A Study on the UES of English Collocation in Writing by Students at Thai Nguyen University

The current research investigates the use of collocations in students’ academic writings to obtain information about the popular types of collocations they use, the collocational errors, and the sources of errors. The design of the study is a qualitative research which employed document analysis as the instrument to collect data. 50 students were the population and the samples as well. The results show that students have a tendency of using Type 1 (Verb-Noun) and Type 2 (Adjective-Noun) collocations more than the other types. With regard to the collocational errors, it is noted that Type 1 and Type 2 are also the top types in which students make mistakes. Additionally, verbs and adjectives are the main parts that students mostly have problems with. On examining the sources of errors, the researcher found five causes including approximation, the ignorance of rule restriction, negative transfer, the use of synonyms, and false concept hypothesized. Among these error sources, negative transfer is the most important factor leading to students’ collocational errors.