nghiên cứu những lỗi thường gặp trong việc dung quán ngữ chứa động từ do và make của sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại trường đai học kinh tế & quản trị kinh doanh thái nguyên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ------ PHẠM THỊ NGÀ A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE USA

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

- -

PHẠM THỊ NGÀ

A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE

USAGE OF DO AND MAKE COLLOCATIONS BY ENGLISH

NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIỆC DÙNG QUÁN NGỮ

CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ DO VÀ MAKE CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH

Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

Hanoi - 2012

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

- -

PHẠM THỊ NGÀ

A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE

USAGE OF DO AND MAKE COLLOCATIONS BY ENGLISH

NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIỆC DÙNG QUÁN NGỮ

CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ DO VÀ MAKE CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH

Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF DR VÕ ĐẠI QUANG

Ha noi - 2012

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Page Part A: INTRODUCTION ………

1 Rationale of the study ……… …

2 Aims and objectives of the study ……….………

3 Scope of the study ……… …… …

4 Significance of the study ……… ………… …

5 Structure of the study ……….……… ………… …

Part B: DEVELOPMENT ……… ……….……

Chapter 1: Literature Review 1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis …

1.1.1 Related research 1……… …

1.1.2 Related research 2 ………

1.1.8 Related research 8 ……… ……

2 Theoretical background ……… ……

2.1 Collocations ………

2.2 Types of collocations ……… …… …

2.3 Characteristics of collocations ……… …………

2.4 Collocations, free compounds, and idioms ………

2.5 Collocations with Do and Make ……… ………

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3 Summary ………

Chapter 2: Methodology 2.1 Research – governing principles……… ……… … …

2.1.1 Research questions ……….………….…………

2.1.2 Sampling ……… ………

2.1.3 Research setting……….…… …

2.1.4 Research types……….…… …

2.1.5 Research approaches ……… ………

2.1.6 Principle/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis ………

2.2 Research methods………

2.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods ………

2.2.2 Research procedure ………

2.2.3 Data collection instruments ……….………

2.2.4 Data analysis techniques ………

2.3 Summary ……….……

Chapter 3: Analysis, Findings and Discussion ……… …

3.1 Criteria for classification of the findings……….…

3.2 Finding 1 & Discussion on this finding……… …

3.3 Finding 2 & Discussion on this finding……… ….……

3.4 Finding 3 & Discussion on this finding……… …

3.5 Summary ……….……….…

Part C: CONCLUSION ……….………

1 Recapitulation……… ……

2 Concluding remarks……… ……

2.1 Concluding remarks on objective 1……… …

2.1.1 Objective 1 restated

2.1.2 Remarks ……… ………

2.2 Concluding remarks on objective 2………

2.2.1 Objective 2 restated……… …….…

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2.2.2 Remarks……… …

2.3 Concluding remarks on objective 3……….……

2.3.1 Objective 3 restated……… …

2.3.2 Remarks……….………

3 Limitations of the study ……….…….…

4 Suggestions for further studies ……….……

REFERENCES ……… …… …

APPENDICES ………

Appendix 1: Test 1……… …

Appendix 2: Test 2……… … …

Appendix 3: Test 3……… ……….…

Appendix 4: Tables of the collocations under investigation …….… … …

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List of abbreviations

CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary

CUP: Cambridge University Press

OCD: Oxford Collocations Dictionary

OCU: Oxford Collocations in Use

OUP: Oxford University Press

TUEBA: Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration

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List of Tables

Table 1: Collocations under investigation in the thesis

Table 2: Nouns as object constituent in DO collocations

Table 3: Nouns as object constituent in MAKE collocations

Table 4: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of DO

meanings

Table 5: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of MAKE

meanings

Table 6: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as

object constituent in DO collocations

Table 7: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as

object constituent in MAKE collocations

Table 8: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ use of both DO and

MAKE

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Definition of key technical terms

In this thesis, the key technical terms are to be employed in the senses as stated below:

i Error = Misuse or breach of the code arising from incompetence in the target language

ii Context = the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood (Oxford Dictionary) iii Pragmatic meaning = Meaning in context

iv Collocation= a group of words or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning (CALD, 2005)

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Part A: INTRODUCTION

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1 Rationale of the study

“No piece of natural spoken or written English is totally free of collocation” (OCD,

2009) Therefore, learning collocation is important for EFL learners For students, choosing the right collocation will make his/her speech and writing sound much more natural, more native-speaker-like Poor collocation in exams is also likely to lead to lower marks However, during the time working as a teacher of English at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA), I have found out that English non- major students at different levels often make mistakes in using DO and MAKE collocations For this reason, I decided to choose this as the theme for my MA thesis

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The ultimate purposes of the research are:

i To help English non-major students gain an insight into DO and MAKE collocations

ii To examine the influenced factors to possible errors made by the students iii To improve my own teaching of English at TUEBA

To achieve these aims, the following objectives are pursued forward:

 Establishing the types of errors related to DO and MAKE collocations commonly committed by English non-major students at TUEBA

 Finding out the causes of students‟ errors related to the usage of DO and MAKE collocations

 Working out possible solutions to the problems encountered by students in using collocations with DO and MAKE

3 Scope of the study

The survey was conducted at TUEBA The population was not large, only 300 Accounting students who were at pre-intermediate level of English Only errors

related to the uses of DO and MAKE collocations in the form of “verb + noun” pattern were taken into consideration

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4 Significance of the study

It is much to the author‟s expectation that the research results will help students

gain a more insightful look into English MAKE and DO collocations And, on account of this, well-formed utterances containing DO and MAKE collocations

might be produced And, this constitutes the practical value of the research

5 Structure of the thesis

The thesis consists of three main parts: Part A, B and C Part A is an introduction that gives a rationale behind the study It also presents the aims, objectives, the significance as well as scope of the study Part B is divided into three chapters; chapter 1 both reviewed some previous studies related to the research area of the thesis and provides theoretical background to the concerning matters In chapter 2, the methodology of the thesis including research-governing principles and research methods are introduced Chapter 3 analyzes data collected from the students‟ tests Additionally, some significant findings of the study are written up and discussed Part C concludes the main issues which dealt with in the previous parts Accordingly, some concluding remarks are drawn out

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Part B: DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis

Prior to this thesis, there have been the following related studies:

1.1.1 Related research 1

- Title of the research: Applying semantic theory into vocabulary teaching

- Issue raised: The researcher carried out the study to examine collocational knowledge of eight advanced EFL learners of English

- Contribution: The results showed that these students did not succeed in completing

a collocational grid that included adjective-noun collocations although vocabulary was not a problematic matter The researcher emphazised that presenting highly frequent collocates for learners when they start is really important

- Contribution: The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a significant positive relationship between learners‟ general knowledge of vocabulary and their knowledge of collocations The knowledge of the learners‟ on receptive collocation tasks of was better than their productive ones, and the learner had difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in comparison with others

- Title of the research: Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating

diversity with quantitative & qualitative approaches

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- Issues raised: By using two instruments: pretreatment and post-treatment translation tests, Marton investigated Polish learners‟ knowledge of collocations and their abilities to use them

- Contribution: The researcher found that there were no significant differences in the participants‟ scores on the two translation tests, which confirmed learners‟ poor productive knowledge of collocations Marton, therefore, concluded that learners‟ limited exposure to collocation could not improve their productive knowledge of those structures

- Title of the research: The Acquisition of Basic Collocations by Japanese Learners

of English

-Issues raised: In Matsuno and Sugiura‟s study, the researcher probed the question

of whether the collocational expressions of L1 Japanese learners of English resemble those of native speakers Two types of corpora were used to compare the performance of the two groups The Japanese learners were asked to write about a certain topic as fast as possible and they were allowed to use dictionaries

- Contribution: The researcher‟s conclusions also confirmed that Japanese learners

of English were poor at collocational knowledge

- Title of the research: Should we teach EFL students collocations

- Issues raised: The pretreatment and post-treatment translation tests, consisting of a translation task and a gap-filling task were conducted among advanced learners of English with German as a native language

- Contribution: The study showed that the students‟ knowledge of collocations had not developed at the same rate as their knowledge of vocabulary in general

- Title of the research: Prefabricated patterns in Advanced EFL writing:

collocations and formulae in A P Cowie (ed.): Phraeology Theory, analysis and applications

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- Issues raised: The researcher investigated the role of the first language and acquisition of collocations among French learners of English

- Contribution: Granger‟s study confirmed the important role that learners‟ L1 plays

in the use and acquisition of collocations In this study, the researcher studied the difference between native speakers of English and French learners of English in

producing English collocations, in particular adjective amplifiers, such as totally and highly It was found that amplifiers with direct translation equivalents in French

were the most frequent ones She attributed that finding to the L1 positive transfer that facilitated learners‟ acquisition of the similar amplifiers to their L1 (French)

- Title of the research: Do English language learners know collocations?

- Issues raised: Martynska conducted the study of English collocation competencies among intermediate high school Polish students To collect data, the researcher used different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined parts of sentences

- Contribution: The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the length of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short time performed better on the English tests than those who studied English for longer time Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some students got higher scores on the multiple-choice tasks but lower scores on the completion tasks This confirmed that the production of collocation among the students was much lower than their receptive skills Therefore, more attention to collocations when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning process

- Title of the research: The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners

- Issues raised: Elyildirm examined the comprehension and production of the target collocations of the first language (L1) Turkish learners of English By using three

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collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test including two collocation categories, i.e verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun collocations,

- Contribution: The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the production of collocations was quite clear In fact, participants tended to generalize unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently encountered in the textbook Learners also have a tendency to incorrectly overgeneralize their L1 collocational knowledge with unknown collocations, which resulted in L1 negative transfer The researcher also confirmed that acquiring collocations that have L1 equivalent was easier than that of acquiring collocations that have no L1 equivalents Additionally, comparing two types of test it was observed that the participants performed better on the adjective-noun collocation test than verb-noun-collocation test, which they found to be more difficult The researcher recommended the teaching of common collocations and suggested learners to spend much time reading and listening to improve their knowledge of collocations instead of avoiding them

- Title of the research: The use of collocations by advanced learners of English and

some implications for teaching

- Issues raised: Nesslhauf carried out an exploratory study about the use of noun collocations by advanced learners of English and some implications for teaching The researcher pointed out the types of mistakes that learners make and the influence of the degree of restriction of a combination and the influence of the learners‟ L1 on the production of collocations

verb Contribution: The research showed that the highest rate of mistakes occurs in combination with a medium degree of restriction in combination where the verb only takes a few nouns, they are less aware of restrictions in combination where the verb takes a wider range of nouns And, in free combinations and idioms, only a few minor types of mistakes that were not observed in the analysis of collocation

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were identified The findings pointed out that the major types of mistakes that occurred were the same as in collocation The degree of restriction does not have a major influence on the types and amount of mistakes learners make, except that collocations with a low degree of restriction are the most difficult kind of combination for the learners In short, the results showed that almost a quarter of the combinations contained one or several mistakes with non-lexical elements like the articles and prepositions belonging to a combination, not only verb-noun mismatches However, the most common type of mistake was the wrong choice of verbs Therefore, the researcher recommended that teachers should focus on the verb in the teaching of verb-noun collocations

- Title of the research: A study of collocation behaviors on lexical pragmatics

- Issues raised: The study described how collocation behaviors of near synonyms can be recognized from contextual usage data in corpora to improve L2 lexical meaning Concordance and computational techniques were used to analyze collocates in corpora Three transitive verb; cause, promote and commit in students‟ corpus were analyzed to explore the potential of lexical collocation information, and

to observe their collocation behaviors and pragmatic implications

- Contribution: The study showed that the use of collocation profile as an effective instrument in recognizing and learning semantic meaning and pragmatic implications of lexical items was necessary The findings suggested that it could be beneficial for L2 learners to observe the collocates of near synonyms so that recognition of pragmatic characteristics could help improve their lexical usage Taken together, these studies focused on studying collocations in use, and examined learners‟ competence of using English collocations The instruments used to collect results were mainly the application of different tests It could be said that the use of tests was effective for researchers to evaluate learners‟ errors on using collocations Most of the researchers reached conclusions that collocation knowledge of learners studying English as foreign language was insufficient and teaching or learning

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collocations should be paid more attention due to the assumption that collocation teaching and learners‟ development of their collocation competence are necessary and important in order to achieve the globalized standards of English

My research differs from these previous studies in the following ways;

- First, its scale was much narrower and more specific and limited in a small piece

of language use, but directly relevant to students‟ collocation learning

- Second, the research was carried out in the real EFL classroom where Vietnamese

is the learners‟ native language

- Finally, the study investigated errors related to the usage of collocations by examining the use of each element

2 Theoretical background

2.1 Definitions of “collocation”

Forming a precise definition of collocation is not easy, though there is a vast literature on this subject because there are both conflicting definitions and conflicting terminologies: „Regrettably, collocation is a term which is used and understood in many different ways‟ (Bahns, 1993:57)

There have been a lot of ideas when considering the term „collocation‟ Different linguists have their own ways to define what a collocation is A collocation is mainly considered as a lexical relationship between words It is assumed that words receive their meanings from words they occur with One of the works should be

noticed is Second Interim Report on English Collocation (1933) by H.E.Palmer who

is considered the first linguist to use the term Collocation in the present-day sense

According to Palmer, collocation is defined as word combinations containing one or more words having meanings only in that collocation According to Halliday (1966:152), collocation is one of the main components and central part in his lexico-grammatical system He defines collocation as syntagmatic relation of words which is linear co-occurrence together with some measure of significant proximity

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It is a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected

by chance In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme An example of a phraseological collocation, given by Michael Halliday, is the expression „strong tea‟ Although the expression „powerful tea‟ could be roughly conveyed the same meaning, it is considered incorrect by English speakers Or the corresponding expression for computer, „powerful computers‟ is widely used rather than „strong computers‟

In his study, Greenbaum approaches collocation as an integration between lexis and grammar which are different in lexical and syntactic patterning but interrelated

“Collocation meaning is changed according to different syntactic patterning” (Greenbaum, 1960:12) The term „collocation‟ introduced by Firth (1957) is often defined as a characteristic word combination whose lexical constituents developed

an idiomatic relation based on their frequent co-occurrence According to Cruse,

1984 a collocation, along with a lexeme and an idiom, is a kind of lexical item and

is “Sequences of lexical items, which habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent” (Cruse, 1986:40) Although there are a variety of views on the concept of collocation, variously defining it as a lexical, grammatical or research phenomenon, all contain a focus on the co-occurrence of words According to Micheal Mc Carthy and Felicity O‟Dell (2005:4)

“a collocation is a pair or group of words that are often used together These combinations sound natural to native speakers, but students of English have to make a special effort to learn them because they are often difficult to guess Some combinations just sound 'wrong to native speakers of English For example, the adjective fast collocates with cars, but not with a glance.”

Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (CALD, 2005) defines collocation as

„a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning In the phrase 'a hard

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frost', 'hard' is a collocation of 'frost' and 'strong' would not sound natural‟

or „the combination of words formed when two or more words are frequently used together in a way that sounds correct but difficult to guess.‟

Here are some different definitions given by Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009) (OCD)

“- The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with frequency greater than chance

- A pair or group of words that are juxtaposed in such a way

- the action of placing things side by side or in position”

- A grouping of words in a sentence

- Juxtaposition: the act of positioning close together (or side by side); "it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors"

- (Collocate) have a strong tendency to occur side by side; "The words 'new' and 'world' collocate"

- (Collocate) group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side

- Within the area of corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance

- Collocation is a procedure used in remote sensing to match measurements from two or more different instruments

- The grouping or juxtaposition of things especially words or sounds

- The tendency for words to occur regularly with others: sit/chair, house/garage

- The phenomenon of words/lexical items tending to co-occur in close proximity to one another in spoken/written discourse (i.e habitual or greater-than-chance co-selection of words)

- The likelihood that a particular word will occur in the neighborhood of another word

- The action of setting in place, especially arranging in relation to others

- Group of words associated together as an expression in the lexicon Our

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class has decided "in this particular case" is a collocation in McGowan's idiolect

- A collocation consists of two or more words that are commonly associated

in a particular language, such as „read about‟ or „white lies‟ A word may take on a specific meaning when collocated with certain other words

- Refers to how words occur together regularly and in a restricted way – e.g blonde hair, lean meat, etc

Although there are different ways to define what collocation is, these definitions share a common view that a collocation is a word or phrase used frequently in a combination but it is not easy for learners to guess

be considered as lexical collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepts the structural view of collocation) A lexical collocation is a type of construction where a verb, noun, adjective or adverb forms a predictable connection with another word, as in:

Adverb + Adjective: e.g completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)

Adjective + Noun: e.g excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)

Noun + Verb: e.g lions roar (NOT lions shout)

Verb + Noun: e.g commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)

 Grammatical collocations

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A grammatical collocation is a type of construction where, for example, a verb or an adjective must be followed by a particular preposition, or a noun must be followed

by a particular form of the verb, as in:

Verb + Preposition: e.g depend on (NOT depend of)

Adjective + Preposition: e.g afraid of (NOT afraid at)

Noun + Particular form of verb: e.g strength to lift it (not strength lifting it)

By Michael Mc Carthy and Felicity O‟Dell (2005: 9-12), collocations are classified

as following;

- Adjectives and nouns

Some adjectives are typically used with particular nouns

“Jean always wears red or yellow or some other bright colour.”

“We had a brief chat about the exams but didn't have time to discuss them properly.”

- Nouns and verbs

Some nouns and verbs often go together The following examples are all to do with economics and business

“The economy boomed in the 1990s.” [the economy was very strong]

“The company has grown and now employs 50 more people than last year.”

“The company has expanded and now has branches in most major cities.”

“The two companies merged in 2003 and now form one very large corporation.”

“The company launched the product in 2002 [introduced the product]”

“The price increase poses a problem for us [is a problem]”

“The Internet has created opportunities for our business, [brought new opportunities]” Mc Carthy, M & Felicity O‟Dell, F (2005:12)

- Noun + noun

There are a lot of collocations with the pattern a of

“As Sam read the lies about him, he felt a surge of anger, [literary: a sudden angry feeling]”

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Mc Carthy, M & Felicity O‟Dell, F (2005:12)

- Verbs and expressions with prepositions

Some verbs collocate with particular prepositional expressions

“As Jack went on stage to receive his gold medal for the judo competition you could see his parents swelling with pride, [looking extremely proud]”

“I was filled with horror when I read the newspaper report of the explosion.”

“When she spilt juice on her new skirt the little girl burst into tears, [suddenly started crying]”

- Verbs and adverbs

Some verbs have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them

“She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety, [pulled firmly and evenly]”

“He placed the beautiful vase gently on the window ledge.”

„I love you and want to marry you,' Derek whispered softly to Marsha

“She smiled proudly as she looked at the photos of her new grandson.”

- Adverbs and adjectives

Adjectives often have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them

“They are happily married.”

“I am fully aware that there are serious problems [I know well]”

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Collocations can be described in a number of ways The ways of thinking about

them can be in terms of “degree of fixedness” or “degree of predictability”

- A less fixed collocation is often a more structural - common pattern that helps structure a sentence but don't carry as much specific meaning by itself For example, this is a commonly used structural pattern into which you can insert a variety of words and still have commonly used patterns:

 Let's move on to the next point

 Let's go back to the last chapter

 Let's move away from this paragraph

 Let's look at tomorrow's homework

 Let's go on to the main point

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Another example is “take a photo”, where no word other than take collocates with

photo to give the same meaning Some collocations are more open, where several

different words may be used to give a similar meaning, for example, “keep to/stick

to the rules.”

On the other hand, there are some less fixed collocations which are not as clearly structural Words that are commonly used with other words are examples of less fixed collocations which are not as structural in nature So for example, we use

"bus" and "car" with only certain sets of other words:

We say "get on a bus"/"climb on a bus" but usually not "enter a bus" or "get in a

bus" However, we say "get in a car"

We say "take the bus"/"ride the bus"/"go there on the bus" but usually not "We can

drive there on the bus" However we say "We can drive there in her car."

Degree of predictability

According to J R Firth, collocation can be classified as strong or weak due to the degree of predictability in their association If we look deeper into collocations, we find that not only do the words "go together" but there is a degree of predictability

in their association Generally, in any collocation, one word will "call up" another word in the mind of a native speaker In other words, if one word appears, we can predict the other word, with varying degrees of success This predictability is not perfectly understandable, but it is always much higher than with non-collocates The predictability may be strong: for example "auspicious" collocates with very few

words, as in: auspicious occasion, auspicious moment, and auspicious event Or the

predictability may be weak: for example, "circuit" collocates with a lot of words, as

in: racing circuit, lecture circuit, talk-show circuit, short circuit, closed circuit…

2.4 Collocations, free compounds, and idioms

In order to determine learners‟ difficulties with collocations, it is necessary to delimitate collocations from other types of word combination In his book, a practical guide to lexicography, Piet Van Sterkenburg assumed that if the user wants to look up a multiple-word item and his general- purpose dictionary does not

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provide sufficient information, he has to decide whether the lexical unit in question

is to be classified as a collocation, an idiom or a phrasal verb in order to choose the right reference work Therefore, delimitating collocation from other types of word combinations would be useful for learners of foreign language In this paper, the

“collocation” is used to denote a type of word combinations This part mainly focused on three kinds of word combinations: collocations, free word combination and idiom

Idioms are: „multi-word items that are not the sum of their parts: they have holistic meanings which cannot be retrieved from the individual meanings of the component

words (Moon, 1997:46), for example, spill the beans However „idioms are by no

means as fixed as conventional accounts suggest‟

Collocation as mentioned above, however, corresponds to a conventional combinations of words, which are not necessary contiguous and whose meaning is roughly speaking compositional Conventional combinations mean that native speakers recognize such combinations as the „correct‟ way of expressing a particular concept For instance, substituting one term of a collocation with a synonym or a near-synonym is usually felt by native speakers as being „not quite

right‟, although perfectly understandable For example, firing and burning are synonymous but firing ambition is different from burning ambition

Free word combination can be defined as sequences of words that occur most frequently where the meaning of the whole is the sum of the meanings of its constituent words and any word of them can be substituted by a large class of

words (e.g., the noun murder can be used with many verbs: to analyze, boast of,

condemn, describe, film, forget, remember etc.) (Aisenstadt, 1979)

In addition, criteria to distinguish collocation from other types of combinations were discussed here In fact, word combination is not clearly delimitable Different researchers have used different criteria but only the most widely accepted defining criterion for collocation mentioned here is namely arbitrary restriction on substitutability In other words, a distinction is made in which a possible restriction

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read requires a noun with the semantic property of “containing written language”

In another combination, for example, make a decision, in contrast, decision can be substituted by a number of nouns such as, make a plan, make a point, make a profit, make a promise, make a remark, make a sound, make a speech This restriction

doesn‟t seem to be a result of the semantic properties of the two elements concerned, but a somewhat arbitrary convention on language However, it is often difficult to draw a distinction between semantic restriction and arbitrary restriction

In his research, Nadja stated that the distinction between these two types is even impossible to make with words which only combine with very few other words The researcher gave illustration of the combination „to dial a number‟ The meaning of

the verb dial is difficult to determine whether its meaning is so specific that it can combine with a number or whether there has an arbitrary restriction that dial cannot combine with radio station (not dial a radio station) Nadja created a notion called

„restricted sense‟, therefore, a sense of a verb is considered restricted if it applies one of the two following criteria as follow,

 The sense of the verb is so specific that it allows combination with only a small set of nouns

 The verb cannot be used in this sense with all nouns that are syntactically and semantically possible

The primary sense of the verbs DO and MAKE would be considered unrestricted according to this definition because they can combine with a variety of nouns (do a favor, do harm, do business, do housework, and make a cake, make food, make a fortune, make friends, make a fuss, make a journey…) and there are no arbitrary constrains on its combinability

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On the basic of this notion of restricted sense, three major classes of word combinations can be distinguished as following:

Free combination: the senses in which the verb and the noun are used are

unrestricted, so they can be freely combined according to these senses, for example,

want a book

Collocations: The sense in which the noun is used is unrestricted, but the sense of

the verb used is restricted, so that the verb in the sense in which it is used could be

only combined with certain nouns E.g take a picture but take a film

Idioms: Both the verb and the noun used are in a restricted sense, so substitution is

either impossible or only possible to an extremely limited degree

Thus, a combination is classified as collocation if one of the criteria or both of them mentioned above applies to the verb or noun of the combination

2.5 Collocations with DO and MAKE

DO and MAKE are considered "light verbs" that lend relatively little semantic content For people who are learning English, or even who speak it moderately well, these two verbs present difficulties when it comes to many collocations This part attempts to clear up some of the most common doubts and errors As discussed above, collocations with Do and Make can be grouped into lexical collocations with

the form as in: verb + noun, for example, do harm, make money… Some meanings

of these verbs are given by Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary as follows:

 Usage of Do provided by Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD)

- To act or take action:

E.g "Was it wrong of me to go to the police?" "Oh no, I'm sure you did right/did the right thing."

- To arrange something:

You've done those flowers beautifully

- To be acceptable, suitable or enough (for):

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Will this room do or would you prefer one with a shower?

This kind of behaviour just won't do

- To provide or sell something, or to cause someone to have something:

There's a special offer on and they're doing three for the price of two

Do you do travel insurance as well as flights?

The pub only does food at lunchtimes, not in the evenings

- To cheat someone:

Fifty bucks for that old bike! You've been done!

He did me for a thousand quid for that car

- To clean or tidy, or make something look attractive:

I want to do (= clean) the living room this afternoon

I cooked the dinner so you can do (= wash) the dishes

do your hair/make-up/nails

- To cook or prepare food:

Who's doing the food for your party?

- To deal with; to be responsible for:

Lucia is going to do the publicity for the school play

If they ask any awkward questions, just let me do the talking

If you say that you have done with something or someone, or have done performing

a particular action, you mean that you have finished what you were doing with something or someone, or what you were saying to someone, or that you have finished the action:

Have you done with those scissors yet?

Where the hell are you going? I haven't done with you yet

- To be unable to bear something, or to have no patience with it:

I can't be doing with all this shouting and screaming

Do as you would be done by

- To happen:

This town is so boring in the evening - there's never anything doing

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- To make, produce or create something:

I can't come out tonight - I've got to do my history essay

Can you do me 20 photocopies of this report/do 20 photocopies of this report for me?

- To develop or continue with the stated amount of success; to manage:

Many shops are doing badly because of the economic situation

I did rather well when I traded in my car - they gave me a good price for it Alexa has done well for herself (= has achieved great personal success), getting such a highly paid job

- To perform, take part in or achieve something:

That was a really stupid thing to do

Why were you sent home from school early? What have you done now? What are you doing over the weekend?

- To do sth about sth to take action to deal with something:

It's a global problem - what can individuals do about it?

- To have/not have a strong and positive effect on someone, or to be/not be something or someone that they like or enjoy:

Watching that film really did something to me

-To perform a play or to play the part of a character:

The children are doing a play at the end of term

She's done all the important Shakespearean roles apart from Lady Macbeth

I hope she doesn't do a Helen (= do what Helen did) and get divorced six months after her wedding

- To spend time in prison:

He did three years for his part in the robbery

If you're not careful you'll end up doing time again

- To punish someone:

If you mess with me again, I'll do you good and proper

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I got done (= stopped by the police) for speeding on my way home last night

- To solve, or find the answer to something:

I've never been able to do crosswords/ to do a puzzle

- To enter a building illegally and steal from it:

Our house was done while we were away

- To study a subject:

Diane did anthropology at university

- To take an illegal drug:

How long have you been doing heroin?

I don't do drugs

- To travel a particular distance or to travel at a particular speed:

It's an old car and it's done over 80 000 miles

My new car does 50 miles to the gallon/30 km to the litre (= uses one gallon

of fuel to travel 50 miles, or one litre to travel 30 km)

We were doing 150 (km an hour) along the motorway

- To complete a journey:

We did the journey to Wales in five hours

- To visit the interesting places in a town or country, or to look around an interesting place:

We didn't manage to do Nice when we were in France

 Usage of Make given by Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD, 2005)

- To arrive at or reach, especially successfully:

She made it to the airport just in time to catch her plane

He made it to the bed and then collapsed

Could you make a meeting at 8 am? /Could you make 8 am for the meeting?

- To be or become something, usually by having the necessary characteristics:

I don't think he will ever make a (good) lawyer

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He's a competent enough officer, but I doubt he'll ever make general

Champagne and caviar make a wonderful combination

The story makes fascinating reading

- To calculate as:

How much do you make the total?

I make the answer (to be) 105.6

What do you make the time? /What time do you make it?

- To cause something:

The kids made such a mess in the kitchen

The bullet made a hole right through his chest

The photograph makes me look about 80!

- To cause to be, to become or to appear as:

It's the good weather that makes Spain such a popular tourist destination She had to shout to make herself heard above the sound of the music

I'll have a steak - no, make that chicken

- To take action so that you are certain that something happens, is true, etc:

I'll just make sure I've turned the oven off

Make certain (that) we have enough drink for the party

I think I locked the door but I'll go back and check just to make sure

- To produce something, often using a particular substance or material:

Shall I make some coffee?

He'd made a chocolate cake

She makes all her own clothes

 DO and MAKE with the same noun as object constituent but different

meanings

DO and MAKE are two different lexical items; therefore, their meanings are specific and not the same Based on the theory given in the previous part,

collocation of the verb do (e.g do time) is different from collocation of make (e.g

make time) with regard to the meaning According to CALD, to do time means to be

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a prisoner in prison, but to make time for an activity means to arrange one's agenda

so that there is enough time to do that activity Clearly, we cannot substitute do by

make in the collocation to do time In other words, it seems unacceptable or wrong

to say to make time means to be a prisoner in prison, and to do time for an activity

means to arrange one's agenda so that there is enough time to do that activity In fact, it is difficult to say that the combination of a verb and a noun in a collocation

is correct or wrong Native speaker norms seem to be particularly variable in the area of collocations; speakers differ in what they find acceptable, individual speakers are often uncertain about whether they find a combination acceptable or not In addition, there can be differences between the acceptability, judgments of speakers and their own uses The following examples are given to compare the

meanings of a pair of collocation with different verbs (do and make) but the same

noun However, their meanings in most cases are clearly differentiated as follows:

+„Do‟ for activities: „We use the verb 'do' to express daily activities or jobs These

are usually activities that produce no physical object…‟ e.g do homework, do

housework, do the ironing, do the dishes, do a job

+'Do' for General Ideas: „We use the verb 'do' when speaking about things in

general, in other words, when we do not exactly name an activity This form is often used with the words 'something, nothing, anything, everything, etc.'

e.g I'm not doing anything today

He does everything for his mother

She's doing nothing at the moment

+'Make' for Constructing, Building, Creating: „We use 'make' to express an activity that creates something that you can touch‟ E.g make food, make a cup of tea /

coffee, and make a mess It is said that in light-verb constructions "make" implies an

active role by the subject, who causes something new to occur or come into existence from pre-existing material or a pre-existing situation or the normal course

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Do usually means to perform an activity or job

I should do more exercise vs I should make more exercise

Make usually means to create or produce something

Did you make the dress yourself? vs Did you do the dress yourself?

- Do one's best, make the best of:

If you do your best, it means you have acted correctly and that no-one can expect

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