A study of English collocation errors in Thai secondary students

The research study investigated the collocation errors of 33 Mathayom 5 students studying in a Mathematics and English program at a government school in Bangkok. The study aimed to examine five types of collocation errors most frequently found in Thai secondary students and explore the possible causes of the collocation errors. The research instrument was a collocation test divided into a 15-item multiple-choice test and a 10-item translation test. The multiple-choice test was used to investigate the most frequent type of collocation errors and the translation test was used to examine the possible causes of the collocation errors among the participants. The findings revealed that verb + adverb type (46.46%) was most frequent collocation error while the least frequent was the verb + preposition type (20.20%). It was found that the causes of Thai secondary students’ collocation errors were L1 interference, overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, and the use of approximation and synonymy, respectively.

本研究针对曼谷一所公立学校数学与英语项目班的33名泰国中学五年级（Mathayom 5）学生的搭配错误（collocation errors）展开调查。本研究旨在考察泰国中学生最常见的五类搭配错误，并探究此类错误的潜在成因。研究工具为一项搭配测试，分为15道单项选择题与10道翻译题：其中选择题部分用于探究最频发的搭配错误类型，翻译题部分则用于考察被试群体出现搭配错误的潜在成因。研究结果显示，「动词+副词（verb + adverb）」型搭配错误占比最高（46.46%），占比最低的为「动词+介词（verb + preposition）」型搭配错误（20.20%）。研究发现，泰国中学生出现搭配错误的成因依次为母语迁移（L1 interference）、过度泛化（overgeneralization）、规则限制忽视，以及近似表达与同义词的不当使用。