COLLOCATIONAL RELATIONS OF THE LEXEME PROVERB IN NNS WRITING IN ENGLISH

Abstract

This study investigates the collocational relations of the English lexemes "proverb" and "saying" in the argumentative writing of non-native speakers of English. The primary aim is to explore whether the collocational patterns used in argumentative essays written by Serbian learners of English, and other non-native speakers, deviate from the preferred usage patterns found in combinatory and collocation dictionaries of the English language, native speaker writing, and corpora. The research focuses on two types of lexical collocations: L3; adjective + noun, and L4; noun + verb, which are analysed to determine how often and in what collocational contexts "proverb" and "saying" occur in learner language.

The study draws on data from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLEv3), which includes argumentative essays written by non-native speakers of English, from 25 language backgrounds, including Serbian. The collocational relations in these essays are compared with those found in the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), which contains argumentative essays written by native speakers, and with those found in the combinatory and collocation dictionaries of English. Another learner corpus investigated is KorSSAng, that contains argumentative essays by Serbian learners of English, written in their L1. Additionally, the Serbian Corpus (SrpKor2013) and the English corpora, such as the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), are used for reference to explore collocational tendencies in both English and Serbian.

The analysis reveals that most non-native speakers, including Serbian learners, tend to use lexemes "proverb" and "saying" much more frequently in their writing compared to their native peers. Such distribution of the two lexemes in non-native writing in English may stem from several factors: 1) they may be employed more frequently in introductory proverb formulas to establish dialogue with the putative reader, especially since non-native learners may not share the same extralinguistic knowledge; 2) cultural norms in the learners’ native languages, where using the lexeme proverb in introductory formulas is a common practice, might influence their preferences in writing in English; and 3) the chosen writing topics may naturally affect the choice of vocabulary, although no topic recycling was noted in this study, and no essay topics include the two lexemes.

In contrast, the lower frequency of "proverb" and "saying" in native speakers’ writing reflects their status in contemporary English, where they are less commonly used, in introductory formulas and otherwise. This is confirmed by their distribution in the contemporary English corpora, and native speaker learner corpus, as well as by Ngram analysis tracking these words' distribution in English literature from 1800 to 2022. This diachronic analysis shows a love-hate relationship with these two lexemes; while "proverb" was once more common in English discourse, its use has significantly declined over the past two centuries, particularly after the Enlightenment era. In contrast, "saying" remains a more popular choice, especially in the English corpora.

In terms of the adjectives "proverb" and "saying" collocate with in L3 collocations, the findings show that non-native speakers largely adhere to the combinations recommended in English collocation dictionaries (e.g., "old", "famous", "popular", "wise"). The patterns of language use seen among Serbian learners are also observed in most of the remaining 24 components of the ICLEv3 corpus. Positive transfer from Serbian is noted in some cases, while there is no negative transfer.

As for the verbs "proverb" and "saying" collocate with in L4 collocations, in NNS writing in English, the former most frequently collocates with "say", whereas this verb is second most frequent in collocations with the latter, which most frequently collocates with one the verbs collocation dictionaries do recommend; "go". The distribution of another recommended verb ("run") is marginal. Given that "say" is the most common reporting verb of speaking and thinking in both direct and indirect speech across all registers, its frequent use in collocations like "proverb says" and "saying says“ by non-native speakers is telling, because the use of proverbs in discourse can be seen as quoting folk speech (Konstantinova, 2014: 278). Such collocations would be deemed ungrammatical, were one to rely solely on collocational relations recommended by combinatory and collocation dictionaries, and it could be argued that their presence in NNS writing in English results mainly from their L1 interference. However, this study addresses discrepancies between dictionary entries and actual language usage, in terms of the verbs "proverb" and "saying" collocate with. It appears that the entries found in the Combinatory Dictionary of English Language and some collocation dictionaries are not fully in line with the real-world usage as evidenced by this corpus-based analysis. Despite what collocation dictionaries suggest (e.g., "proverb goes", "proverb runs" & "saying goes", "saying runs"), the study found "proverb says" and "saying says" collocations in English language corpora as well. This discrepancy may arise from how dictionary entries are created, often based on native speakers’ intuition, which may not always be reliable for judging collocational acceptability. This suggests that these resources are in need of revision to better reflect contemporary and authentic language patterns.

The findings of this research highlight the complex interaction between L1 influence and SLA in the development of collocational competence. While some non-native speakers tend to overuse certain expressions and transfer native collocations into English, they also successfully adopt and adapt English collocational norms to varying degrees. Hence, explicit instruction in collocations and corpus-based approaches to language learning could help learners develop more native-like use of lexical combinations and become aware of collocational restrictions, thus improving both their fluency and accuracy.

A future study might investigate the discourse function of proverbs, their content, use of introductory proverb formulas and/or lack thereof in native and non-native writing in English.