Acquisition of collocational information in English by L1 speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic

Collocations are sequences like tell the truth, waste of time where the constituents involved co-occur more frequently than other, potentially equally meaningful combinations (say the truth, misuse of time). Along with other 'conventionalized' forms of language, they are often cla imed to represent the bulk of the language that we hear/read or produce ourselves (Wray, 2012). There has been considerable debate in research into second language (l2) acquisition about whether L21earners acquire knowledge of collocations in the same way that native speakers do, and what the best method might be for encouraging the acqu isition of knowledge of collocations in the context of the classroom. The present study situates knowledge of collocations within what is known about how native and non-native speakers store words in t heir mental lexicons. Then, following a review of studies of collocational knowledge in native and l2 speakers, three experiments are reported that looked at whether II speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic could extract collocational information from incidental encounters with them in language material designed for other purposes. Both number of encounters and the form of collocations in the stimuli and test materials were manipulated. Results show that even after a single incidental encounter participants establish a memory t race for the target collocations, although the more encounters there are the stronger the effe ct on memory. The form in which the collocations are encountered in the stimu li (inflected versus uninf lected) appears to play no role in the strength of subsequent memory for those collocations. The implications of the findings for how collocations should be presented to classroom learners are discussed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo