble using articles and prepositions appropriately while errors of verb-choice were more common in the intermediate and upper-intermediate learners.The results can help researchers and teachers in the Chinese instruction-aided context revisit their teaching methods of delexicalized collocations,so as to improve learners’ linguistic creativity and productivity.