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Article published In: Cumulative Knowledge Building in Learner Corpus Research
Edited by Tove Larsson and Douglas Biber
[International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 11:1] 2025
► pp. 79–113

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Adjective + noun collocations in L2 spoken English

How robust is the role of proficiency?

ORCiD logo with link | Lancaster University
 | Lancaster University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Lancaster University.

Published online: 9 December 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.23034.gab
Abstract
This study explores the development of L2 phraseological knowledge, focusing on the relationship between L2 proficiency and the use of adjective-noun combinations from the perspective of collocation density and association strength. While a growing body of evidence suggests that more advanced L2 production tends to be characterised by (i) a greater collocation density and (ii) more strongly associated collocations, several studies did not find this trend. The present study draws on the British Council-Lancaster Aptis Corpus and data from four proficiency levels (A2-C of the CEFR) to test a hypothesis about the direction of collocation development in order to contribute to a systematic advancement of knowledge about the development of productive L2 collocation use. The study replicates some of the key findings from previous research, confirming that these trends are generalisable to different samples of L2 speakers and across different modes of communication.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General background
    • 2.1Trends in a‑n collocation research in relation to language proficiency
    • 2.2Factors that affect the collocation patterns in relation to proficiency level
      • 2.2.1Learning patterns associated with L2 collocation development
      • 2.2.2Conceptualisation of collocations
      • 2.2.3Conceptualisation of language proficiency
      • 2.2.4Mode of communication
  • 3.The present study
    • 3.1Aims and hypotheses
    • 3.2Methodology
      • 3.2.1Data
    • 3.3Procedure
      • 3.3.1Methodological approach
      • 3.3.2Identifying a‑n combinations
      • 3.3.3Collocation measures and data analysis
        • (i)Frequency of a‑n co-occurrence (collocation frequency)
        • (ii)Mutual information (MI) score
        • (iii)Log Dice
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (52)
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