| The present research aims to investigate the verb-noun collocation patterns of the Chinese English majors (CEMs). A corpus-based Contrastive Inter-language Analysis (CIA) approach is adopted in the study. With the help of the wordlist function of Antconc 3.1, the typical verbs and nouns are fixed. They are'do','get','give','have','make','take'and'success'and'knowledge'. Through quantitative contrastive analyses of the characteristics of the verb-noun collocations between the samples chosen from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SWECCL) and Brown&LOB corpora, the study reveals the features of verb-noun collocations employed by CEMs and shows differences compared with those of English natives. The main causes to these features and differences are also explored. The study also shows that there are not so many differences in the mistakes they make on verb-noun collocations.Through the research, it has been found CEMs'uses of verb-noun collocation differ significantly from those of the native speakers. Collocate choices are significantly subject to the corresponding collocation patterns of the same words in their mother tongue——Chinese. Besides, collocates of a verb or a noun chosen by CEMs are largely dependent on what Chinese chunks are often used when the Chinese equivalents of the verb or noun are used in Chinese. The different choices of word collocations show their insufficient mastery of typical English chunks. Therefore, it is suggested that more attention be paid to the frequently-used word forms and their typical chunks.
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