Lexical Collocations in Learner English: a Corpus-based Approach

This book explores the concept of lexical collocation with specific reference to the difficulties it implies for Italian learners of English. It presents a study carried out on the Italian component of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) which aims at identifying the most problematic aspects of collocation production and use. Through the development of a detailed taxonomy of collocational errors which accounts for factors such as mother tongue influence, semantic transparency and degree of restriction, some classes of collocations which are particularly difficult for Italian learners are identified. The implications of the findings are then discussed in order to contribute to the development of a general framework for the treatment of collocations in foreign language teaching.