An Empirical Study On The Acquisition Of Adjective-noun Collocational Knowledge By Chinese Learners Of English

Based on collocational framework put forward by Nation (2001) and the integrated approach to collocational analysis proposed by Wei (1999), this empirical study aims to investigate the possible developmental pattern in the acquisition of English adjective-noun collocational knowledge. The study examines how 90 Chinese learners of English at three different EFL proficiency levels (lower-intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced proficiency levels) acquire the three types of adjective-noun collocational knowledge (the polysemous, synonymous and deverbal participial adjective-noun collocational knowledge) both receptively and productively. Evidence for the development of adjective-noun collocational knowledge is sought in comparing the receptive and productive mastery of the three types of adjective-noun collocational knowledge across and within language proficiency levels. The statistical techniques employed for analysis are descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and paired-samples T-tests. Through the interpretation of the quantitative and qualitative results, we can generate the following conclusions:1. The development of adjective-noun collocational knowledge is linked with second language proficiency level. Generally speaking, the higher the language proficiency level is, the more adjective-noun collocational knowledge can be acquired.2. Within the same language proficiency level, there appears to be a hierarchical development in the acquisition of the three types of adjective-noun collocational knowledge investigated in this study. The synonymous adjective-noun collocational knowledge is acquired least among the three types of adjective-noun collocational knowledge. The reason for the result may be that semantic net building is a very slow process. At the lower-intermediate proficiency level, the polysemous adjective-noun collocational knowledge appears to be mastered better than the deverbal participial one. At the upper-intermediate and advanced proficiency levels, the deverbal participial adjective-noun collocational knowledge seems to be acquired better than the polysemous one.3. The development from the receptive mastery to productive mastery is a slow process. In normal language learning conditions, receptive use (such as listening, reading) generally obtains more practice than productive use, which may be an important reason in accounting for the gap between receptive knowledge and productive knowledge4. The possible factors affecting the development in the acquisition of adjective-noun collocational knowledge include frequency in the input of collocation components, an order in a certain type of collocation, L1/L2 difference, language proficiency, outside environment for EFL learners and classroom instructions, etc. Some pedagogical implications are made in the following:Firstly, the results in the study uncover that L2 learners at the three proficiency levels are not very accurate in the two tests, especially the productive knowledge test, which is indicative of the L2 learners' general weakness in producing acceptable collocations. Therefore, classroom teachers should make a comprehensive approach to vocabulary teaching in order to help L2 learners improve their collocational knowledge, especially the productive knowledge.Secondly, collocational relations with other words, the marginal meanings of adjective in an adjective-noun collocation, the synonymous adjective-noun collocations and the less frequent in the input of adjective-noun collocation are well worth L2 learners' and teachers' attentions. Teaching collocations and raising L2 learners' awareness of the existence of collocational relations and their usefulness in L2 learning from the early stage of EFL can prove to be useful and rewarding as the mastery of collocational knowledge can make L2 learners more effectively use language.Thirdly, the learning of English deverbal participial adjective-noun collocations involves cross-level constraints referring to bot...