A Corpus-Based Study on “Delexical Verb + Noun” Collocations Made by Korean Learners of English

Abstract

Collocation is one of the essential elements that must be acquired in the second language classroom to reach an advanced level of English proficiency. However, L2 learners of English tend to have difficulty in using native-like collocations. It has been reported that “delexical verb + noun” collocations are particularly difficult for L2 learners from various L1 backgrounds, owing to the fact that delexical verbs are characterized by little or depleted meaning. The present study uses corpus-based analyses to investigate how Korean learners of English use delexical collocations. It compares a learner corpus comprising essays written by Korean university students with a native speaker corpus as a control. The findings of a quantitative analysis indicate that Korean learners significantly underuse delexical collocations and that it would be hard for them to reach a native-like command with regard to this language element. The findings of a qualitative analysis show that Korean learners make quite a few collocational errors with delexical verbs, and that these errors seem to be caused by both interlingual and intralingual influences. These results offer meaningful pedagogic implications for language teachers and researchers in the field of English language teaching.