Blunt instruments and fine distinctions: a collocations dictionary for students of English

• Autores: Diana Lea, Moira Runcie
• Localización: Proceedings of the Tenth EURALEX International Congress, EURALEX 2002: Copenhagen, Denmark, August 13-17, 2002 / Anna Braasch (ed. lit.), Claus Povlsen (ed. lit.), Vol. 2, 2003, ISBN 87-90708-09-1, págs. 819-829
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper seeks to explain the principles behind the selection and presentation of collocations in the Oxford Collocations Dictionary for students of English (May 2002). It argues for a pragmatic and fairly wide-ranging definition of collocation for the purposes of the dictionary, based firmly on the needs of the user. Thus, frequency was an important guide, but so were the ideas users were thought likely to want to express. Judgements were not made as to the 'predictability' of particular word combinations. The noun is taken to be the basic unit of phrase-building, although verbs and adjectives are also given due attention. Idioms are largely excluded. The presentation of the collocations in the dictionary is designed to make selection of the best collocate by the user as intuitive as possible. Where possible, grammar is 'pre-digested(, with collocates presented in the form in which they are most likely to be used. Collocates are grouped (but not labelled) according to semantic categories. The aim was to make the dictionary accessible not only to keen linguists, but to aII who wish to improve their writing in English, whether interested in the mechanics ofthe language or not.