• Learning
• Introduction I
• Reading
• Introduction II
• Noticing I
• Noticing II
• Recycling
• Producing I
• Producing II

30 min

Collocation is the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. For example, in English you say strong wind but heavy rain. It would not be normal to say *heavy wind or *strong rain. And whilst all four of these words would be recognized by a learner at pre-intermediate or even elementary level, it takes a greater degree of competence with the language to combine them correctly in productive use. To a native-speaker these combinations are highly predictable; to a learner they are anything but.

Combinations of words in a language can be ranged on a cline from the totally free (see a man/car/book) to the totally fixed and idiomatic (not see the wood for the trees). This idiom is not only fixed in form, it also has nothing whatever to do with wood or trees. Between these two extremes, there is a whole range of nouns that take the verb see in a way that is neither totally predictable nor totally opaque as to meaning. These run from the fairly "weak" collocationsee a film (which elementary students learn as a "chunk" without pausing to reflect that this is not quite the literal meaning of see) through the "medium strength"see a doctorto the "stronger" collocations of see danger/reason/the point. All these combinations, apart from those at the very extremes of the cline, can be called collocation. And it is combinations such as these (particularly in the "medium-strength" area) that are vital to communicative competence in English.

Collocation runs through the whole of the English language. No piece of natural spoken or written English is totally free of collocation. For the student, choosing the right collocation will make his speech and writing sound much more natural, more native-speaker-like, even when basic intelligibility does not seem to be at issue. A student who talks about *strong rain may make himself understood, but possibly not without provoking a smile or a correction, which may or may not matter. He will certainly be marked down for it in an exam.

But, perhaps even more importantly than this, language that is collocationally rich is also more precise. This is because most single words in the English language (especially the more common words) embrace a whole range of meanings, some quite distinct, and some that shade into each other by degrees. The precise meaning in any context is determined by that context: by the words that sorround and combine with the core word (by collocations). A student who chooses the best collocation will express himself much more clearly and be able to convey not just a general meaning, but something quite precise. Compare, for example, the following two sentences:

Both sentences are prefectly "correct" in terms of grammar and vocabulary, but which communicates more (both about the book under discussion and the person discussing it)?

Now, read the following article to obtain a more complete picture of the nature of collocations: Fontenelle, T. 1994. “What on earth are collocations?”.English Today,40,10 (4): 42-48.