Phraseology effects as a trigger for errors in L2 English: The case of more advanced learners
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John Osborne
Abstract
When language learners produce “simple” errors (e.g. omission of 3rd person -s) on forms where their performance is predominantly target-like, are these errors random instances of backsliding, or is there some pattern to the contexts in which they appear? This chapter looks at four such errors – omission of 3rd person -s, inappropriate adverb placement, pluralized adjectives, and plural use of mass nouns – taken from two corpora of written productions by university level learners of English. The occurrence of these errors, even in careful written production, is facilitated by certain phraseological effects. Three types of effect are described – “blending”, where items used together share or transfer their features, “bonding” when collocational links override the requirements of syntax, and “burying”, where elements which are embedded inside larger units become less salient, and so lose grammatical features that they would normally be expected to carry. It is argued that persistent errors do not surface at random, but are triggered by the context.
Abstract
When language learners produce “simple” errors (e.g. omission of 3rd person -s) on forms where their performance is predominantly target-like, are these errors random instances of backsliding, or is there some pattern to the contexts in which they appear? This chapter looks at four such errors – omission of 3rd person -s, inappropriate adverb placement, pluralized adjectives, and plural use of mass nouns – taken from two corpora of written productions by university level learners of English. The occurrence of these errors, even in careful written production, is facilitated by certain phraseological effects. Three types of effect are described – “blending”, where items used together share or transfer their features, “bonding” when collocational links override the requirements of syntax, and “burying”, where elements which are embedded inside larger units become less salient, and so lose grammatical features that they would normally be expected to carry. It is argued that persistent errors do not surface at random, but are triggered by the context.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Phraseology: The periphery and the heart of language 1
- Introduction 15
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Section I. Extracting and describing phraseological units
- Phraseology and language pedagogy: Semantic preference associated with English verbs in the British National Corpus 21
- Essential collocations for learners of English: The role of collocational direction and weight 43
- Phraseology effects as a trigger for errors in L2 English: The case of more advanced learners 67
- Contrasting English-Spanish interpersonal discourse phrases: A corpus study 85
- Exemplification in learner writing: A cross-linguistic perspective 101
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Section II. Learning phraseological units
- Why can't you just leave it alone? Deviations from memorized language as a gauge of nativelike competence 123
- Phraseology and English for academic purposes: Challenges and opportunities 149
- Multiword expressions and the digital turn 163
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Section III. Recording and exploiting phraseological units
- Phraseology in learners' dictionaries: What, where and how? 185
- Compilation, formalisation and presentation of bilingual phraseology: Problems and possible solutions 203
- The phraseological patterns of high-frequency verbs in advanced English for general purposes: A corpus-driven approach to EFL textbook analysis 223
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Section IV. Concluding remarks
- Phraseology in language learning and teaching: Where to from here? 247
- Author index 253
- Subject index 257
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Phraseology: The periphery and the heart of language 1
- Introduction 15
-
Section I. Extracting and describing phraseological units
- Phraseology and language pedagogy: Semantic preference associated with English verbs in the British National Corpus 21
- Essential collocations for learners of English: The role of collocational direction and weight 43
- Phraseology effects as a trigger for errors in L2 English: The case of more advanced learners 67
- Contrasting English-Spanish interpersonal discourse phrases: A corpus study 85
- Exemplification in learner writing: A cross-linguistic perspective 101
-
Section II. Learning phraseological units
- Why can't you just leave it alone? Deviations from memorized language as a gauge of nativelike competence 123
- Phraseology and English for academic purposes: Challenges and opportunities 149
- Multiword expressions and the digital turn 163
-
Section III. Recording and exploiting phraseological units
- Phraseology in learners' dictionaries: What, where and how? 185
- Compilation, formalisation and presentation of bilingual phraseology: Problems and possible solutions 203
- The phraseological patterns of high-frequency verbs in advanced English for general purposes: A corpus-driven approach to EFL textbook analysis 223
-
Section IV. Concluding remarks
- Phraseology in language learning and teaching: Where to from here? 247
- Author index 253
- Subject index 257
