Abstract
An Effective Method for Demonstrating the Constraints on Word Combinations in English

Abstract

Despite the fact that that co-occurring word items are generally recognised to have a significant impact on language acquisition, past investigation attempts have testified the low level of performance in collocational related tests. These numerous studies however lack the sufficiency tackling the difficulties facing ESL learners in general and university-level writing students in particular. In addition, there was no clear evidence found of related studies investigating Arabic-speaking students’ understanding of the constraints of specific multi-word items in the English language.

This research proposed a methodology to investigate this particular area. Moreover, the methodology tests used has proven that the research hypotheses occurred. Examining the difficulties Arabic-speakers confront through these tests; the errors participants made in specific answers were anticipated. L1 interference was the main challenge considering their past and/or current learning environment. The methodology demonstrated effectiveness in the progress of the writing students’ competency in understanding the level of ‘frozenness’ and opacity in certain combinative words.

Key words: Paradigmatic constraints, syntagmatic constraints, collocation, word combination, test, opaque, transparent.