Much linguistic research asserts that fixed forms of expression in every language are stored in the memories of native speakers as whole chunks, not just single words.
Therefore, L2 vocabulary learning should not concern merely acquisition of individual words. It is also imperative to learn multiword expressions. Of all multiword expressions, collocation is one of the intricate and versatile aspects. L2 learners need to understand why a word is commonly found in company of one or more others, and how a particular word combination is formed. Over the years, many collocation studies have been conducted with either thesaurus-based or corpus-based approaches. In general, the thesaurus-based approaches probe into lexical meanings
and semantic relations. As a recent trend, the corpus-based approaches investigate L2 collocation processing and miscollocations and greatly contribute to the inquiry of word co-occurrence and relatedness (Jian, Chang & Chang, 2004; Nesselhauf, 2005;
Nelson, 2006; Chen, 2007; Lin, 2010; Liu, 2010a, 2010b). Both approaches have its unique strength and suited purposes. To gain insights into L2 learners’ collocation use and cognitive processing, the present study adopts the computational notion of lexical semantic similarity and explores congruency effects on collocation processing.
It has been an intriguing issue in collocation research to understand how L2 learners determine one felicitous lexical meaning to fit in a collocation. For instance, words with synonymous, polysemyous or L1 equivalent meanings have various influences on collocation processing. The word “cut” has fifty-one meanings in
Merriam-Webster Dictionary (Sokolowski et al., 2006). L2 learners need to choose a
felicitous meaning for collocation use such as “cut a deal”. If they fail to retrieve a felicitous meaning from their lexical network, arcane or awkward communication may occur. The multifaceted nature of lexical meaning makes collocation processing and formation more intricate. A number of researchers in the discipline of lexical semantics have long been studying how lexical semantic and conceptual links form (Firth, 1957; Sinclair, 1991; Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Louw, 1993; Koya, 2002; Laufer, 2003; Nesselhauf, 2005; Brashi, 2006; Siyanova, 2008). It is crucial to understand how L2 learners tackle collocational meanings and to find out the factors which influence their conceptual links with each lexical component. In addition, a cross-linguistic conceptual link between a collocate and an L1 counterpart play its part in collocational composition. For instance, substratum L1-L2 transfer occurs constantly in the linguistic processing. Another reason is that theoretical concepts of collocation congruency remain vague and lack explicit criteria for subjectively dichotomous congruency classification (Koya, 2005; Webb & Kagimoto, 2009;Yamashita & Jiang, 2010; Wolter & Gyllstad, 2011). One of the fundamental research issues in the current study is to elaborate congruency so as to better characterize cross-linguistic semantic relations and to better reveal L2 collocation processing behaviors.
To modify the properties of collocational congruency, the present study first put forth the operational definition of collocation which is adapted as a recurring combination of lexemes (e.g., commit suicide), forming a particular syntactic unit (e.g., verb–object noun). A collocation is formulated by two elements, a “base” that keeps its usual meaning as auto-semantic words (Sinclair, 1991; Hausmann, 1999) and the other is a “collocate” that relies on syn-semantic words and has a less transparent meaning. Both of the elements have a certain internal relationship, determined by the collocational direction and attraction of one element towards the other. This oriented relation is multi-dimensional for both collocation elements in four aspects, leading to a positioning of each element on the respective dimensions – lexical, semantic, statistical, and structural. In such broad dimensions, the criteria on selection of collocation candidates are essential. In terms of the binary or ternary classification system proposed by Howarth (1998) and Nesselhauf (2003), the current study uses three criteria to retrieve collocation candidates. The criteria include
verb-noun and adjective-noun combinations, semi-restricted collocations, as well as
binary type at the span of two words.Congruency of binary collocations is the prime target for research observation of L2 learners’ collocational processing. Since the collocational processing involves collocations in context, not just collocation per se, it is necessary to take contextual information into account. As Louw (1993) indicated, lexical meaning is the result of a diachronic process, whereby meaning has been transferred from one word to another, as being a ‘‘consistent aura of meaning with which a form is imbued by its
collocates’’ (p. 157). For example, a CNN journalist reported, “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ‘categorically denied’ Wednesday any US involvement in the car bombing of an Iranian nuclear…” For L2 learners, it is a daunting task to explain the meaning of “categorically denied” without the surrounding cotext. In general, the cotext could convey important lexical information which helped infer the meaning as “downright denied” because the event did not occur in partial possibilities.
If the journalist used “completely denied”, it was easier for non-native speakers of English to grasp the meaning, especially for Chinese L2 learners because it was congruent with Chinese meaning, “完全否認 (wuan chuan fou ren, completely denied) ”. As indicated by Yamashita and Jiang (2010), collocations are largely cross-linguistic. It is thus believed that L2 collocations with L1 counterparts are more comprehensible to L2 learners. Also, collocations with similar L1-L2 culture-specific concepts can easily be inferred. For example, many languages have the expressions similar to “strong head”, “fierce argument” and “heavy traffic” (Carter & McCarthy, 1988; Schmitt & Carter, 2004), as in Chinese “意志堅強 (yi zhi jian qiang)”, “激烈 爭論 (ji lie zheng lun)” and “交通繁忙 (jiao tong fan mang)”.
Many empirical studies have focused on investigation of the cross-linguistic problems in L2 collocations (Zhang, 1993; Koya, 2002; Wolter, 2006; Xiao &
McEnery, 2006; Siyanova, 2008; Webb & Kagimoto, 2009). As Wolter (2006) pointed out, L2 collocation processing and learning are more susceptible to the cross-linguistic factors and the particular components of word combination. The factors can be facilitative, but sometimes inhibitory. For example, Yamashita and Jiang (2010) claimed that L2 learners can grasp the collocational meaning immediately in the case of congruent collocations. On the other hand, incongruent collocations are more difficult for them to understand and produce. The characteristics of collocations cause more complex learning problems, even for the advanced learners.
Moreover, the cross-linguistic nature and flexibility of the component words link to form collocations carry significant effects on collocation variation. Various languages may use identical, similar or even totally different components to indicate the target meaning. Recent collocation studies have explored whether cross-linguistic lexical activation is valid for composing L2 collocations (Lesniewska & Witalisz, 2007;
Durrant, 2008; Yamashita, & Jiang, 2010;
Wolter & Gyllstad, 2011). Difficulties of
collocation learning caused by the cross-linguistic factors are also evident in some empirical studies albeit evaluation of the cross-linguistic influence is not the focal point of their research. In this regard, such discussion can be found in the collocational teaching studies (Kellerman & Smith, 1986; Kennedy, 1990; Farghal &Obiedat, 1995; Gitsaki, 1999; Hoey, 2000; McCarthy & O’Dell, 2005; Hsieh, 2007;
Laufer & Waldman, 2011). From a broader perspective, some collocation research evidences indicated the relationship between collocational problems and the L1 influence in collocational processing (Lennon, 1996; Nesselhauf, 2003; Murao, 2004;
Martelli, 2006; Shehata, 2008; Walker, 2011).
Overall, collocational congruency involves L2 learners’ conceptual network and cross-linguistic lexical processing. The rationale of the study is based on Kroll and Stewart’s (1994) Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) and Dijkstrat and Van Heuven’s (1998, 2002) Bilingual Interactive Activation Model (BIA). Yamashita and Jiang’s (2010) adapted Jiang’s (2000) notions and the three memory representations in RHM, i.e., (1) concepts, (2) L1 lexicon and (3) L2 lexicon. These three representations are connected in terms of two levels: conceptual and lexical levels. The former refers to the link between concepts and L1 or L2 lexicons, and the latter refers to the link between L1 and L2 lexicons. Kroll and Tokowicz (2001) indicated that it is relatively easy to find an L1 lexicon corresponding to an L2 lexicon because the L1 lexical network normally has a larger number of lexical items. Based on this model,
Yamashita and Jiang (2010) postulated when learners try to understand an L2 collocation, they first translate it into L1, and retrieve L1 lexical links from their L1 lexical network. They further exerted the strong link from the L1 lexicon to its concepts to grasp the meaning of the L2 collocation.
The role of L1 word meaning in L2 collocational processing has been extrinsically discussed in a few empirical studies. (Talamas, Kroll & Dufour, 1999;
Jiang, 2001; Nesselhauf, 2003; Sunderman & Kroll, 2006). Nonetheless, the concepts that congruent collocations are more readily comprehensible and accessible to L2 learners have not been verified until more recent studies provided evidences (Koya, 2005; Nesselhauf, 2005; Ueno, 2006; Yamashita & Jiang, 2010; Wolter & Gyllstad, 2011). Ueno (2006) first posed an important concept that L2 processing involves not only L1 translation equivalents of single word but L1 lexical networks which are activated when L2 learners recognize an L2 word. Later, Yamashita and Jiang (2010), in view of the cross-linguistic relationship, made a distinction between congruent collocations and incongruent collocations. Wolter and Gyllstad (2011) further claimed that L1 has an effect on the development of L2 collocation knowledge. Their finding suggests that L2 learners recognize L1-L2 collocations more effectively than L2-only collocations. However, these related studies need a systematic and objective measure to determine the congruence or incongruence of a collocation. The current study employs two lexical semantic measures to evaluate the semantic differences between a collocate and a transferred word with L1 sense. L1-L2 (congruence) and L2-only (incongruence) collocations carry different numeric values of semantic similarity of the two words. According to Yamashita and Jiang’s model of three memory representations (2010), it is hypothesized that if the two words (collocate and
transferred word) corresponding in a congruent collocation have closer meanings, it
indicates it is easier to transfer from L1 word sense to L2 lexicon and then acquire thecollocation meaning.