Dictionary Definition
collocation
Noun
1 a grouping of words in a sentence
2 the act of positioning close together (or side
by side); "it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting
colors" [syn: juxtaposition, apposition]
User Contributed Dictionary
Noun
Related terms
Translations
(linguistics) grouping or juxtaposition of words
that commonly occur together
- Czech: kolokace
- Dutch: collocatie
- French: collocation
- German: Kollokation
(military) placing of two or more units at the
same location
Extensive Definition
Within the area of corpus
linguistics, collocation is defined as a sequence of words or
terms which co-occur more
often than would be expected by chance.
Collocation refers to the restrictions on how
words can be used together, for example which prepositions are used
with particular verbs, or which verbs and nouns are used together.
Collocations are examples of lexical
units. Collocations should not be confused with idioms.
Common features
;Non-modifiability: We cannot modify a collocation or apply syntactic transformations.Expanded definition
If the expression is heard often, transmitting
itself memetically, the
words become 'glued' together in our minds. 'Crystal clear',
'middle management', 'nuclear family', and 'cosmetic surgery' are
examples of collocated pairs of words. Some words are often found
together because they make up a compound
noun, for example 'riding boots' or 'motor cyclist'.
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.
Corpus Linguists specify a Key
Word in Context (KWIC)
and identify the words immediately surrounding them. This gives an
idea of the way words are used.
The processing of collocations involves a number
of parameters, the most important of which is the measure of
association, which evaluates whether the co-occurrence
is purely by chance or statistically significant.
Due to the non-random nature of language, most collocations are
classed as significant, and the association scores are simply used
to rank the results. Commonly used measures of association include
mutual
information, t
scores, and log-likelihood.
Rather than select a single definition, Gledhill
proposes that collocation involves at least three different
perspectives: (i) cooccurrence, a statistical view, which sees
collocation as the recurrent appearance in a text of a node and its
collocates, (ii) construction, which sees collocation either as a
correlation between a lexeme and a lexical-grammatical pattern, or
as a relation between a base and its collocative partners and (iii)
expression, a pragmatic view of collocation as a conventional unit
of expression, regardless of form. It should be pointed out here
that these different perspectives contrast with the usual way of
presenting collocation in phraseological studies.
Traditionally speaking, collocation is explained in terms of all
three perspectives at once, in a continuum:
- ‘Free Combination’ ↔ ‘Bound Collocation’ ↔ ‘Frozen Idiom’
Examples
In English the verb perform is used with
operation, but not with discussion: The doctor performed the
operation.
Collocates of 'bank' are: central, river,
account, manager, merchant, money, deposits, lending, society.
These examples reflect a number of common expressions, 'central
bank', 'bank or building society', and so forth. It is easy to see
how the meaning of 'bank' is partly expressed through the choice of
collocates.
High collocates with probability, but not with
chance: a high probability but a good chance
Herd collocates with cows, but not with sheep: a
herd of cows but a flock of sheep
=References=
See also
collocation in Bengali: সহাবস্থান
collocation in Min Nan: Gí-sû tah-phoè
collocation in Catalan: Col·locació
collocation in German: Kollokation
collocation in Spanish: Colocación
collocation in French: Collocation
(linguistique)
collocation in Dutch: Collocatie
collocation in Japanese: 連語
collocation in Portuguese:
Colocação