Collocation and Corpus

      Collocation refers to the way in which some words are always used together, or a particular combination of words used in this way. For example native speakers may say, 'He committed a crime', but never say 'He made a crime.'  So it is evident that “commit a crime” is a right collocation, while “made a crime” is not idiomatic and therefore unacceptable by native speakers. As non-native speakers of English, not only should we accumulate more English words, but also learn the usage of the new words, especially the collocation of commonly used words. In academic writing, special attention should be paid to the collocation of words.  When in doubt about  whether certain words can be used together or the combination of some words, we can consult corpora, now that some Internet corpora are available to us freely. In this unit we will review some collocation of commonly used words through doing exercises. And we will also learn how to use some corpora to solve difficulties in our practical writing to make it more idiomatic.

● collocation 词的搭配, 配置/  corpus[5kC:pEs]语料库 (单数), corpora (复数)