Collocation

1. Definition of Collocation

Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through repeated
context-dependent use. Such terms as 'crystal clear', 'middle management', 'nuclear family', and
'cosmetic surgery' are examples of collocated pairs of words. Collocations can be in a syntactic
relation (such as verb–object: 'make' and 'decision'), lexical relation (such as antonymy), or they
can be in no linguistically defined relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent
use of a language: a grammatically correct sentence will stand out as awkward if collocational
preferences are violated. This makes collocation an interesting area for language teaching.

A collocation is two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound
"right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other
combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong".

A good way to think of collocation is to look at the word collocation. Co - meaning

together - location - meaning place. Collocations are words that are located together. A good
answer to "What is collocation?" is: Collocation is a group of two or more words that like to
hang out together. Here are some examples of common collocations that you might know:

make tea - I made a cup of tea for lunch.

do homework - I did all of my homework yesterday.

Even though it possible to use other word combinations, understanding collocations help English
learners improve their fluency because they are words that usually go together.

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2. Kind of Collocation

There are several different types of collocation. Collocations can be adjective + adverb,
noun + noun, verb + noun and so on. Below you can see seven main types of collocation in
sample sentences.

1. adverb + adjective

 Invading that country was an utterly stupid thing to do.

 We entered a richly decorated room.
 Are you fully aware of the implications of your action?

2. adjective + noun

 The doctor ordered him to take regular exercise.

 The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage.
 He was writhing on the ground in excruciating pain.

3. noun + noun

 Let's give Mr Jones a round of applause.

 The ceasefire agreement came into effect at 11am.
 I'd like to buy two bars of soap please.

4. noun + verb

 The lion started to roar when it heard the dog barking.

 Snow was falling as our plane took off.
 The bomb went off when he started the car engine.

5. verb + noun

 The prisoner was hanged for committing murder.

 I always try to do my homework in the morning, after making my bed.
 He has been asked to give a presentation about his work.

6. verb + expression with preposition

 We had to return home because we had run out of money.

 At first her eyes filled with horror, and then she burst into tears.

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  Their behaviour was enough to drive anybody to crime.

7. verb + adverb

 She placed her keys gently on the table and sat down.
 Mary whispered softly in John's ear.
 I vaguely remember that it was growing dark when we left.

3. Example of collocation

1. My father likes strong tea

2. Do you like strong coffee or strong tea?
3. I can not come to your house because it is heavy rain
4. This snack is rich taste
5. She has big mistake to me
6. Happy holiday and great fun!
7. Sweet dream my dear!
8. I can do homework by myself
9. We sit under the tall tree
10. My parent take the buss to go to market
11. I drink regular water everyday.
12. We promise to always keep in touch
13. Never order fast food
14. I see fast car in this town
15. How many close friends that you have?
16. You should take medicine regularly
17. I love you and I hate you at the same time

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Make and Do

I begin with 'make' and 'do' because they provide perfect examples of why collocation is so
important. Generally, 'make' refers to things that are made that weren't there before. 'Do' refers to
actions that we take or do such as chores.

Collocations with 'Make'

make a cup of coffee / tea

make noise
make the bed
make a business deal
make a fuss
make sense
make time for someone

Collocations with Do

do the laundry
do the errands
do business with someone

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do a chore
do the shopping

Make and Do are perfect examples of verbs that go together with specific nouns. A verb + noun
combination that always go together are considered collocations.

Why Do Words Collocate?

There is often no reason for a collocation. People just put certain words together more often than
they put other words together. In fact, the use of collocations has become popular in English and
language teaching because of corpus linguistics. Corpus linguistics study huge volumes of data
of spoken and written English to come up with statistics on how often people use certain words
and word combinations. Through this study, corpus linguistics has been able to define what are
strong and weak collocations.

Collocations are used especially often in business English and there are dictionaries such as the
Oxford Dictionary of Collocations that can help you learn these common collocations.

Strong Collocations

Strong collocations refer to words that almost always go together. It's possible that people might
understand you if you don't use a strong collocation. However, if you do not use a strong
collocation it will sound funny to native speakers. Let's return to our example of 'make' and 'do'.
If you say:

I did a cup of coffee.

native speakers will understand that you mean:

I made a cup of coffee.

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Correct use of strong collocations shows an excellent command of the English language, and can
certainly help impress native speakers' of your ability to speak English well. Of course, if you are
speaking to other non-native speakers the ability to use collocations correctly all the time
becomes less important. That doesn't mean that correct collocation use is not important, it's just
not AS important as something like correct tense. Imagine for a moment that you are speaking
about a future meeting:

Our meeting was on Friday at four o'clock.

I've done an appointment at four o'clock for the meeting room on Friday.

In both of these sentences, there are mistakes. However, in the first sentence instead of using a
future tense, the past tense is used. If you want your colleagues to come to the meeting, this
mistake is very serious and will lead to no one coming to the meeting.

In the second sentence 'do an appointment' is a misuse of a strong collocation. However, the
meaning is clear: You have scheduled a room at four o'clock. In this case, a mistake in
collocations is not nearly as important as a mistake in tense usage.

Here are examples of strong collocations that you might not be familiar with:

high earnings (not big earnings)

long-range planning (not long-time planning)
urban guerrilla (not city guerrilla)

More Information

Why are Collocations Important?

There is an entire world of collocations to explore. Learning collocations is important because

you begin to learn words in larger groups or 'chunks' of language. Putting together these chunks
of language leads to more fluent English.

More information on other word groups in English

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 CLOSING
Conclution :

Collocation is a familiar grouping of words, especially words that habitually appear

together and thereby convey meaning by association. Idiom is a set expression of two or more
words that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words. Homonym is
two or more words that have the same sound or spelling but differ in meaning. A polyseme is a
word or phrase with different, but related senses. A lexical relation is a culturally recognized
pattern of association that exists between lexical units in a language.

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 REFERENCES

http://www.kuliahbahasainggris.com/pengertian-rumus-collocations-kolokasi-dalam-bahasa-
inggris-dan-contoh-kalimat/

http://semantic-introduction.weebly.com/collocations-fixed-expressions-and-idioms.html

Douglas Biber et al., Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Pearson, 2002.
Gail Brenner, Webster's New World American Idioms Handbook. Webster's New World, 2003.