Going Beyond Patterns: Involving Cognitive Analysis in the Learning of Collocations

Since the late 1980s, collocations have received increasing attention in applied linguistics, especially language teaching, as is evidenced by the many publications on the topic. These works fall roughly into two lines of research (a) those focusing on the identification and use of collocations (Benson, 1989; Hunston, 2002; Hunston & Francis, 2000; Smadja & McKeown, 1991; Wouden, 1997) and (b) those focusing on the learning and teaching of collocations, including the development of reference books and textbooks (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Benson, Benson, & Ilson, 1997; Crowther, Dignen, & Lea, 2002; Hill & Lewis, 2002; Keshavarz & Salimi, 2007; Lewis, 2000, 2002; McCarthy & O'Dell, 2005; Nesselhauf, 2003; O'Dell & McCarthy, 2008; Sun & Wang, 2003; Webb & Kagimoto, 2009). Although these publications have greatly enhanced our understanding of collocations and their role learning and teaching, a close look at them indicates a lack of critical examination of the definition and the nature of collocations and the way collocations are taught. This article aims to address the issue through (a) a close critical examination of the collocations in existing teaching or reference materials and the typical way they are taught and (b) a corpus‐based analysis of some representative collocations. On the basis of the examination and analysis, the article argues for a more effective pedagogical approach to collocations that involves corpus‐based cognitive analysis of collocations.