Following Individuals’ L2 Collocation Development over Time

Abstract

As a particular feature of language use that sits uneasily at the crossroads between formulaic and novel language (Pawley and Syder, 1983; Sinclair, 1991; Wray, 2002; Hoey, 2005), collocation constrains linguistic choice. This restriction of choice raises not only lexical and psycholinguistic questions, but also important sociocultural issues about how second language (L2) adult learners may differently cope with their L2 collocation development. At the lexical and psycholinguistic levels, Wray (2002: 209–12) proposes that, unlike native speakers, post-childhood L2 learners may break collocations down, at the point of encountering them, into individual lexical units, and are then later faced, at the point of use, with the challenge of relinking such separate items, without knowing what might constitute appropriate pairings. Insofar as that is the case, then we could expect that learners are constantly faced with problems of lexical decision making when they attend to their L2 collocation development. Assuming also that we use language, including collocation, to express individual identity and claim group membership, such decision making may be different for an adult English native speaker and an adult L2 learner, with the result that, for some learners, ‘a perfectly nativelike performance may be of relatively little importance’ (Wray, 2002: 212). If so, then we can predict that learners’ shifting sense of identity within particular contexts and communities of use also impinges on their processes of L2 collocation development.