چکیده:
The present study attempts to identify and analyse the collocational
errors committed in writing by Iraqi EFL researchers whose major is
English. The corpus involves (10 ) papers chosen randomly from various
Iraqi universities. The research aims at identifying and analyzing both
lexical and grammatical collocationalerrors. The results show that the
performance of Iraqi researchers in both patterns seems to be influenced
by L1 transfer. Moreover, it is found that other factors contribute to the
high frequency of collocation errors committed by them, namely the lack
knowledge of collocationalskills, especially with regard to
collocationalrestriction,the misuse of synonyms, and
thetendencyforovergeneralization. Furthermore, it is found that lexical
collocation is the most recurrent error throughout the data. This is due to
the grammar-based method ,which is broadly adopted in Iraqi classes.
Key words :Collocationalerrors, Error Analysis,L1 transfer ,
Collocational restriction
1.Introduction
There exists a growing awareness and interest of the importance of
collocation as one of the most salient features of all languages. Indeed, it
is viewedthatcollocationis considered a basic unit of language in actual
utterances. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:284), collocation is
''the most problematic part of lexical cohesion that is achieved through
the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur''.
In the same vein,Stubbs (2001b:14) states that '' combinations of
words in phrases are a good candidate for a basic unit of language in
use''. Additionally, Firth (1957:183) points out that collocation is the
component that usually accompanieswords. Likewise, Diana_ Lea (2002: