Lecture 9 collocation and idioms.pptVIP

Lecture 9 Collocations and Idioms Points for thinking: What is an idiom? What is the definition of collocation? What are the four classifications of collocation? Chunking (语块） is a method of presenting information which splits concepts into small pieces or “chunks” of information to make reading and understanding faster and easier. Definitions of Collocation A collocation is the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a corpus. ------Fromkin, V. et al. 习惯上连在一起使用并被视为单个词项的两个或两个以上的词的组合叫做搭配。 A collocation is a pair or a group of words that are often used together. Collocations represent the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. The combination of words follows certain rules peculiar to each language. Strong wind Heavy rain Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2002): collocation is a means of combining words in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. Geoffrey Leech(1969) refers to collocations as simply an idiosyncratic property of individual words. White coffee, white wine White lie, Blue joke Collocations are mainly lexical items made up of lexical words from two or more different word classes which co-occur habitually. Collocation is quite different from idioms. Each word in a collocational structure contributes its own meaning to the whole interpretation in a distinguishable way. Collocations are obvious in meaning. A heavy drinker, Fast (car, food) quick (glance, meal) Make an effort (* do an effort) Powerful engine ( *strong engine) Quiver with excitement Tremble with fear Profound/deep sympathy Deep hole (*profound hole) Features of Collocations non-arbitrariness and predictability Have tea, have coffee, have milk, have mineral water, have orange juice Have beer, have wine, *have engine oil *have shampoo *have sulphuric acid 2. Collocation in common After the fall of night, it was getting dark. The group of five soldiers, against the strong wind and heav