VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ NGÀ
A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO THE
USAGE OF DO AND MAKE COLLOCATIONS BY ENGLISH
NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP TRONG VIỆC DÙNG QUÁN NGỮ
CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ DO VÀ MAKE CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH
Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ & QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN) M.A. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15
M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15
SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. PROF. DR. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG
Ha noi - 2012
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TABLE OF CONTENT Page
Part A: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………
1. Rationale of the study ………………………………………………… …
2. Aims and objectives of the study …………………………………….………
3. Scope of the study …………………………………………………… …… …
4. Significance of the study ………………………………… ………… …
5. Structure of the study ……………………….…………… ………… …
Part B: DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………… ……….……

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3. Summary ………………………………………………………………………
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1. Research – governing principles……………………… …………… … …
2.1.1. Research questions …………………………………….………….…………
2.1.2. Sampling …………………………………………………… ………………
2.1.3. Research setting…………………………………………………….…… …
2.1.4. Research types…………………………………………………….…… …
2.1.5. Research approaches ……………………………………………… ……….
2.1.6. Principle/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis …………….
2.2. Research methods……………………………………………………………
2.2.1. Major methods and supporting methods …………………………………
2.2.2. Research procedure ………………………………………………………….
2.2.3. Data collection instruments ………………………………………….………
2.2.4. Data analysis techniques ……………………………………………………
2.3. Summary ……………………………………………………………….……

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2.2.2. Remarks………………………………………………………………… …
2.3. Concluding remarks on objective 3…………………………………….……
2.3.1. Objective 3 restated…………………………………………………… …
2.3.2. Remarks…………………………………………………………….………
3. Limitations of the study ……………………………………………….…….…
4. Suggestions for further studies ……………………………………….……
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………… …… ….
APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………………
Appendix 1: Test 1………………………………………………………… …
Appendix 2: Test 2……………………………………………………… … …
Appendix 3: Test 3………………………………………………… ……….…
Appendix 4: Tables of the collocations under investigation …….… … … 43

TUEBA: Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration 2

List of Tables
Table 1: Collocations under investigation in the thesis
Table 2: Nouns as object constituent in DO collocations
Table 3: Nouns as object constituent in MAKE collocations
Table 4: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of DO
meanings
Table 5: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of MAKE
meanings
Table 6: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as
object constituent in DO collocations
Table 7: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ understanding of nouns as
object constituent in MAKE collocations
Table 8: A summary of the results of the test on learners‟ use of both DO and

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Part A: INTRODUCTION

Accounting students who were at pre-intermediate level of English. Only errors
related to the uses of DO and MAKE collocations in the form of “verb + noun”
pattern were taken into consideration.
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4. Significance of the study
It is much to the author‟s expectation that the research results will help students
gain a more insightful look into English MAKE and DO collocations. And, on
account of this, well-formed utterances containing DO and MAKE collocations
might be produced. And, this constitutes the practical value of the research.
5. Structure of the thesis
The thesis consists of three main parts: Part A, B and C. Part A is an introduction
that gives a rationale behind the study. It also presents the aims, objectives, the
significance as well as scope of the study. Part B is divided into three chapters;
chapter 1 both reviewed some previous studies related to the research area of the
thesis and provides theoretical background to the concerning matters. In chapter 2,
the methodology of the thesis including research-governing principles and research
methods are introduced. Chapter 3 analyzes data collected from the students‟ tests.
Additionally, some significant findings of the study are written up and discussed.
Part C concludes the main issues which dealt with in the previous parts.
Accordingly, some concluding remarks are drawn out.

- Contribution: The results showed that these students did not succeed in completing
a collocational grid that included adjective-noun collocations although vocabulary
was not a problematic matter. The researcher emphazised that presenting highly
frequent collocates for learners when they start is really important.
1.1.2. Related research 2
- Title of the research: The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of
English
- Issues raised: The findings were based on two types of analyses; a corpus-based
analysis to identify basic collocations and an empirical analysis to examine how
Japanese learners develop knowledge of collocation.
- Contribution: The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a
significant positive relationship between learners‟ general knowledge of vocabulary
and their knowledge of collocations. The knowledge of the learners‟ on receptive
collocation tasks of was better than their productive ones, and the learner had
difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in
comparison with others
1.1.3. Related research 3
- Title of the research: Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating
diversity with quantitative & qualitative approaches
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- Issues raised: By using two instruments: pretreatment and post-treatment
translation tests, Marton investigated Polish learners‟ knowledge of collocations and
their abilities to use them.
- Contribution: The researcher found that there were no significant differences in
the participants‟ scores on the two translation tests, which confirmed learners‟ poor
productive knowledge of collocations. Marton, therefore, concluded that learners‟
limited exposure to collocation could not improve their productive knowledge of
those structures.
1.1.4. Related research 4

that facilitated learners‟ acquisition of the similar amplifiers to their L1 (French).
1.1.7. Related research 7
- Title of the research: Do English language learners know collocations?
- Issues raised: Martynska conducted the study of English collocation competencies
among intermediate high school Polish students. To collect data, the researcher used
different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct
option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined parts of sentences.
- Contribution: The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks.
One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the
length of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short
time performed better on the English tests than those who studied English for longer
time. Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some
students got higher scores on the multiple-choice tasks but lower scores on the
completion tasks. This confirmed that the production of collocation among the
students was much lower than their receptive skills. Therefore, more attention to
collocations when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning
process.
1.1.8. Related research 8
- Title of the research: The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners.
- Issues raised: Elyildirm examined the comprehension and production of the target
collocations of the first language (L1) Turkish learners of English. By using three
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collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test
including two collocation categories, i.e. verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun
collocations,
- Contribution: The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the
production of collocations was quite clear. In fact, participants tended to generalize
unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently
encountered in the textbook. Learners also have a tendency to incorrectly

articles and prepositions belonging to a combination, not only verb-noun
mismatches. However, the most common type of mistake was the wrong choice of
verbs. Therefore, the researcher recommended that teachers should focus on the
verb in the teaching of verb-noun collocations.
1.1.10. Related research 10
- Title of the research: A study of collocation behaviors on lexical pragmatics
- Issues raised: The study described how collocation behaviors of near synonyms
can be recognized from contextual usage data in corpora to improve L2 lexical
meaning. Concordance and computational techniques were used to analyze
collocates in corpora. Three transitive verb; cause, promote and commit in students‟
corpus were analyzed to explore the potential of lexical collocation information, and
to observe their collocation behaviors and pragmatic implications.
- Contribution: The study showed that the use of collocation profile as an effective
instrument in recognizing and learning semantic meaning and pragmatic
implications of lexical items was necessary. The findings suggested that it could be
beneficial for L2 learners to observe the collocates of near synonyms so that
recognition of pragmatic characteristics could help improve their lexical usage.
Taken together, these studies focused on studying collocations in use, and examined
learners‟ competence of using English collocations. The instruments used to collect
results were mainly the application of different tests. It could be said that the use of
tests was effective for researchers to evaluate learners‟ errors on using collocations.
Most of the researchers reached conclusions that collocation knowledge of learners
studying English as foreign language was insufficient and teaching or learning
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collocations should be paid more attention due to the assumption that collocation
teaching and learners‟ development of their collocation competence are necessary
and important in order to achieve the globalized standards of English.
My research differs from these previous studies in the following ways;
- First, its scale was much narrower and more specific and limited in a small piece

computers‟.
In his study, Greenbaum approaches collocation as an integration between lexis and
grammar which are different in lexical and syntactic patterning but interrelated.
“Collocation meaning is changed according to different syntactic patterning”
(Greenbaum, 1960:12). The term „collocation‟ introduced by Firth (1957) is often
defined as a characteristic word combination whose lexical constituents developed
an idiomatic relation based on their frequent co-occurrence. According to Cruse,
1984 a collocation, along with a lexeme and an idiom, is a kind of lexical item and
is “Sequences of lexical items, which habitually co-occur, but which are
nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a
semantic constituent” (Cruse, 1986:40). Although there are a variety of views on the
concept of collocation, variously defining it as a lexical, grammatical or research
phenomenon, all contain a focus on the co-occurrence of words. According to
Micheal Mc Carthy and Felicity O‟Dell (2005:4)
“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 because they are often difficult to
guess. Some combinations just sound 'wrong to native speakers of English.
For example, the adjective fast collocates with cars, but not with a glance.”
Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (CALD, 2005) defines collocation as
„a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a
way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their
lives, but might not be expected from the meaning. In the phrase 'a hard
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frost', 'hard' is a collocation of 'frost' and 'strong' would not sound natural‟
or „the combination of words formed when two or more words are frequently
used together in a way that sounds correct but difficult to guess.‟
Here are some different definitions given by Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009)
(OCD)

take on a specific meaning when collocated with certain other words.
- Refers to how words occur together regularly and in a restricted way – e.g.
blonde hair, lean meat, etc.
Although there are different ways to define what collocation is, these definitions
share a common view that a collocation is a word or phrase used frequently in a
combination but it is not easy for learners to guess.
2.2. Types of collocations
There is general agreement in the literature on the division of collocates into lexical
or grammatical categories.
 Lexical collocations
Lexical collocation is defined by Lewis & Hill (1998) as having five main
categories: adjective/noun, verb/noun, noun/verb, adverb/adjective and verb/adverb.
Gitsaki (1996:23) is able to define 37 categories of collocation, eight of which could
be considered as lexical collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepts
the structural view of collocation). A lexical collocation is a type of construction
where a verb, noun, adjective or adverb forms a predictable connection with another
word, as in:
Adverb + Adjective: e.g. completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)
Adjective + Noun: e.g. excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)
Noun + Verb: e.g. lions roar (NOT lions shout)
Verb + Noun: e.g. commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)
 Grammatical collocations
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A grammatical collocation is a type of construction where, for example, a verb or an
adjective must be followed by a particular preposition, or a noun must be followed
by a particular form of the verb, as in:
Verb + Preposition: e.g. depend on (NOT depend of)
Adjective + Preposition: e.g. afraid of (NOT afraid at)
Noun + Particular form of verb: e.g. strength to lift it (not strength lifting it)

- Verbs and expressions with prepositions
Some verbs collocate with particular prepositional expressions.
“As Jack went on stage to receive his gold medal for the judo competition
you could see his parents swelling with pride, [looking extremely proud]”
“I was filled with horror when I read the newspaper report of the
explosion.”
“When she spilt juice on her new skirt the little girl burst into tears,
[suddenly started crying]”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Verbs and adverbs
Some verbs have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them.
“She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety, [pulled firmly and
evenly]”
“He placed the beautiful vase gently on the window ledge.”
„I love you and want to marry you,' Derek whispered softly to Marsha.
“She smiled proudly as she looked at the photos of her new grandson.”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Adverbs and adjectives
Adjectives often have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them.
“They are happily married.”
“I am fully aware that there are serious problems. [I know well]”
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“Harry was blissfully unaware that he was in danger. [Harry had no idea at
all, often used about something unpleasant]”
Mc Carthy, M. & O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
2.3. Characteristics of collocations
Collocations can be described in a number of ways. The ways of thinking about
them can be in terms of “degree of fixedness” or “degree of predictability”.
Degree of fixedness

"bus" and "car" with only certain sets of other words:
We say "get on a bus"/"climb on a bus" but usually not "enter a bus" or "get in a
bus". However, we say "get in a car".
We say "take the bus"/"ride the bus"/"go there on the bus" but usually not "We can
drive there on the bus". However we say "We can drive there in her car."
Degree of predictability
According to J. R. Firth, collocation can be classified as strong or weak due to the
degree of predictability in their association. If we look deeper into collocations, we
find that not only do the words "go together" but there is a degree of predictability
in their association. Generally, in any collocation, one word will "call up" another
word in the mind of a native speaker. In other words, if one word appears, we can
predict the other word, with varying degrees of success. This predictability is not
perfectly understandable, but it is always much higher than with non-collocates.
The predictability may be strong: for example "auspicious" collocates with very few
words, as in: auspicious occasion, auspicious moment, and auspicious event. Or the
predictability may be weak: for example, "circuit" collocates with a lot of words, as
in: racing circuit, lecture circuit, talk-show circuit, short circuit, closed circuit…
2.4. Collocations, free compounds, and idioms
In order to determine learners‟ difficulties with collocations, it is necessary to
delimitate collocations from other types of word combination. In his book, a
practical guide to lexicography, Piet Van Sterkenburg assumed that if the user
wants to look up a multiple-word item and his general- purpose dictionary does not