HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------------- NGUYEN THI VAN UYEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PERCEPTIONS AND THE USE OF VERB-NOUN COLLOCATIONS IN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS OF THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University THUA THIEN HUE, 2021 HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------------- NGUYEN THI VAN UYEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PERCEPTIONS AND THE USE OF VERB-NOUN COLLOCATIONS IN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS OF THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: DR. PHAM THI NGUYEN AI THUA THIEN HUE, 2021 ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ --------------- NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN UYÊN NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC VÀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG KẾT HỢP ĐỘNG - DANH TỪ TRONG BÀI VĂN TRANH LUẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM BA CHUYÊN NGỮ TẠI ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. PHẠM THỊ NGUYÊN ÁI THỪA THIÊN HUẾ, 2021 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Signed: Nguyen Thi Van Uyen Date: 04/11/2021 i ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of third-year English-majored students at Hue University of Foreign Languages and their use of Verb-Noun collocations. This research also contributed to categorizing common types of collocation mistakes in their argumentative essays. To achieve those aforementioned purposes, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were adopted. The data sources included questionnaires, argumentative essays and semi-structured interviews.
The data from the questionnaire were analyzed statistically, while the data from the argumentative essays and interviews were interpreted and integrated accordingly to give insights into the research issues. The results showed that all of the student participants had positive perceptions of the use of Verb-Noun collocations even though they had different levels of difficulty. Furthermore, the study discovered that the participants did not produce a very large number of Verb-Noun collocations in their argumentative essays and most of the verbs often produced were verbs with high frequencies. The findings also revealed that the percentage of incorrect Verb- Noun collocations produced was slightly high.
In this study the most frequent type of mistakes was found to be “wrong choice of verb” and fairly frequent was the production of completely wrong combination and prepositional mistakes, followed by determiner mistakes. On the basis of the results of the current study, several pedagogical implications can be proposed for students, teachers and curriculum designers. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Pham Thi Nguyen Ai.
Without her assistance and dedicated involvement in every step throughout the process, this paper would have never been accomplished. Secondly, I would like to thank Ms. Dang Thi Cam Tu, lecturer of English Department, Hue University of Foreign Languages for creating favorable conditions to help me collect necessary data for the research. Thirdly, I am greatly indebted to 100 third-year English-majored students of Hue University of Foreign Languages, who willingly completed the questionnaires and took part in the interviews.
These are two of the main sources of data for my study. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, my husband and my friends for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. iii List of Tables Table 2.
Howarth’s (1998) continuum model. Benson’s (1986) classification of lexical collocations. Types of Verb-Noun collocation mistakes. Overall tokens of Verb-Noun collocations.
The frequency distribution of Verb-Noun collocations. The frequency distribution of verbs in Verb-Noun collocations. Overall tokens of Verb-Noun collocation mistakes .