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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 19, No. 3, pp.325-346
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Sep 2019
Received 11 Aug 2019 Revised 05 Sep 2019 Accepted 09 Sep 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.19.3.201909.325

Frequency, MI, and Congruency in Collocation Processing by Korean EFL Learners: Evidence from Reading Aloud

Sumi Han
Professor, Hallym University Department of English Language and Literature/Digital Arts and Humanities 1 Hallymdaehack-gil, Chuncheon Kwangwon-do, Korea, Tel: (033) 248-1532 sumihan@hallym.ac.kr

Abstract

This study examined intermediate-level Korean EFL learners’ sensitivity to collocations versus noncollocations, and frequency, mutual information (MI), and congruency of verb-noun collocations from a psycholinguistic perspective. A read-aloud task was used to investigate the (controlled) oral production of 225 stimuli, 180 collocations and 45 noncollocations, which were classified into 15 stimuli sets with regard to frequency, MI, and congruency. Results of linear mixed-effects modeling showed a processing cost for collocations over noncollocations, which provides counterevidence for Wray’s (2002) holistic hypothesis. Significant effects of frequency and congruency of collocations were also found, indicating that more frequent or congruent collocations were orally processed faster than less frequent or incongruent collocations. These findings were further discussed in terms of the usage-based model and phraseology-based tradition as well as methodological and educational implications for future research in the field of L2 collocation processing.

Keywords:

collocation, reading aloud, processing, Korean, EFL, intermediate, frequency, mutual information (MI), congruency, holistic hypothesis

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A5B5A07918204). The literature review and the method sections were partly based on the author's unpublished Ph. D. dissertation.

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