CANTHO UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

----🙣🕮🙡----

Research Proposal

FACTORS AFFECTING THE USE OF

COLLOCATION IN WRITING ESSAY

Supervisor: Student name:

Lê Thanh Thảo Nguyễn Anh Dũng-B1509972

Lê Thị Ngọc Hân-B2014005

Nguyễn Thị Tố Nhi-B1602377

Phạm Thị Ngọc Mai-B1808492

Đào Huỳnh Thư- B1706002

Can Tho, November 2022

 ABSTRACT
To understand more about aspect of collocation, our group decided to start
this research as students of English Study major. The main aim is to find out and
understand about the factors affecting the use of collocation in writing essay. Our
group decide that it is necessary to apply descriptive research method with the
main tools being a survey of quantitative data and in-depth interviews to obtain
qualitative data. To be specific, we will collect quantitative data through survey
tables and qualitative data through in-depth interviews. We hope that doing this
research will bring us many valuable insights about collocation and how students
deal with it during their study. The result of the research or the research itself can
be contributed to professional enhancement for student who majoring in English
study. It can also be used to enrich the source material as a theoretical basis related
to the factors affecting the use collocation in essay writing that English language
students encounter in the learning process.

Keywords: collocation, factors

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................ i

TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………..……ii, iii

Chapter 1.................................................................................................................................................1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................1

1. Background of the study ................................................................................................................1

2. Research aims ..................................................................................................................................1

3. Significance of the study .................................................................................................................2

Chapter 2.................................................................................................................................................3

Literature Review...................................................................................................................................3

1. Definition of Collocation: ...............................................................................................................3

2. Characteristic and Classification of Collocation: ..........................................................................3

2.1 Characteristic: ...........................................................................................................................3

2.2. Classification: ...........................................................................................................................4

Role of Collocation in learning and teaching English: .....................................................................6

Problems in learning collocation: ......................................................................................................6

Definitions of terms ................................................................................................................................7

Chapter 3.................................................................................................................................................8

Research Methodology...........................................................................................................................8

3.1 Research questions and hypotheses ..............................................................................................8

3.1.1 Research questions .................................................................................................................8

3.1.2 Research hypotheses...............................................................................................................8

3.2 Research design .............................................................................................................................8

3.3 Participants ....................................................................................................................................9

3.4 Instruments ....................................................................................................................................9

3.4.1 Questionnaire .........................................................................................................................9

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 3.4.2 Interview .................................................................................................................................9

3.5 Data Collection Procedures ..........................................................................................................9

3.6 Data analysis ...............................................................................................................................10

3.6.1 Analysis the quantitative data ..............................................................................................10

3.6.2 Analysis the qualitative data ................................................................................................10

Chapter 4...............................................................................................................................................11

Anticipated Problems and Limitations ..............................................................................................11

1. Problems ........................................................................................................................................11

2. Limitations .....................................................................................................................................11

Chapter 5...............................................................................................................................................12

Significance The Study ........................................................................................................................12

Resources required...............................................................................................................................12

Chapter 6...............................................................................................................................................13

Ethics .....................................................................................................................................................13

Chapter 7...............................................................................................................................................15

Timetable ..............................................................................................................................................15

References .............................................................................................................................................18

Appendix ...............................................................................................................................................20

Appendix A: Questionnaire .................................................................................................................20

Appendix B: Semi-Structured Interviews ..........................................................................................22

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 Chapter 1

Introduction
This chapter describes the rationale underlying the study. The background of the
study, the research aim, and the significance of the study will be presented
respectively.

1. Background of the study

According to August and Hakuta (1997) there are many ways to learn
English well such as listening to music, watching movies and some ways to
improve vocabulary and understanding of grammar. However, to be as good as a
native speaker requires you to thoroughly understand and combine words while
writing and speaking. This problem has been studied in many places such as
C.Yumanee and Phoocharoensil who have conducted a study on the placement
error of Thai EFL students.

In the Vietnamese context, which is dedicated to Academic Writing courses

that focus on building essay models and mechanisms, while addressing the role
of language competence, especially vocabulary and phrases are most concentrated
(Dang, 2014). Up to now, the teaching of vocabulary and phrases has been
considered peripheral in most academic writing curricula (Dang, 2014).
Therefore, the combination of phrases is considered important. The factors as well
as the research articles in Vietnam are not really many, so it is necessary to
continue researching the topic.

2. Research aims

The purpose of the study is to find out the factors affecting the use of
collocation in essay writing, thereby improving the writing level in the essay.

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3. Significance of the study

The topic has important implications for the development of essay writing
ability among foreign language students. Specifically, the topic will help readers
have a more general view of the influencing factors that foreign language students
encounter when using word combinations in the essay writing process.

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 Chapter 2

Literature Review
1. Definition of Collocation:

The concept “collocation” has been defined for a long time by many
linguists. According to Firth (1957), who give the first definition of this term,
defines Collocation as an abstraction at the syntagmatic level. Collocations are
essentially the method in which words are commonly used together. Sinclair
(1991) determines collocation as a regular combination between items, in such a
way that they co-occur more often than their respective frequencies. McCarthy &
O’Dell (2005) stated that collocation is a pair or group of words that are often
used together and they are difficult to guess. This demonstrates how difficult it is
to infer the meaning of a collocation from its component terms as well as we can
not combine words arbitrarily. Also, Hamdi et al. (2013) supposes “students
cannot combine words freely because words usually have their natural
combinations called collocation. If they combine the words freely, their
collocation usage will be wrong”. In essence, collocation is a type of arbitrary,
unpredictable natural order.

2. Characteristic and Classification of Collocation:

2.1 Characteristic:

Although collocation has various definitions, it is still possible to mistake

this idea for other linguistic occurrences like idioms. As a result, efforts have been
made to identify the traits of collocations in order to set them apart from other
closely related categories of the English language.

Boonyasaquan (2005, p.11-13) summarized the characteristics of

collocation as follows:

- Collocations are frequent co-occurrences of items between which no

word can be added.

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 - Collocations consist of components that cannot be replaced by a
synonym or word of similar meaning.
- Collocations are binomials that cannot be reversed. The order of the parts
of collocation is more or less fixed.
- Some collocations are predictable.
- Meanwhile, Trng & Thao (2021) describe the characteristic of
collocation are listed as follows:
- Prefabrication: collocations are word combinations that are natural and
available for use.
- Non or limited substitutability: the components of collocation can be
substituted neither syntactically nor semantically.
- Non or limited modification: Collocation cannot be modified by adding
an additional lexical item based on grammatical rules since the phrase
itself loses its collocational meaning and is unnatural for native speakers.
- Transparency: the meaning of idioms is opaque while the meaning of
collocations can be more transparent. Specifically, idioms are perceived
as a special case of collocations where the meaning of an idiom cannot
be conveyed through its constituents.

In conclusion, collocations typically have distinctive qualities. It might be

challenging to add or remove words because they are typically organized in a
certain order.

2.2. Classification:

There are many ways to classify phrases based on different criteria of

experts. Some common classifications are mentioned below.

According to Bui (2021), concerning the grammatical feature of

collocations, collocations are commonly classified as follows:

- Adjectives and nouns, e.g., the key issue, a brief chat, mounting concern.

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 - Nouns and verbs, e.g., an opportunity arises, standards slip economy
booms.
- Verbs and nouns, e.g., pose a problem, launch a product, withstand the
impact.
- Nouns and nouns, e.g., a surge of anger, a sense of pride, a flock of birds,
a school of fish.
- Verbs and expressions with prepositions, e.g., fill with sorrow, burst into
tears, swell with pride.
- Verbs and adverbs, e.g., drive recklessly, fail miserably, whisper softly.
- Adverbs and adjectively, e.g., blissfully unaware, stunningly attractive,
utterly ridiculous.
- In the other hand, Lewis (2000) chose degree of fixedness as a criterion
to classify collocations:
- Strong collocations: are collocations that have very limited number of
collocates and most collocates are fixed such as “rancid butter” or
“rancid oil”.
- Weak collocations: refers to collocations which have a wide range of
collocates, for example, many things can be described as “good” or
“bad”.
- Medium-strength collocations: words that go together more frequently
than weak collocations such as “hold a meeting”, “carry out a study”.

Additionally, Sinclair (1991) provided a distinct division of collocations as

the upward collocations and the downward ones: Upward collocations, of course,
is the weaker pattern in statistical term, and the words tend to be elements of
grammatical frames, or super-ordinates. Downward collocations by contrast give
us a semantic analysis of a word.

Finally, the most common classification discovered Benson and Ilson

(1986), collocations can be of two types: grammatical and lexical collocations.
Grammatical collocations consist of content words: a noun, an adjective or a verb
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plus a preposition or infinitive. Meanwhile, lexical collocations consist of neither
prepositions nor infinitives.

Role of Collocation in learning and teaching English:

According to McCarthy and O'Neil, there are two advantages of

collocations: helping learners express their spoken or written ideas naturally and
concisely as native speakers as well as acquiring lexical knowledge and increase
their vocabulary size. Bui (2021) also agree with this point “It is acknowledged
that knowledge of collocations helps to improve learners' language skills, enhance
learners' communicative competence, and achieve native-like fluency.” McCarthy
claims that teaching vocabulary without paying attention to collocations means
providing the learners an incomplete picture. The learners' fluency will
undoubtedly improve significantly if they have received rigorous instruction on
the usage of collocations and are well aware of their significance. Collocation is
also one of the lexical resources exploited in the high band score of the IELTS
exam, which shows that proficiency in collocation plays an important role in
helping learners improve their academic performance. In conclusion, there are
many advantages to collocation for learning English, including increased
vocabulary, fluency in language use, native-like communication, and achieving
excellent learning result.

Problems in learning collocation:

Learning English vocabulary is not easy, so there are many problems in

using collocations fluently, especially when they do not have any rules.

According to Deveci (2004), collocation-related issues include the following:

1. Learners may have intralingual problems.

2. Learners may make negative transfer from their mother tongue
language.
3. Learners may look for general rules for collocations that do not work
for all collocations.
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 4. When learners learn words through definitions, their chances of using
appropriate collocations or remembering the words decrease.
5. Learners may fail to make sense of an idiom.
6. When students read texts, they may not recognize collocations as
meaningful phrases, which would inhabit their understanding of the
text.

Leśniewska (2006) supposed that the difficulties in using collocations are

towards a continuum between restrictedness and free combinations. It could be
questioned whether collocations are used arbitrarily. In addition, it is thought that
one of the numerous factors preventing learners from employing collocation in
academic writing is the effect of their mother tongue. Due to their lack of
experience with English collocations, research by Bui (2021) has shown that
Vietnamese students would likely translate the corresponding Vietnamese
collocation into English. To sum up, problems in using collocation primarily from
grammatical issues, mother tongue influences, and linguistic variances.

Definitions of terms
Collocation refers to a group of two or more words that usually go together.

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 Chapter 3

Research Methodology
The outcome approach of the current investigation is introduced in this chapter.
The research question and potential answers are first given. The explanation of
the research design and the participants will come after that. The research tool
that was used to gather data will next be thoroughly explained. The chapter will
conclude with the tools needed to carry out the research and the techniques for
analyzing the findings.

3.1 Research questions and hypotheses

3.1.1 Research questions
The purpose of this study is to explore factors affecting the use of
collocation in writing essays. The present study has sought to find an answer to
the two questions below in order to achieve those goals:
1. What factors affect the use of collocation in essay writing?
2. What problems often appear when students use collocation?
3.1.2 Research hypotheses

Based on a relevant review of previous research on the same topic by

different authors, and the research question based on the review, two hypotheses
are proposed address:

1. Find out the core obstacles Vietnamese students face using collocation
in easy writing.
2. Check the problems from different perspectives and figure out the
importance of collocation using in the eyes of Vietnamese students.

3.2 Research design

In this study, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was

used to answer two research questions. Students will be provided with quantitative
and qualitative tools to test their responses to treatment in terms of written
performance, as well as their perceptions of learning in a laboratory setting. A
series of tests, surveys and open-ended interviews were conducted to gather
research data. First, the authors conducted a semi-empirical study using the
procedure described in the following steps to determine the impact of the
discovery factors influencing the use of collocations in essay writing: 1) Pre-test:
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During the pre-test, students completed the test on using a spreadsheet and
answered interview questions. 2) Editing: During editing, I edit students’
documents and assignments that were previously selected for editing. 3) Post-test:
post-test is the last process in the experimental process.
The study was carried out for 6 months. During the 6-month intervention,
both the control and experimental groups were exposed to different types of
questions.
3.3 Participants
The members participating in the research process belong to the group of
students majoring in English at Can Tho University. The group of people consists
of 1st to 4th-year students of the discipline and includes 25 people. The interview
process takes a lot of time, so it is possible to interview students in two forms,
face-to-face and non-face-to-face.
3.4 Instruments
In this study, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews will be used as
the main tools. These two will be used to collect data. The study was designed to
delve deeply into the factors influencing English language learners' use of
collocation in essay writing. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have
been employed. The goal of quantitative research is to determine whether there is
a significant difference in students' perceptions of the impact of collocation factors
in essay writing. The goal of qualitative research is to elicit meaningful responses
to research questions. Using secondary data from previous studies and ongoing
research to produce results consistent with research objectives.
3.4.1 Questionnaire
The questions will be arranged in an order related to the issues of the impact
that often arise when students use collocation in essay writing. The form will be
rated from 1 to 5 to see which impacts affect students the most. The questionnaire
will be sent via email and other tools such as Zalo or Facebook for the students to
answer.
3.4.2 Interview
Questions will be prepared in advance for the interview to proceed
smoothly. The research through interview will be face-to-face meeting between
the interviewer and the interviewee at the pre-arranged place. The interview
questions will be semi-structured so that when students answer the question the
interviewer can expand and deepen the answer thereby answering the research
objectives.
3.5 Data Collection Procedures
Data for the study was gathered using questionnaires and interviews.

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 Surveys and interviews were conducted among twenty-five English majors
at Can Tho University to collect data on the factors influencing the use of
collocation in essay writing.
The questionnaire-style questions ask participants to rate the factors'
influencing factors on a scale of 1 to 5. The data generated is numerical and can
be statistically analyzed for flask and sample averages.
In order to develop and deepen the factors influencing the use of collocation
in the essay, questions from the interview will be asked. For a better
understanding, the data generated is qualitative and can be classified using content
analysis.
3.6 Data analysis
3.6.1 Analysis the quantitative data
Quantitative data from written tests are subject to the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences version 20 (SPSS 20) to make the data obtained with high
accuracy and reliability.
3.6.2 Analysis the qualitative data
In addition to the quantitative analysis, the interview data of relevant
participants were qualitatively analyzed to provide additional insights into the
participants' attitudes toward clusters in the questionnaire (positive
interdependence, individual and group accountability, face-to-face promotive
interaction, interpersonal skills, and group processing). The researcher would
quote some of the interviewees' responses to explain their performance on the
writing test and questionnaire.

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 Chapter 4

Anticipated Problems and Limitations

1. Problems

The topic has important meaning for the development of essay writing
ability among foreign language students. Specifically, the topic will help readers
have a more general view of the influencing factors that foreign language students
encounter when using collocation in the essay writing process. Besides, the topic
promises to bring solutions to help foreign language students use collocation more
conveniently. When the results of the project are published, readers can have a
better view of the effects of collocations that foreign language students are having.
The most important goal is to improve the English language learning level of
foreign language students.

2. Limitations

Since collocation is not a widely discussed aspect of English in either

teaching or learning the language in Viet Nam, it is not simple to get a clear, direct
answer that can contribute to solving the problem proposed in this research. The
lack of time to design and carry out the needed procedure would affect the end
result. Another factor that has an impact that this research faces is the study
population, which leads to data limitation, therefore introducing a negative effect
on the final outcome of the research.

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 Chapter 5
Significance The Study
Enhance English language students' understanding of factors affecting the
use of collocation in essays.

The English language student community will appreciate the importance of

using collocation in essay writing.

Research to identify factors affecting the use of using collocation in essay

writing that helps to orient to solve difficulties in using collocation in essay
writing more quickly.

Through the research, the agencies and departments will have a better
overview of the factors affecting the writing efficiency of English language
majors students. From this, they can have an adjustment method to improve and
make them more effective.

Research also helps to find out which effects need to be better documented
to improve essay writing and which negative factors need to be eliminated. The
results could raise the level of essay writing among English language students.

Resources required
Expenses for purchasing supplies, raw materials: 500.000vnd.

Paying direct labor wages: 11.250.000vnd.

Expenses for office supplies, products, communications, printing: 500.000vnd.

Expenses for meeting of the evaluation and acceptance council: 2.750.000vnd.

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 Chapter 6

Ethics
Ethics are the rules that must be followed to conduct research responsibly.
Ensure honesty and integrity in the research process.

Ensure that the researcher has the consent of the participant. All
interviewees participated in the study voluntarily. Send an email and confirm that
they agree to the time and place of the interview. Ensure that their answers are not
used for any purpose other than research. Without consent, it can be difficult to
share anything they say. In order to obtain informed consent, the researcher should
outline the research process. At the same time, make sure they understand what
the research is meant to provide as well as why it is being done. Finally, obtain
their written consent to avoid possible problems. Data sharing should be deleted
if the person who has consented to participate in the study withdraws consent.

In some cases, data collected to conduct research needs to be anonymized.

This will be discussed in advance with participants. Also, confirm with them that
the source of the information will be anonymous or made public. Do not share
any personal information or private profiles of study participants.

Maintain integrity of information when writing ethics forms for research.

All information written down will be 100% honest. When there is a change this
will be shared with readers about the cause and process of the change. Understand
that if you're not honest, your research won't be accurate.

Respect the opinions of others when writing an ethics form for research.
Always remember that research is not done to share a personal opinion. The
purpose of a document is to provide honest, objective information about a subject.

It is vitally important to ensure that participants do not suffer any harm during and
after the study. Specifically, when conducting research, when collecting opinions,
evaluations and contributions of participants, you need to take responsibility so

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that they do not suffer any damage. From psychological, emotional or physical
harm.

14
 Chapter 7

Timetable

Deadline Executor and

STT Research phase Objectives number of days
(starting-
ending) performed

Nguyen Anh Dung

Provide and Nguyen Thi
foundation of To Nhi
Literature review 03-04/2023
knowledge on
1 (10 days)
topic

Survey Nguyen Anh Dung

2 Questionnaire 04-05/2023
questionnaire (5 days)

Conducting Le Thi Ngoc Han

Interview
3 research 05-06/2023
questions (5 days)
interviews

15
 Nguyen Anh Dung
Collecting Quantitative
4 06-07/2023 and Dao Huynh
quantitative data data
Thu (15 days)

Le Thi Ngoc Han

Collecting Qualitative and Pham Thi

5 06-07/2023 Ngoc Mai
qualitative data data

(15 days)

Results from
Quantitative data Nguyen Thi To
6 quantitative 07-08/2023
analysis Nhi (15 days)
data

Le Thi Ngoc Han

Results from and Pham Thi
Qualitative data
7 qualitative 07-08/2023 Ngoc Mai
analysis
data
(12 days)

Nguyen Thi To

01 research Nhi and Dao

8 Writing 08-09/2023 Huynh Thu
project

(20 days)

16
 Pham Thi Ngoc
01 topic Mai and Dao
Subject
9 acceptance 09-11/2023 Huynh Thu
acceptance test
report
(20 days)

17
 References
Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (1986). Lexicographic description of
English (Vol. 14). J. Benjamins Publishing Company.

Boonyasaquan, S. (2009). An analysis of collocational violations in

translation. วารสาร มนุ ษยศาสตร ์ ปริทรรศน์ (MANUTSAT PARITAT: Journal of
Humanities), 27(2).

Bui, T. L. (2021). The Role of Collocations in the English Teaching and

Learning. International Journal of TESOL & Education, 1(2), 99-109.

Deveci, T. (2007). Why and how to teach collocation. In English Teaching

Forum. Turkey.

Duong, D. T. H., & Nguyen, N. D. T. (2021, March). Using Collocations to

Enhance Academic Writing: A Survey Study at Van Lang University. In 17th
International Conference of the Asia Association of Computer-Assisted Language
Learning (AsiaCALL 2021) (pp. 275-287). Atlantis Press.

Firth, J. (1957). Modes of meaning. In J. Firth (Ed.), Papers in linguistics. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Hamdi, H., Isyam, A., & Fitrawati, F. (2013). AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF
COLLOCATION IN STUDENTS’WRITING. Journal of English Language
Teaching, 1(2), 348-357.

McCarthy, M., & O'Dell, F. (2005). English collocations in use (Vol. 158).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, M. (2017). Cambridge's English Collocations in Use. Intermediate,

Student Book+ Key. Cambridge University Press.

Sinclair, J., & Sinclair, L. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford

University Press, USA.

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Trng, V. T., & Thao, T. T. (2021). A study on the use of English collocation in
writing by students at Thai Nguyen University. International Journal of Social
Science and Human Research, 4(5), 1044-1049.

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 Appendix

Appendix A: Questionnaire
Dear guys,

Thank you for participating in the study titled " Factors affecting the use of
collocation in writing essay ". Below are the questions. Please rate each statement
by indicating your level of agreement and disagreement with each statement. We
look forward to receiving your comments.

Factors affecting the 1 2 3 4 5

use of collocation in Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
writing essay
Disagree Agree

I am often confused
about how to combine
words to become a
collocation

I do not know how to

combine words into
collocations correctly

I often use
collocations in essay
writing

I often learn
collocations on
websites

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 I usually learn
collocations through
books

Learning collocations
for me is difficult to
remember

I find applying
collocation to essay
writing really useful

I often confuse words

with the same meaning
to create a collocation

I can not remember all

the pairs of words that
go together

I am having trouble
using collocations in
my essay

I am not sure if using

collocation is
appropriate for the
sentence

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 Appendix B: Semi-Structured Interviews
1. What do you know about collocations? (in your opinion, what is collocation?).
2. Where did you learn collocation? Taught in school or self-taught?
3. (The question arises if students answer is self-study: Where did you learn it?
Learning resources on websites, newspapers or books?).
4. Do you find collocation really helpful in developing English learning ability?
What if yes?
5. How often do you apply collocation in communication? (The question arises
if students answer yes: Do you use it in everyday communication or in
writing?).
6. Do you think learning collocations is easy or difficult for you? (The question
arises if the student answers yes: What are the difficulties?).
7. When you write an essay, how often do you include collocations in your
essay?
8. Why do you think people often use collocation in essays or academic articles
and research?

Key question: In your opinion, what factors influence the use of collocation in an
essay?

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