Collocations

A collocation is a group of 2 words or more that usually go together and are important as the words making up the collocation and its subsequent meaning may vary from one language to another. The commonly used example is that of heavy tea or strong tea. In English if you say heavy tea, then we have the idea of someone trying to carry a teacup!

The most common forms are:

● phrasal verbs

● multi-word verbs

● noun and noun

● noun and adjective

● verb and noun

● verb and adverb

● expressions

● proverbs

There are many useful websites that you can refer to for help. With Ozdic you just need to type in the word you want to use, and it will make a number of useful suggestions.

Here is an example for the noun decision using adjectives.

big, crucial, fateful, important, key, landmark (law),

major, momentous

It was a big decision to have to make.

In a landmark decision, the court agreed to hear evidence from twenty years earlier.

difficult, hard, tough

the difficult decision of whether to go to university or nurse her sick mother

firm

We need a firm decision by Friday.

prompt, snap

He had to make a snap decision about what to do with the money as there was no time to waste..

final, irreversible, irrevocable

On Monday, the board of directors will meet to make their final decision. The decision is irreversible, so you cannot change your mind.

However, resources such as Ozdic do not cover all possibilities and so it is better to note down any collocations you may notice as you read materials for your course, as many may be relevant only to your discipline.

The skill of noticing collocations is vital to improve and expand your vocabulary.

Example 1

Collocations are found in academic text as they are in everyday English. For example, they are very common in the discipline of Business, Economics and Management. The following text taken from an academic journal on marketing includes a variety of different examples.

An organisation cannot take decisions without the availability of proper information. Marketing is a field where changes are taking place continuously. So, marketers should have access to the latest information which will help them take effective decisions. Marketers achieve this by the collection of marketing intelligence through various ways. The paper discusses the importance of marketing intelligence and its strategic role in decision-making, the various ways in which a marketer may collect the information and the manner in which a marketer may use the information to know their customers better and provide prompt and effective solutions to them.

Mandal, P.C., 2017. Marketing intelligence: roles in business decision-making. International Journal of Business Forecasting and Marketing Intelligence, 3(4), pp.433-441.

take decisions = verb + noun

proper information = adjective + noun

are taking place continuously = phrasal verb + adverb

have access to = verb + noun + preposition

latest information = adjective + noun

take effective decisions = verb + adjective + noun

marketing intelligence = noun + noun

strategic role = adjective + noun

provide prompt and effective solutions to = verb + adjective + adjective + noun + preposition

If you learn these words as individual items, you may not be successful at piecing them together resulting in inaccurate understanding of the words in context. Approaching the learning of vocabulary in this way increases the probability of accuracy as well as saving time.

Example 2

Let’s look at another text.

Children's dietary-related diseases and their associated costs have expanded dramatically in many countries, making children's food choice a policy issue of increasing relevance. As children spend a considerable amount of money on energy-dense, nutrient-poor (EDNP) products, a better understanding of the main drivers of children's independent food purchase decisions is crucial to move this behavior toward healthier options.

Hartmann, M., Cash, S.B., Yeh, C.H., Landwehr, S.C. and McAlister, A.R., 2017. Children's purchase behavior in the snack market: can branding or lower prices motivate healthier choices?. Appetite, 117, pp.247-254.

dietary-related diseases = adjective + noun

*Notice here the use of an adjective + adjective connected with a hyphen to create another adjective.

associated costs = adjective + noun

expanded dramatically = verb + adverb

policy issue of increasing relevance = noun + noun + preposition + adjective + noun

energy-dense, nutrient-poor (EDNP) products = adjective + adjective + noun

independent food purchase decisions = adjective + noun + noun + noun

move this behavior toward = verb + determiner + noun + adverb

healthier options = comparative adjective + noun

You may want to know the rule for using these different patterns. However, they can be complex and as with the majority of rules in the English language, there are always exceptions. Learning each expression as you meet it could be a much more effective way of acquiring this aspect of the English language. See the sections on Chunking and Noticing and Noun Phrases.

Practice

Now it's time to focus your activity on texts that you may need to read and understand for your own discipline. Nowadays academic papers from relevant, peer-reviewed, academic journals are the main resource for research for your assignments. You can use your institution's database which will give you access to a wealth of resources, or if you are not enrolled in an institution, you can use Google Scholar which will give you abstracts for numerous texts on all academic disciplines.

Using an abstract or introduction to an academic paper in your discipline or area of interest, skim the text to understand the main idea.

Now,

Read the text again and underline or highlight any pairs or groups of words that you think are collocations, that is words that are usually used together.