Collocation, Colligation and Encoding Dictionaries. Part I: Lexicological Aspects

Abstract

This article attempts to synthesise recent advances in collocational theory into a coherent framework for lexicological theory and lexicographic practice. By posing a number of fundamental questions related to the definition of collocation, it critically reviews frequency-based, semantic and pragmatic approaches to collocation. It is found, among other things, that two types of collocation, namely ‘long-distance’ collocation and collocation between semantic features, have suffered almost total neglect. This leads to suggestions for a new division of the collocational spectrum and for a revised definition of ‘collocation’ based on the notions of ‘usage norm’ (Steyer 2000) and ‘holisticity’ (Siepmann 2003). It is argued that this new view of collocation considerably widens the dictionary maker's brief, since future lexicography will have to provide a full account of both structurally simple and structurally complex units, including fixed expressions of regular syntactic-semantic composition (see Part II of this article, to be published in the March issue of this journal).