Collocational errors of Iranian EFL learners in written English

Collocation as one of the most difficult aspects in second language learning has been neglected by contrastive analysts in ELT. In this comparative study of collocational errors, a pool of 124 males and females students majoring in English at Azad University of Ghuchan has participated. Having collected the collocational errors out of the students'' writings, the researcher decided to analyze the data from a syntagmatic perspective to determine, first, the amount of collocational errors emerging from students'' lack of collocational knowledge, and then, the strategy types that learners resort to in order to overcome their collocational deficiency. The amount of errors resulting from lack of or inadequate familiarity of students with collocations was 74%. Since the data are written compositions and the object of analysis is the texts, the researcher prefers to conduct a qualitative research and the kind of methodology employed in this research is that of interpretive approach. The results of the study showed that most of the students'' errors in writing come not from their insufficient knowledge of grammar but from their inability with regard to the combination of language units, emphasizing that no piece of written English is totally free of collocation. It also became apparent that the types of strategy learners employ most to overcome their collocational problems were transfer, emerging from their negative transfer of Persian collocations, and synonym. The implication of the study would be for educators, test developers, syllabus designers, and practitioners to fully recognize that familiarity with the way words combine helps the learners to encode language precisely and clearly.