Take + noun sequences in native and learner written data

Abstract

Abstract. Multi-word sequences have been shown to pose important problems for learners even at the most advanced levels (Nesselhauf 2003, 2005). In this article we compare the use of the high-frequency verb take by both native speakers (NS) and advanced Spanish-speaking learners of English (NNS) in three types of multiword sequences (free combinations, collocations and idioms), although the focus will be mainly on collocations. The data were drawn from the Spanish subsection of the International Corpus of Learner English and the Louvain Corpus of Native Speaker Essays. Following the framework of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger et al. 2002), we studied the learners’ linguistic behaviour from the perspective of what combinations they use significantly more or significantly less than native speakers. The results show that learners significantly underuse collocations and free combinations, but significantly overuse idioms.