MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

A STUDY ON THE ENGLISH COLLOCATION
CONTAINING THE VERB “SET” WITH REFERENCE TO
THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC KẾT HỢP TỪ CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ “SET” TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYỄN THỊ TOÀN

Hanoi, 2016


Front hard cover
Back hard cover

NGUYỄN THỊ TOÀN

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2014 - 2016


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS



iv

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1

1.1.

1.1. Rationale

1

1.2.

1.2. Aims of the research

2

1.3.

1.3. Objectives of the research

2

1.4.

1.4. Scope of the research

3


7

2.2.1.1. The origin of the word “collocation”

7

2.2.1.2. Definition of collocation

8

2.2.1.3. The distinction between compounds, idioms and collocations

9

2.2.1.4. Classification of collocation

11

2.2.1.5. Characteristics of collocation

14

2.2.2. Theory of verb

16

2.2.2.1. Definition

16

23

3.1.2. 3.1.2. Research setting

23

3.1.3. 3.1.3. Research approaches

23

3.1.4. 3.1.4. Principles/ criteria for intended data collection and data analysis

24

3.2.

24

3.2. Research methods

3.2.1. 3.2.1. Major method and supporting method

24

3.2.2. 3.2.2. Data collection techniques

25

3.2.3. 3.2.3. Data analysis techniques



4.2.3. 4.2.3. Conveying the meaning of “ adjusting or arranging”

34

4.2.4. 4.2.4. Conveying the meaning of “creating”

35

4.2.5. 4.2.5. Conveying the meaning of “making or becoming firm or fixed”

36

4.2.6. Conveying the meaning of “presenting in the right form”

37

4.2.7. Conveying the meaning of “moving or flowing”

37

4.2.8. 4.2.8. Expressing other meanings
4.3.

4.3. Comparison between the English collocation containing the verb
Set and their Vietnamese equivalents

38
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57

5.2.

5.2. Concluding remarks

57

5.3.

5.3. Limitation of the research

59

5.4.

5.4. Recommendations/Suggestions for a further research

59

REFERENCES

60

APPENDIX

65


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband for the
sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

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ABSTRACT
Collocation is a big area in linguistics, it has become the subject of a
linguistic study only recently, it arouses a growing interest in numerous linguists
and is defined in various ways. However, Vietnamese students also meet
difficulties when acquiring English collocations. Therefore this paper aims at
investigating the syntactic and semantic features of the English collocation
containing the verb Set with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents. It was
conducted with the hope of finding out the equivalents of the collocation
containing the verb and suggesting implications for learning and teaching of
English as a foreign language in Vietnam. Data used for analysis in this study
were mainly collected from books, literary works, and dictionary. Data analysis
is based on descriptive, quantitative, qualitative and contrastive methods.

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ABBREVIATION
OAL’ED: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary
EFL: English as a foreign language
SLA: second language acquisition
Sb: somebody
Sth: something

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importance of collocation in acquisition of a language. The author would like to
investigate the possibility of combining words into fixed expressions.
As mentioned above, phrases are formed by words together. Words in
English are classified into different classes in which verbs have always been one
of the most complex classes of words because verb, or rather, phrasal verb is the
central to the structure of the sentence.
According to Palmer (1965), learning a language is, to a very large degree,
how to operate the verbal forms, the pattern and the structure of the verb in that
language. There is a question which need to be answer is that how verbs
collocate with other classes of word. A verb can collocate with a noun, a
preposition, an adjective or even another verb. Verb phrases are then created.
Investigating the combinations of verbs must be necessary for improving the
students’ knowledge and lessening their difficulties.
As can be seen from the discussion above, collocation is a big area in
linguistics. In the frame work of this study, the focus of this study is only on the
collocations containing the verb set, a rather special and complex verb in
English. Since the research is carried out against the Vietnamese backgrounds,
the corresponding Vietnamese equivalents are also provided. The research is so
entitled A study on the English collocation containing the verb set with reference
to their Vietnamese equivalents
1.2. Aims of the research
This study aims at pointing out the syntactic and semantic features of the
English collocation containing the verb Set with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents in order to help to teach and learn the English collocation containing
the verb Set more effectively.
1.3. Objectives of the research
This study is intended to:
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the English teachers and learners use the meanings and structure of the English
collocation containing the verb Set exactly.
-

Practically, the study provides the collocations of the verb Set with

reference to their Vietnamese equivalents in order to help the teachers of English
to teach better and and help the learners of English to study better .
1.6. Structural organization of the thesis
The study is organized into five chapters as follows.
Chapter 1, Introduction, presents the overview of the thesis including rationale,
aims, objectives, scope, significance as well as the organization of the study
Chapter 2, Literature Review, overviews the previous studies and builds up the
3


theoretical background in the study.
Chapter 3, Methodology, focuses on presenting research questions, and research
methods.
Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, presents the semantic and syntactic
features of the English collocation containing the verb set with reference to their
Vietnamese equivalents and suggests some implications for teaching and
learning.
Chapter 5, Conclusions, summarizes the major findings of the thesis along with
the practical implications, the limitations of the study and the suggestions for
further study.
References and Appendix come at the end of the study.

4


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investigated in a translation task and a close task. Results suggested that EFL
students should concentrate on collocations that cannot readily be paraphrased.
In his own article, Bahns (1993) also raised the neglected aspect of vocabulary
and the teaching of lexical collocations in EFL should concentrate on items for
which there is no direct translational equivalence in English. Similarly, Farghal
& Obiedat (1995) addressed the issue of collocations as an important and
neglected variable in EFL classes. Two questionnaires, in English and Arabic,
involving common collocations relating to food, color, and weather were
administered to English majors and English language teachers. Results showed
both groups deficient in collocations.
As students of other languages, Vietnamese students also meet difficulties
when acquiring English collocations. In a conference at the University of
Western Sydney, Trinh (1995) mentioned to collocation, in particular English
collocation, particularly those for whom English is their second and weaker
language. The results showed that there were very few syntactic errors, and that
the examiners probably have treated syntactic and grammatical errors as one area
of error only. The author also realized that the errors being made were a result
of the candidates' lack of knowledge of English collocations, whether they are
grammatical or lexical. Moreover, in the frame of M.A. thesis at Vietnam
National University, Hanoi - University of Languages and International Studies,
there are also studies of collocations. Works by Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005), Lê
Thanh Hà (2007) and Đào Thị Ngọc Nguyên (2007) are some of typical
examples. They are all interested in the collocation issue. They investigated the
collocation’s definition, classification and the students’s knowledge about
collocations. Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005) analyzed the collocations of one
English textbook on Electronics and Telecommunications. In her works, various
types of collocations with different frequency of use and their characteristics are



of words associated with each other, for example to take a photo, to do
homework, to play football... The term collocation has it origin in the Latin verb
collocate which means to set in order/to arrange.
2.2.1.2. Definitions of collocation
There are various definitions of collocation. It will be noted that forming a
precise definition is difficult because different linguists have different and
conflicting definitions as what Bahns (1993) says: Regrettably, collocation is a
term which is used and understood in many different ways. Most of the
researchers who define collocation agree that it is a lexical unit consisting of a
cluster of two or three words. Firth is widely regarded as the father of this term
and we can see that most of the definitions are paraphrases of Firth’s (1957)
definition that collocations are words in habitual company. This is a quite
general definition. Collocation, then, refers to expressions in which individual
words habitually go together. In the case of verb, for instance, the verb make
goes with some words and the verb do with other words:
We made an agreement. (NOT did an agreement)
I did my homework. (NOT made my homework)
(Quirk R. et al.)
The definition of collocation will be made clearer by his followers - Sinclair
(1966) and Halliday (1966). For Halliday, collocations are examples of word
combinations; he maintains that collocation cuts across grammar boundaries.
Sinclair (1966) introduces the following terminology: an item whose
collocations are studies is called a node; the number of relevant lexical items on
each side of a node is defined as a span and those items which are found within
the span are called collocates.
We can also find the definition of collocation in any dictionary. In the
Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current English (1995), Hornby gives
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could separate make and decision with some words:
He made an extremely important decision.
(Quirk, Randolph, 1985)
On the contrary, as for compounds, we could never make any manipulation
to change its word order as in workshop. Workshop could not be separated by a
word of any kind. We can see that compounds function as a single unit while
collocations remain a combination of words even if these words go together with
very high frequency. The collocational relationship, according to McCarthy,
could appear in a variety of syntactic realizations as shown in the following
examples:
They reject my appeal.
The rejection of his appeal was a great shock.
(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005)
Looking at idioms, Bolinger (1975) argues that some idioms are virtually
unchangeable; others follow a limited amount of manipulation. McArthur (1992)
agrees with Bolinger when he makes the point that idioms are often fixed in
form. It can rain cats and dogs but never dogs and cats. According to them,
collocations are looser groupings than idioms. Collocational items can be
contiguous as with head and ache in headache or proximate to each other as with
cat and purr in The cat was purring.
In terms of meaning, Benson, Benson & Ilson (1986) use combinations with
the noun murder to illustrate the main distinguishing features of the three
categories. The least cohesive type of word combination are the so-called free
combinations. The noun murder, for example, can be used with many verbs (to
analyze, boast of, condemn, discuss, (etc.) a murder), and these verbs, in turn,
combine freely with other nouns. Idioms, on the other hand, are relatively frozen
expressions whose meanings do not reflect the meanings of their component
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The second type is noun plus to-infinitive. See the following examples:
He was a fool to do it.
They felt a need to do it.
(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005)
The third is noun plus that-clause. For example
We reached an agreement that she would represent us in court.
He took an oath that he would do his duty.
(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005)
The fourth type is preposition plus noun. For example: by accident, in
agony.
The fifth type is adjective plus preposition. For example: fond of children,
hungry of news.
Adjective plus to-infinitive is the next type of collocation:
It was necessary to work
It’s nice to be here.
(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005)
The next type is adjective plus that-clause. See the following example:
She was afraid that she would fail
It was imperative that I be here.
(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005)
The last type of collocation is different verb patterns in English, such as
verb plus to-infinitive: they began to speak, or verb plus bare infinitive: we must
work and other.
Lexical collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives or relative
clauses but consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. This group is of
seven types as follows:
Firstly, verb (which means creation/ action) plus noun/ pronoun/
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four kinds: unique collocations; strong collocations; weak collocations and
medium-strength ones. To foot the bill, shrug one’s shoulders are the examples
of the unique collocations. These are unique because foot (as a verb) and shrug
are not used with any other nouns.
2.2.1.5. Characteristics of collocation
In discussion of the nature of collocation, the author bases on her
knowledge with reference to the linguists’ works to generalize what
characteristics collocation has in common. Generally, collocation has three
major features as follows.
Collocations are arbitrary, a question often raised by speakers of English as
a foreign language is what underlies native speakers’ choice of words or why
they choose one word among a list of possibilities to combine with another so
often that they become collocation. Lewis (1997) points out that collocation is
not determined by logic or frequency but is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic
convention. In the first characteristic, words are not often combined with each
other at random. Collocation cannot be invented by a second language user. A
native speaker uses them instinctively.
According to Gairns & Redman (1986), a statement on collocation is never
absolute. As they maintain, lexical items may co-occur simply because the
combination reflects a common real world state of affairs. Such is the case, for
instance, pass and salt which collocate since people want others to pass them the
salt. However, they added, there may exist in collocation an element of linguistic
convention or native speakers’ habitual preferences in their choice of words
among a number of possibilities. It is because lexical collocations bear linguistic
convention that joining together semantically compatible parts does not always
produce a typical collocation. A native English speaker, for example, would say
the lion roared rather than bellowed.
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