A Dynamic Perspective On Collocation Development In EFL Writing

This paper responds to the calls for studies that investigate the developmental process of collocation through placing it in the theoretical framework of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST). Collocation plays a significant role in promoting oral and writing fluency, but it is also a challenging area for most advanced learners. Although researchers are fully aware of the importance of collocation, few studies are conducted on the acquisition process of collocation because of theoretical and methodological challenges (Henriksen & St?hr, 2009). With the introduction of DST to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the recent decade, the attempts of probing collocation acquisition process become feasible as DST has advantages in studying developmental process.Focusing on verb + noun collocations, this paper carries out a 14-week longitudinal study on an intermediate-high proficiency learner. A topic, which requires a writing of no less than 400 words, is given to the subject every week. The analysis concentrates on two aspects. One is the developmental pattern of verb + noun collocations, which is investigated from the perspective of the width and depth of collocation use; the other is relationships between collocation and variables such as intralingual factors.The findings suggest that collocation development is non-linear, and the subject's collocation knowledge is in an attractor state currently. Implicit and explicit feedback from the researcher is not enough to push the subject out of the attractor state, which implies that the attractive force of collocation is strong. Given to Pearson correlation analysis, intralingual factors show no significant relationship with collocation development. Moreover, the subject is under strong influence of both L1 and L2, which may lead to the stabilization of collocation development. Other variables such as affective factors have impacts on collocation as well even though they are not investigated in the present study. Thus, variable analysis is worthwhile for more studies in the future.