Collocational Frameworks in Spanish

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Butler

Collocational frameworks are discontinuous combinations of grammatical items which enclose lexical words (e.g., a_of in English). In this paper, the concept of collocational framework is applied to the analysis of five corpora of Spanish which allow comparisons across a range of communication channel types. Twenty-eight frameworks, consisting of articles and/or prepositions, are investigated in terms of their quantitative importance in texts and their selectivity for the lexical words they enclose. Although measures of quantitative significance and selectivity show strong correlations across all types of text, these correlations are to some extent sensitive to the spoken/written dimension. The lexical collocates also show clear semantic groupings. Implications of the work for linguistic theory and description and for language teaching and learning are briefly discussed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prem Prasad Poudel ◽  
Madan Prasad Baral

Abstract In recent years, in Nepal, while some languages of the nation are on the verge of extinction, some foreign languages (such as Japanese, Korean, Chinese) are emerging as new attractions among the youths and adults and are widely taught in the marketplaces through the private sector initiative. Against this backdrop, in this article, we have examined the current foreign language teaching and learning situation drawing on qualitative empirical data obtained from the institutes involved in foreign language instruction in a city in Gandaki Province of Nepal. The data were collected from a survey in forty institutes, ten individual interviews and five focus group discussions. Drawing on the data, an ecological model was adopted, which focused on dynamic interaction, co-existence, and competition among languages, and findings were discussed in line with these aspects of ecological understanding. Findings revealed that learning foreign languages has been established as a conduit towards economic gains and opportunities for employment and education, which has largely been contributory towards reshaping the ecological relationship among the foreign languages in Nepal.


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