Collocational Knowledge versus General Linguistic Knowledge among Iranian

Collocational Knowledge versus General Linguistic Knowledge among Iranian EFL Learners

a7.pdf

Hossein Shokouhi
Shahid Chamran University, Iran
shokouhi_hossein@yahoo.com
Gholam-Ali Mirsalari
Payam-Noor University, Iran
Abstract
This study has a twofold purpose. The first and foremost is to see
whether there exists any correlation between the collocational
knowledge and general linguistic knowledge of EFL learners. The
second is to reveal which type(s) of collocation is or are more difficult
for EFL learners. To this end, 35 subjects, screened by a proficiency
test, were given a 90-item multiple-choice test including lexical
collocations (noun+noun, noun+verb, verb+noun, and
adjective+noun), and grammatical collocations (noun+preposition and
preposition+noun). A native speaker checked the final version of the
data and necessary corrections were made. The results showed that a)
there was no significant correlation between general linguistic
knowledge and collocational knowledge of EFL learners, and b) the
grammatical collocations were more difficult than the lexical
collocations for learners and from among all subcategories,
noun+preposition was the most difficult and noun+verb was the
easiest.