Collocative meaning

Collocative Meaning

Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment (Leech; 1983:17)

Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurence with certain types of words.

The words ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’ . But they differ from each other because of collocation.

Pretty: girls, woman, village, gardens, flower, bird, weather etc.

Handsome: boys, man and furniture.

Types of Collocation

There are several different types of collocation made from combinations of verb, noun, adjective etc. Some of the most common types are:

Adverb + Adjective: completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)

Adjective + Noun: excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)

Noun + Noun: a surge of anger (NOT a rush of anger)

Noun + Verb: lions roar (NOT lions shout)

Verb + Noun: commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)

Verb + Expression With Preposition: burst into tears (NOT blow up in tears)

Verb + Adverb: wave frantically (NOT wave feverishly)

Collocations are generally arbitrary and non-predictable since there are no certain rules of collocation. Students may have difficulty in predicting the correct collocation of a lexical item.

For example, we can say"make a speech "or" give a talk ", but cannot say “give a speech” or “make a talk”.

Rotten, go bad, go stale

but milk "go sour"

The verbs ‘wander’ and ‘stroll’ have almost the same meaning but while ‘cows may wander into another farm’ they don’t stroll into that farm because ‘stroll’ collocates with human subject only.

Collocations differ greatly between languages:

The horse runs

The man runs

The dog runs

The water runs

The tap runs

His nose runs

The motor runs

The business runs 

The vine runs over the door

Blonde Chair

Blonde Hair

There are no certain rules of collocation

One can learn some unknown words by using a dictionary on his own. But it is impossible to learn collocations easily as the collocation range of each word and their equivalents change from language to language.

It is possible to predict the meanings of some collocations studying their collocates. Many other collocations are very difficult, as it is impossible to predict their meaning from their components. Those second type of collocations are just like idioms. The constituents of them don’t signal their meanings at all, you have to learn them either from native speakers or from the authentic written materials.

HANDSOME MAN

NOT PRETTY

Thanks for

Listening

Erdal Gülbahar

Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi

CONCLUSION

Collocations are the groups of words that have to occur together and determine the particular meanings of each combination.

Collocations are arbitrary. There aren’t any rules.

Collocations are formed by people’s habit in using language in the long term process. They’re accepted through common practice.

Collocations vary between languages. Therefore, it is not possible to translate collocations of a language to another language with one to one equivalents.

ETMEK

Turkish Collocation * English Equivalent

Teskin Etmek * To set the heart at rest

Kötülük Etmek * To do evil (harm) to

İyilik Etmek * To do good to

Pazarlık Etmek * To bargain

İftar Etmek * To break one's fast

Küfür Etmek * To curse

Ziyaret Etmek * To pay a visit

Yemin Etmek * To swear

Mecbur Etmer * To force

Feragat Etmek * To renounce

As language teachers, we realize how important collocation is and we notice problems with collocation when we read our students' written work, but we also recognize how difficult they are to explain to learners. To overcome this difficulty it is not enough just to say "You cannot use this word with this one" instead we need to prepare activities like below :

The following Turkish collocations with their equivalents in English illustrate that collocations greatly differ between the languages.

Turkish Collocation * English Equivalent

Soğuk Almak * To catch cold

Ateş Almak * To catch fire

Yol Almak * To travel a distance

Cesaret Almak * To take heart of grace

Toz Almak * To dust

Ele Almak * To handle sth.

Kız Almak * To marry a girl

Mektup Almak * To receive a letter

The students in language classes generally have difficulty in learning the collocation properties of the words since words do not co-occur freely in the language. Students need to know not only what the words mean and how they are pronounced and spelt but also how words go together. Most language teachers of English have noticed that their learners often have problems choosing the correct combination of two or more words.

Collocations (word partnerships) are the words that occur together. Often they are unpredictable . - When two words co-occur, or are used together frequently, they are said to collocate.’Gairns and Redman (1986) - ‘Some pairs of words occur together very rarely but other pairs occur together so often that when you see one word, you strongly expect that the other word might be there too.’ Hill and Lewis (1997)

Natural English Unnatural English

the fast train the quick train

fast food quick food

a quick shower a fast shower

a quick meal a fast meal

Collocations differ greatly between languages and provide a major difficulty in mastering foreign languages. For example, in Turkish the verb for "drink" (içmek) collocates with "water, soup and medicine but also with cigarettes" "Su içmek, çorba içmek, ilaç içmek, sigara içmek" in English, you have to use different verbs "drink water, eat soup, take medicine, smoke cigarettes"

BAKMAK

Sözlüğe Bakmak * To look up dictionary

Çocuklara Bakmak * To take care of children

Telefona Bakmak * To answer the phone

Kendi İşine Bakmak * To mind one's own business

KURMAK

Saat Kurmak * To wind a clock

Masa Kurmak * To set a table

Çadır Kurmak * To pitch a tent

Tuzak Kurmak * To set up trap

Two words collocate if they occur together with more than random frequency.’ Thornbury (2002) - A collocation is a pair or group of words that are often used together. These combinations sound natural to native speakers, but students of English have to make a special effort to learn them …’McCarthy and O’Dell (2005)

You shall judge a word

by the company it keeps

(J. R. Firth)

A Strong Woman

- Physical Strength

A Strong Door

- Not easily broken

Strong Tea

- Intensity of the flavor

A Strong Personality

- Not physical but rather moral

What is collocation ?

By collocation we mean a group of words that have occur together and there are a number of ways in which collocation is relevant to the meaning of lexeme. That is to say, it is collocation that determines which particular sense of a lexical item is meant.

That is, the words' association with other words in certain contexts generally determine their meaning.