On Using Corpus Frequency, Dispersion, and Chronological Data to Help Identify Useful Collocations
James Rogers (a), Chris Brizzard (a), Frank Daulton (b), Cosmin Florescu (c), Ian MacLean (a), Kayo Mimura (a), John O’Donoghue (d), Masaya Okamoto (e), Gordon Reid (a), and Yoshiaki Shimada (f)
(a) Kansai Gaidai University; (b) Ryukoku University; (c) University of New England; (d) Osaka Board of Education; (e) University of Manchester; (f) State University of New York at Albany
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7820/vli.v04.2.rogers.et.al
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Abstract
This study analyzed corpus data to determine the extent to which
frequency, dispersion, and chronological data can help identify useful
collocations for second language learners who aim to master general
English. The findings indicated that although various analysis levels of
frequency and dispersion data are largely effective, the analyses could not
identify useful collocations reliably. The findings also indicated that
chronological data analysis is not as useful as dispersion analysis due
to the amount of time it took versus the improvements that resulted
from it. Ultimately, it was found that a manual analysis of data using
native speaker intuition is unavoidable. This study highlighted the value
and reliability of certain types of corpus data analysis, and also the
necessity of labor-intensive, native speaker analysis for identifying useful
collocations.

Keywords
corpus; frequency; dispersion; collocations; multi-word units; formulaic sequences.

Citation
Rogers, J., Brizzard, C., Daulton, F., Florescu, C., MacLean, I., Mimura, K., . . . Shimada, Y. (2015). On using Corpus frequency, dispersion, and chronological data to help identify useful collocations. Vocabulary Learning and Instruction, 4 (2), 21-37. doi: 10.7820/vli.v04.2.rogers.et.al