A research about collocations

Abstract

     This study investigates the effect of collocations on learning English as foreign language. The purpose of this study is to determine whether collocation causes any problem for the learners in the process of language learning. This article aims to determine whether similarities and differences in collocation equivalences in Farsi and English languages produce problems for students. The article takes a contrastive and error analysis view towards the use of collocations in Farsi and English languages. The translatability of the collocations is also under investigation. The research question is that whether we can literally and directly translate the Farsi collocations to English equivalent correctly and without facing any problem? The hypothesis is that collocation is the problematic area for the students and is a challenging category for them to learn. It is expected to come to this conclusion at the end that not all the collocations can be translated directly to the English language. The participants in this study are 50 English language learners at intermediate level from Mehrsajjad Institute, with same English background knowledge. They are randomly selected based on stratified random sample. All of them are female. The ages of the participants are in the range of 23-25 years old. So it is controlled in this study. The collocation knowledge of the participants is measured through 60 item test of adjective+ noun and verb+ adverb structure, which is enclosed at the end of the study. The interpretation of the data is qualitative. The results will be discussed in terms of how the teachers can help the students to overcome these problems effectively, and what the implications are for the learners, teacher, textbook designers, and course designers to help students to learn more natural and fluent language.