Construction Of The Framework For Chinese EFL Learners’ Dictionaries Of Collocation Errors

As a major obstacle to the development of L2learners’ language competence,lexical collocation errors deserve particular attention. The provision of lexicalcollocation error warning in the dictionaries is an effective strategy in highlighting theerrors frequently made by learners and helping them avoid making such errors.Although series of studies have been carried out on collocation, there arerelatively fewer lexicographic studies concerning the error warning of collocationerrors and common error dictionaries. This thesis mainly focuses on the analysis oflexical collocation errors so as to explore feasible methods on the compilation ofChinese EFL learners’ dictionary of collocation errors.Corpora analysis is an effective way of identifying learners’ language errors. Onthe basis of corpora evidence, the present study aims to analyze and reveal ChineseEFL learners’ difficulties in terms of collocation use. The corpora used in the studyinclude the native English corpus BNC and the EFL learner corpus CLEC. With theaid of the error analysis and the contrastive analysis between different corpora, it isfound that most Chinese learners’ collocation errors can be ascribed to the jointinfluence of L1negative transfer, overgeneralization, mis-selection of synonyms,redundancy, ignorance of collocation restrictions, semantic prosody conflict,avoidance strategy, etc.In addition, the features of three dictionaries (OALD, LDOCE, CALD) amongthe “Big Fives” and three common error dictionaries in presenting collocation errorwarning are investigated respectively. Their defects are the following: the number oflexical collocation error notes is limited; the provided information cannot fulfill theneeds of Chinese EFL learners; the collocation error warning information which thelearners really need is not offered. Besides, the description or presentation ofcollocation error warning is not systematic.Based on the above analysis, the present study proposes some suggestions forimproving the presentation of collocation error warning in the microstructure, mediostructure and megastructure of a dictionary by means of various operationallexicographic forms so as to construct the framework for Chinese EFL learners’dictionary of collocation errors. The model of construction and a few sample entriesare provided on the basis of these suggestions.