The effects of textbook frequency, congruency, and word class on the processing of L2 collocations by Chinese EFL learners

Ni Li, Brent Wolter (), Lianrui Yang () and Anna Siyanova-Chanturia
Additional contact information
Ni Li: Wuhan University of Science and Technology
Brent Wolter: Idaho State University
Lianrui Yang: Ocean University of China
Anna Siyanova-Chanturia: Victoria University of Wellington

Palgrave Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the roles of L1-L2 congruency, frequency, word class, and proficiency in L2 collocation processing. An acceptability judgment task was conducted to evaluate how participants processed verb-noun and adjective-noun collocations across four levels of congruency: congruent, partially congruent, L1-only, and L2-only collocations. The findings revealed that participants were sensitive to both congruency and collocation frequency. Moreover, as L2 proficiency increased, the congruency effect became pronounced, while the impact of collocation frequency remained consistently significant. The results indicate differences in response time (RT) and accuracy among incongruent, partially congruent, and fully congruent collocations, suggesting a need for a more nuanced approach to defining congruency than what has been used in the past studies. Regarding the word-class configurations, participants processed verb-noun collocations more quickly and accurately than adjective-noun collocations. Finally, our findings demonstrated a significant improvement in accuracy rates with increased proficiency. We argue that future research should carefully consider the effects of congruency, frequency, word class, and proficiency, as well as the potential interactions between these factors.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-05045-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-05045-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05045-x

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().