Collocations as a language resource in a functional and cognitive framework

What is it about?

While the traditional approach to collocations takes the perspective of the foreign learner and looks at collocation as problems, this book treats collocations as a language resource. It provides a critical review of the traditional approach, and, after a discussion of theoretical and methodological issues, it proposes an alternative theory of collocations as an independent functional domain. The proposal is based on a functional and cognitive study using qualitative analysis of data from the British National Corpus to account for the separate networks of meaning of break and appointment as well as their integration as the collocation break an appointment. Function comes before cognition as communication is seen as the most important motivation for language in a usage-based approach. Central cognitive linguistic notions are semantic frames, image schemas, and salience as well as basic-level and prototype categories. An important distinction is made between extrinsic and intrinsic evidence, which is frame-based. Generally, language is understood to be analogue rather than digital, and frequency is seen as a complex phenomenon, which is only relevant as a tool for analysis if relevant domains of variation can be identified within semantic frames. A case is made for break as a support verb with a functional role, while convention and variability are seen as complementary, functional aspects of collocations, which are subdivided into ‘conventional and entrenched collocations’ on the one hand and ad hoc ‘open collocations’ on the other.

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Photo by pine watt on Unsplash

Photo by pine watt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Although it is generally recognized that collocations are important for language proficiency, they have traditionally been categorized as deviations from an assumed norm of full compositionality. As an answer to this paradox, the book proposes a functional and cognitive framework to replace the traditional phraseology approach with its classical categories and its roots in structural and generative linguistics as well as traditional Russian phraseology. Instead, it proposes a theory of collocations as an independent functional domain, no longer characterized as “odd comings-together of words” that are neither fully compositional nor fully idiomatic but as a valuable language resource.

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