Collocations and Phrases and the

Academic Word List

AUTHOR

PAT BYRD

1

Collocations and Recurrent Phrases in the Academic Word List Pat Byrd

TESOL March 23, 2007

1. Overview of the Academic Word List (AWL)

2. Current project and its implications for writing teachers and materials used in teaching writing

3. Examples of Data from the project:

A. required (from sublist 1)

B. persistent (from sublist 5)

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require: 3635 uses of the family in the AWL corpus required (1368)

requires (636) requirements (560) require (552)

requirement (351) requiring (168)

Category Data and Examples Analysis and Comments

1. Major Collocations and

Recurrent Phrases

required to (2058.23)

required for (601.45)

required the (457.45)

required by (326.06)

required a (221.95)

is required (1239.90) are required (766.97) the required (528.94)

be required (304.05) was required (245.43)

The highest collocates using log-likelihood in Wordsmith

Tools 4.0. The number is parenthesis is the log

likelihood. See chapter XXXX for a discussion of

statistical measures of collocational relationships. These are not necessarily set

phrases but are collocational relationships and thus other

words might be inserted as in employees are also required.

required information (201.93)

not required (168.32)

Additional collocational

pairs with high log-likelihood scores.

is required to (103/29) are required to (100/29)

be required to (60/17)

required to be (51/15)

required by the (42/12)

is required for (36/10)

The six most frequent three-word clusters. These set phrases demonstrate that the

most characteristic use of required is as the past

participle in a passive verb phrase. Notice also the

characteristic use of the infinitive complement (Note:

first number in parenthesis is the raw count and the 2nd is

normed per million words.)

They are unlikely to satisfy the test required

by the main argument

Required is also frequent in participle clauses.

would have required all educational

Required sometimes appears in an active voice verb

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providers to

the tools of telecommunications

have required the development of skills

and conventions

phrase but this use is not as

frequent as the use in passive voice verb phrase or a participle clause.

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2. Other Patterns

they are required to seek approval

although they are not required to label them

differently

While required has three possible complement patterns, the most

characteristic is with an infinitive as shown with the

high log likelihood score given above for the

collocational relationship between required and to.

This in itself has

required more covert intellectual processes

The use of an NP

complement as direct object occurs in the active voice

pattern.

In one school selected, it is required

that each administrator, except

for the head, teach at least one class

While that clauses are found in the data, they are

extremely rare.

the consumer would

be required to notify the seller of the lack of

conformity within one month

some degree of a

priori judgement will always be required, no

matter which procedure is used

Approximately 7%

(99/1368) of the uses of required also involved a

modal auxiliary verb. The most frequent and strongest

relationship is with would.

Collocational Relationships: would …required (137.6)

will …required (59.7) may … required (56.32)

we aren't bound by

the required state curriculum

Use as an attributive

adjective is also rare.

Institutional agents:

by the workplace, by the better colleges, by

authority, by the Act, by shareholders

Methodological and requirements of

approaches to logical

Of the 729 uses of required

in sentences with passive verb phrases, only 96

included a by-phrase. None of these by-phrases involve a

human agent. However, by does collocate with required, a relationship that indicates

the importance of passive

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argumentation: by

correlation-based methods, by the main argument, by the

theorem, by the first property, by the second

property

Generic human groups: by an elderly

person, by the trainee, by those who do not

accept

voice uses with this verb.

required by law required by statute

Some phrases are not often attested in the concordance

but seem likely to be more numerous in particular

disciplinary sub-sets.

Required: Prepare a five-year

Required Reading

Used in headings for problems and lists in

textbooks

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persist persisted

persistence persistent: 35 uses

persistently

persisting persists

Category Data and Examples Analysis and Comments

1. Major Collocations and

Recurrent Phrases

persistent interaction (48.91) persistent http (30.16)

persistent puckers (27.24) persistent endo (25.03)

persistent sodium (25.03) and persistent (32.18)

conformations persistent (28.95) a persistent (27.29)

frequent persistent (25.66) more persistent (23.61)

The highest collocates using log-likelihood in Wordsmith

Tools 4.0. The number is parenthesis is the log

likelihood. See chapter XXXX for a discussion of statistical

measures of collocational relationships. These are not necessarily set phrases but are

collocational relationships and thus other words might be

inserted as in

persistent http persistent puckers

persistent endo

Some of the noun phrases with persistent seem to be edging

toward technical language with set phrases that are likely to be

of more restricted use than words in the higher frequencies

that exhibit wider ranges of use. For example, persistent-

connection http or persistent C3 endo puckers.

conformations persistent

persistent interaction

While the data on collocations

and phrases is limited because the use of persistent is so rare,

the data do suggest relationships that could be

suggestive for analysis in other sources. For example, the

strong pull between conformations and persistent is

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shown by the 542,000 uses of

the two words near each other in web-based materials on

google. The words persistent and interaction were used in the same environment on

google 2,870,000 times. Thus, other sources might be used to

confirm the importance of particular collocations and

phrases and/or to confirm their limitation to particular

discourses. (Google search on March 16, 2007.)

and persistent (6)

a persistent (2) the persistent (2)

persistent interaction (2) some persistent (2)

of persistent (2)

The six most frequent clusters.

Because of the limited use of this word, no three-word

clusters occur in the corpus. Two-word set phrases are

given here. The number in parenthesis is the raw

frequency count:

the repeated and persistent attempts of most

modern judicial systems

less-specific, close, and persistent interaction of sodium ions

a single-minded and

persistent obsession with knowledge

The pattern tool in Wordsmith Tools 4.0 showed a lengthy

frame around persistent. Note that such frames do not often

use all of the possible words. Also, the two-word phrase and persistent is a component of

this frame.

The [word] and persistent [word] of

persistent interaction

persistent sodium

Typical use is as an attributive

adjective (31 of 35 uses). One use is with offenders but other

nouns refer to non-animate abstractions like expansion,

optimism, expansion, marginalization, increase.

2. Other Patterns

more frequent and more

persistent than was observed

used in comparisons one

formed with than but in other patterns, too

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conformations that are persistent for longer than

the oldest, most persistent, and most

cohesive forms

3. Additional Information

persistent interaction

18 of the 35 uses are in "science": The use in the

sciences is neutral and means "ongoing" without any

suggestion that the continuation is a problem. The

major trend in the other disciplinary areas is to

associate the word with negative meanings.

persistent offenders

despite the repeated and persistent attempts

Some persistent administrative problems.

Three uses offer in the "law" subcorpus; all are negative in

tone or meaning.

the problems of persistent labor surplus

areas a persistent public

perception that the Employment Contracts Act

is unfair

Significant and persistent failure.

Five uses are in "commerce”; three of those uses seem

negative in tone.

persistent mutual

antagonism

Nine uses in the arts; six used

in clearly negative settings.

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persistent downward

revision

a single-minded and persistent obsession

persistent economic difficulties

chronically persistent

shortage of mental health manpower

The persistent

marginalisation and impoverishment."

persistent problems

Adolescent self-

consciousness is probably quite persistent.

He’s so persistent and so strong and so

invincible, that, maybe at the end, he's presented as

a contrast.

Persistent is found only 3 times

in MICASE spoken academic English (1.6 uses per million

words in MICASE vs. 10 uses per million words in the AWL

corpus). Two of the uses in MICASE have a clearly negative tone: The even more

limited use of persistent in spoken academic English

points to differences between academic writing and speaking

explored by Biber (2006), Carter and McCarthy (2006),

and Pickering and Byrd (forthcoming) . Note that only

one of these uses is as an attributive adjective in contrast

to the use in AWL. All three of these uses are in the social

sciences or arts rather than in the sciences, commerce, or law. The negative tone fits the

general pattern of meaning found in the AWL corpus for

non-science uses of persistent.

persistent cough Medical uses such as persistent

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persistent pain

persistent vegetative state

cough are not included in AWL

corpus. Note contrast with the conversational “cough that just

won’t go away.” On March 5, 2007, Google showed 45,100,000 uses of persistent.

Persistent cough was 960,000 of these; persistent headache

was counted 1, 020,000 times; persistent pain was found 1,

420,000 times. As a result of numerous newspaper articles

about a woman in the State of Florida in the U.S., the term

persistent vegetative state.

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Selected Bibliography of Publications on AWL

Coxhead, A. (2006). Essentials of teaching academic vocabulary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.

Coxhead, A., & Byrd, P. (Forthcoming). Preparing writing teachers to teach the

vocabulary and grammar of academic prose. Journal of Second Language Writing.

Coxhead, A., Bunting, J., Byrd, P., & Moran, K. (forthcoming). The Academic

Word List: Collocations and recurrent phrases. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press.

Pickering, L., & Byrd, P. (Forthcoming). Investigating connections between spoken and written academic English: Lexical bundles in the AWL and in

MICASE. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), the Oral/Literate Connection: Perspectives on L2 Speaking, Writing and Other Media Interactions. . Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Selected Bibliography of Web-based Resources

Averil Coxhead’s Website at Massey University has links to the Academic Word List site with the word families and headwords given in different printable lists. Also, the site lists her publications: http://language.massey.ac.nz/staff/ac.shtml

Copies of the materials used in this TESOL presentation are available on Pat

Byrd’s website at http://www2.gsu.edu/~eslhpb/PatByrd/

Corpus-based Reference Resources for Writing Teachers & Materials Developers

Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Leech, G. (2002). Longman student grammar of spoken

and written English. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.

Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, England: Pearson

Education Limited.

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Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar of English: A

comprehensive guide. Spoken and written English grammar and usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Macmillan English dictionary for advanced learners of American English . (2002).

Oxford: Macmillan Education.