| Lexis is the foundation of1anguage construction. In the field of SLA, there is nodenying the fact that lexis is of great importance to language learners, which isregarded as the building blocks for language use. In order to master a language, it isnecessary to have a good command of vocabulary as well as word combinations.As an essential subcategory of word combinations, collocation has aroused theinterests of linguists, but it has not received much attention from language instructorsand learners, for the cornerstone of vocabulary teaching has focused mainly onindividually isolated words. In order to enhance EFL learners’ awareness ofcollocation and shed new light on the research of collocation, especially the influenceof L1transfer, this research has been designed and conducted.First of all, overall introduction of this thesis has been presented includingresearch background, the significance of current study, research purposes, fourhypotheses and organization of this thesis, which has laid a general foundation forfurther study. Generally, this research aims to investigate Chinese EFL learners’acquisition of verb-noun collocation and examine the extent of L1influence oncollocation acquisition. In addition, the relationship between collocation competenceand L2proficiency, the effect of L1-L2congruency and the difference betweenproduction and reception of collocation knowledge have also been explored.Secondly, empirical overviews about L1transfer and collocation have beendiscussed and summaries can be made as follows: the collocation competence of EFLlearners is far from satisfactory; studies about the relationship between collocationcompetence and L2proficiency are not consistent with each other; L1transfer isfound to be the most important factor that leads to the poor performance ofcollocation acquisition; the effect of congruency could result in positive L1transfer.Based on these research backgrounds,4hypotheses have been formulated.This thesis adopts a quantitative research method and a total number of200participants have taken part in the tests in which150valid answer sheets are used for data analysis. Subjects are divided into three groups according to their L2proficiency.Meanwhile,30verb-noun collocations, including15congruent and15non-congruentcollocations, have been selected as the target items. Three instruments, namely,gap-filling test, appropriateness judgment test and vocabulary recognition test havebeen designed to measure Chinese EFL learners’ collocation competence. Prior to themain test, a pilot study has been carried out in consideration of test difficulty and timemanagement. Then SPSS11.5has been applied for data analysis.The findings show that1) the collocation competence of Chinese EFL learners isunsatisfactory and their collocation knowledge is positively correlated with theirproficiency level;2) The effect of L1-L2congruency has also been recognized by thefact that learners who have a higher L2proficiency level will achieve more significantsuccess on congruent collocations than on non-congruent items;3) EFL learnersperform much better on reception of collocation knowledge than on production ofcollocation knowledge and the difference between them is gradually decreasing alongwith L2proficiency;4) In terms of L1transfer errors, a number of42.70%errors arecaused by negative LI transfer, either direct one-to-one semantic transfer or selectivesemantic transfer. The errors caused by L1transfer among three groups abide by aU-shaped curve instead of an upward or downward tendency. Unexpectedly, there isno significant difference and no correlation between L1transfer and L2proficiency.Despite the increasing interests in collocation, it is not uncommon to find that theacquisition of collocation still has many challenges awaiting Chinese EFL learners toovercome. The findings of this study will be beneficial for researchers, teachers,textbook writers and publishers who are concerned with improving EFL learners’collocation competence. However, it goes without saying that there are still goodways ahead to measure collocation competence and provide evidence for theinfluence of L1transfer, but hopefully this thesis can shed new light on thecollocation and L1transfer research. |
