VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

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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

Hanoi - 2012


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

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PHẠM THỊ NGÀ

2. Aims and objectives of the study …………………………………….………..

2

3. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………..……..… 2
4. Significance of the study …………………………………..…………...….......

3

5. Structure of the study ……………………….……………..…………...….......

3

Part B: DEVELOPMENT ………………………………………..……….……...

4

Chapter 1: Literature Review
1.1. Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis …...

5

1.1.1 Related research 1………………………………………………………......… 5
1.1.2 Related research 2 …………………………………………………………..... 5
1.1.3 Related research 3 ………………………………………………………......... 5
1.1.4 Related research 4 …………………………………………………………..... 6
1.1.5 Related research 5 ………………………………………………………..... ... 6
1.1.6 Related research 6 …………………………………………………………..... 6
1.1.7 Related research 7 ………………………………………………………..... ... 7
1.1.8 Related research 8 …………………………………………………..……....... 7

2.1.2. Sampling ……………………………………………………..……………… 28
2.1.3. Research setting…………………………………………………….……...… 28
2.1.4. Research types…………………………………………………….……...….. 28
2.1.5. Research approaches ………………………………………………..……….

29

2.1.6. Principle/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis ……………. 29
2.2. Research methods…………………………………………………………….. 30
2.2.1. Major methods and supporting methods ………………………………….....

30

2.2.2. Research procedure ………………………………………………………….

30

2.2.3. Data collection instruments ………………………………………….………

31

2.2.4. Data analysis techniques …………………………………………………….. 33
2.3. Summary ……………………………………………………………….……..

33

Chapter 3: Analysis, Findings and Discussion ……………………………...…... 34
3.1. Criteria for classification of the findings……………………………….….... 34
3.2. Finding 1 & Discussion on this finding…………………………………...…. 34
3.3. Finding 2 & Discussion on this finding……………………………..….……. 36

2.2.1. Objective 2 restated………………………………………………..…….…

43

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2.2.2. Remarks…………………………………………………………………..…

43

2.3. Concluding remarks on objective 3…………………………………….……

43

2.3.1. Objective 3 restated……………………………………………………....…

43

2.3.2. Remarks…………………………………………………………….………..

43

3. Limitations of the study ……………………………………………….…….…

45

4. Suggestions for further studies ……………………………………….…….....

45

CUP: Cambridge University Press
OCD: Oxford Collocations Dictionary
OCU: Oxford Collocations in Use
OUP: Oxford University Press
TUEBA: Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration

1


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
MAKE

2


Definition of key technical terms
In this thesis, the key technical terms are to be employed in the senses as stated
below:

“No piece of natural spoken or written English is totally free of collocation” (OCD,
2009). Therefore, learning collocation is important for EFL learners. For students,
choosing the right collocation will make his/her speech and writing sound much
more natural, more native-speaker-like. Poor collocation in exams is also likely to
lead to lower marks. However, during the time working as a teacher of English at
Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA), I
have found out that English non- major students at different levels often make
mistakes in using DO and MAKE collocations. For this reason, I decided to choose
this as the theme for my MA thesis.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
The ultimate purposes of the research are:
i.

To help English non-major students gain an insight into DO and MAKE
collocations.

ii.

To examine the influenced factors to possible errors made by the students

iii.

To improve my own teaching of English at TUEBA

To achieve these aims, the following objectives are pursued forward:
 Establishing the types of errors related to DO and MAKE collocations
commonly committed by English non-major students at TUEBA
 Finding out the causes of students‟ errors related to the usage of DO and
MAKE collocations.
 Working out possible solutions to the problems encountered by students in


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CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis
Prior to this thesis, there have been the following related studies:
1.1.1. Related research 1
- Title of the research: Applying semantic theory into vocabulary teaching
- Issue raised: The researcher carried out the study to examine collocational
knowledge of eight advanced EFL learners of English.
- 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

- Title of the research: Prefabricated patterns in Advanced EFL writing:
collocations and formulae in A. P. Cowie (ed.): Phraeology. Theory, analysis and
applications
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- Issues raised: The researcher investigated the role of the first language and
acquisition of collocations among French learners of English
- Contribution: Granger‟s study confirmed the important role that learners‟ L1 plays
in the use and acquisition of collocations. In this study, the researcher studied the
difference between native speakers of English and French learners of English in
producing English collocations, in particular adjective amplifiers, such as totally
and highly. It was found that amplifiers with direct translation equivalents in French
were the most frequent ones. She attributed that finding to the L1 positive transfer
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

learners‟ L1 on the production of collocations.
- Contribution: The research showed that the highest rate of mistakes occurs in
combination with a medium degree of restriction in combination where the verb
only takes a few nouns, they are less aware of restrictions in combination where the
verb takes a wider range of nouns. And, in free combinations and idioms, only a
few minor types of mistakes that were not observed in the analysis of collocation
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were identified. The findings pointed out that the major types of mistakes that
occurred were the same as in collocation. The degree of restriction does not have a
major influence on the types and amount of mistakes learners make, except that
collocations with a low degree of restriction are the most difficult kind of
combination for the learners. In short, the results showed that almost a quarter of the
combinations contained one or several mistakes with non-lexical elements like the
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

receive their meanings from words they occur with. One of the works should be
noticed is Second Interim Report on English Collocation (1933) by H.E.Palmer who
is considered the first linguist to use the term Collocation in the present-day sense.
According to Palmer, collocation is defined as word combinations containing one or
more words having meanings only in that collocation. According to Halliday
(1966:152), collocation is one of the main components and central part in his
lexico-grammatical system. He defines collocation as syntagmatic relation of words
which is linear co-occurrence together with some measure of significant proximity
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It is a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected
by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a
phraseological collocation, given by Michael Halliday, is the expression „strong
tea‟. Although the expression „powerful tea‟ could be roughly conveyed the same
meaning, it is considered incorrect by English speakers. Or the corresponding
expression for computer, „powerful computers‟ is widely used rather than „strong
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

- Collocation is a procedure used in remote sensing to match measurements
from two or more different instruments.
- The grouping or juxtaposition of things especially words or sounds
- The tendency for words to occur regularly with others: sit/chair,
house/garage.
- The phenomenon of words/lexical items tending to co-occur in close
proximity to one another in spoken/written discourse (i.e. habitual or
greater-than-chance co-selection of words).
- The likelihood that a particular word will occur in the neighborhood of
another word.
- The action of setting in place, especially arranging in relation to others.
- Group of words associated together as an expression in the lexicon. Our
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class has decided "in this particular case" is a collocation in McGowan's
idiolect.
- A collocation consists of two or more words that are commonly associated
in a particular language, such as „read about‟ or „white lies‟. A word may
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

economics and business.
“The economy boomed in the 1990s.” [the economy was very strong]
“The company has grown and now employs 50 more people than last year.”
“The company has expanded and now has branches in most major cities.”
“The two companies merged in 2003 and now form one very large
corporation.”
“The company launched the product in 2002. [introduced the product]”
“The price increase poses a problem for us. [is a problem]”
“The Internet has created opportunities for our business, [brought new
opportunities]” Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- Noun + noun
There are a lot of collocations with the pattern a ... of....
“As Sam read the lies about him, he felt a surge of anger, [literary: a sudden
angry feeling]”
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“Every parent feels a sense of pride when their child does well or wins
something.”
“I felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the old photos of the village where I
grew up.”
Mc Carthy, M. & Felicity O‟Dell, F. (2005:12)
- 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]”

fixed collocation meaning "to die". While we could substitute nouns and verbs in
this sentence and get other meaningful sentences (e.g. "kick the door", "lift the
bucket"), the word combinations in these other sentences are no longer cohesive
patterns in the way that "kick the bucket" is. Like "kick the bucket", most
collocations which are very fixed form a particular expected meaning rather than a
structure.
- A less fixed collocation is often a more structural - common pattern that helps
structure a sentence but don't carry as much specific meaning by itself. For
example, this is a commonly used structural pattern into which you can insert a
variety of words and still have commonly used patterns:


Let's move on to the next point.



Let's go back to the last chapter.



Let's move away from this paragraph



Let's look at tomorrow's homework.



Let's go on to the main point.
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wants to look up a multiple-word item and his general- purpose dictionary does not
20