Collocational errors of financial management studentsAbstract

This paper deals with the collocational errors of students of Financial Management. It

starts with the brief theory of collocations from Firth to other theoreticians. It emphasises

the importance of collocational competence by showing the hierarchy of errors as

perceived by McCreton and Rider (in James 1998). Therefore, learners should be aware of

the importance of collocations and the problems they might encounter at all the stages of

learning English. There have been many applied linguists who explored the acquisition of

collocations and they mostly focused on collocations in general English. This paper wants

to show the most common collocational errors made by students of Financial Management

by determining the most frequent mistakes in the use of collocations and establishing the

level of collocational competence of non-native users of financial English. Forty-two

students were tested. The obtained results were processed by SPSS. The analysis of

erroneous use of collocations showed the use of approximation as well as the ignorance of

financial terms. The results of the study also bear important implications for teaching

financial English collocations.

Key words: collocations, collocational errors, collocational competence, English for

Financial Management

1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to show the collocational competence of student of Financial

Management.

In the 1950-ies, Firth (1957) was the first to use the term collocation, defining it is a mode of

meaning. After him, this lexical phenomenon has been more systematically researched,

mostly in general English (Channel 1981, Elkhatib 1984, Ghadessy 1989, Aghbar 1990,

Aghbar and Tang 1991, Hussein 1990, Bahns and Eldaw 1993, Zhang 1993, Arnaud and

Savignon 1994, Gitsaki 1999). Gledhill (2000) dealt with collocations in scientific English. In

Croatia, Špiranec (2005) dealt with collocations from technical English and Štefić, Mravak-

Stipetić and Borić (2010) from English for dentists.

Collocations represent a significant problem for non-native speakers due to interference with

their mother tongue. In 1999, Hill introduced the term ‘collocational competence’. He thinks

that the lack of collocational competence leads to grammatical mistakes as students, lacking

collocational competence create longer expressions in order to express what they want to say

(Hill 2000).

Collocational competence is an important segment in second language knowledge because the

misuse of collocations can lead to misunderstandings. McCreton and Rider (in James, 1998)

think that collocational mistakes which belong to the group of lexical mistakes, belong to the

group of the most serious errors of non-native speakers. Previous research dealing with

collocations showed that errors in collocational competence were mostly the result of

language transfer (Ghadessy 1989; Aghbar 1990; Fayez-Hussein 1990; Gitsaki 1999). Many

researchers have recognised collocational competence as an important component for

acquiring vocabulary (Nattinger and DeCarrico 1992, Lewis 1993, Woolard 2000) thinking

that it contributes to better understanding of problems that language learners usually

encounter. Some studies were oriented towards the direct research of the collocational

knowledge, e.g. Jaén (2007) published the results of the tests in collocational knowledge in

English done by the Spanish student. Table 1 shows the recent research in testing

collocational knowledge.

Table 1. Latest research in testing collocational knowledge

Research Collocations Subjects Instrument Results Laufer and

Waldman (2011)

Verb-noun

collocations

extracted from the

corpus

Native speakers of

Hebrew at three

proficiency levels

compared with

native speakers

Comparison of

non-native speakers

and native speaker

regarding their use

of collocations

Learners at all three

proficiency levels

produced far fewer

collocations than

native speakers.

The number of

collocations

increased only at

the advanced level.

Bazzaz (2012) Verb-noun

collocations

44 male and 168

female English

major students in

Iran

Cloze test and c-

test

There is a

relationship

between the

English knowledge

and collocational

proficiency of

Iranian students.

Miščin (2012) Verb-noun medical

collocations

297 first year

medical students

Multiple choice,

gap-fill,

translations

Receptive

knowledge is much

better than the

productive one.

Yumanee and Nine lexical and 60 high school Multiple choice, The performance

Phoocharoensil

(2012)

three grammatical

collocation patterns

students translation was influenced by

mother tongue

transfer on both

levels

Pavičić and Miščin

(2013)

Verb-noun medical

collocations

50 first year

medical students

51 fifth year

medical students

26 doctors

Multiple choice,

gap-fill,

translations

Collocational

competence similar

in all three groups.

Again, receptive

knowledge is much

better than the

productive one.

Miščin (2015) Verb-noun,

Adjective-noun

business

collocations

20 first year

students

20 second year

students

Multiple choice,

gap fill

The receptive

knowledge is much

better than the

productive one.

The collocational

competence of

‘verb-noun

combinations’ is a

bit better in a

productive task and

almost the same in

the receptive one.

Nizonkiza (2015) Verb-noun

collocations

115 first, third and

fourth year English

majors

Receptive

collocation test

Receptive

knowledge of

collocations grows

as a result of an

increase in EFL

proficiency ;

receptive

knowledge of

collocations added

from one level of

proficiency to

another can be

quantified; and

receptive

knowledge of

collocations varies

across word

frequency bands.

El-Dakhs (2015) Verb-noun

collocations

Adjective-noun

collocations

90 Arab

undergraduate

learners at three

academic levels

Gap-fill and

translation tests

Collocational

competence is

unsatisfactory and

improves very

slowly with

increased language

exposure. Learners

more confident in

the use of verb +

noun collocations

than adjective +

noun. Students

produce more

intralingual than

interlingual errors.

As it can be seen from Table 1, the conclusion of all the studies were the same and confirmed

that collocations are a problematic area for learners of English who still rely on their mother

tongue and use approximation, i.e. a collocate similar to a target collocate. Also, collocational

growth is higher at lower levels while later it is non-linear.

2. Materials and method

The focus of this study were collocations used in the financial management English. The

emphasis was on upward collocations, i.e. a collocate and a node. Verb and adjective

collocates were tested. The aims of the research were to investigate the level of collocational

competence of non-native users of financial management English and to clarify aspects of

collocations which require special approach in teaching financial management English.

The following research questions were posed:

1. What are the most frequent mistakes in the use of collocations?

2. What is the level of collocational competence of non-native users of financial management

English?

3. Are there any differences between the receptive and productive knowledge of students?

The null hypothesis was that the receptive knowledge was better than the productive one as

seen in previous studies.

2.1. Participants

The total number of non-native users who participated in the research was 42. These were all

fourth year students, i.e. first year financial management students. The research was carried

out in November 2015.

2.2 Instrument

The instrument which was used was a collocational competence test. It consisted of two

groups of exercises – multiple choice and gap-fill. Collocations were taken from the

coursebook “English for the Financial Sector” by Ian McKenzie (2008). Figure 1 gives one

example of the exercises from the book (2008:29)

Figure 1. Collocational exercise in the coursebook “English for the Financial Sector” by Ian

McKenzie (2008:29)

As it can be seen in Figure 1, the task of students is to make collocations (or word

combinations as they are called here) and then, to put them in the right place in the sentence.

Only the collocations used in the book were put in the test. Each task consisted of ten

sentences and each correct collocation was awarded a point which makes five points for each

task or the total of ten. Table 2 gives the list of collocations in the book in the order of

appearance.

Table 2. The list of collocations in the book

Verb + noun Adjective (Noun) + noun

Make loans

Arrange mergers

Provide pensions

Give financial advice

Receive deposits

Issue shares/bonds

Arrange mortgages

Arrange takeover bids

Fight takeover bids

Offer life insurance

Apply for a loan

Apply for an overdraft

Check the balance

Set up a standing order

Transfer money

Write a cheque

Pay a bill

Change a standing order

Delete a standing order

Cancel direct debits

View direct debits

Order foreign currency

Identify risks

Implement monetary policies

Influence exchange rates

Maintain stability

Reduce threats

Determine prices

Credit risk

Debt finance

Equity finance

Financial situation

Financial performance

Interest payments

Investment rating

Maturity date

Tradeable instruments

Corporate bond

Asset values

Capital accumulation

Asset management

Conservative industries

Growth investment

Growth industries

Investment management

Standing order

Stable earnings

Current account

Eliminate risks

Exercise options

Guarantee prices

Reduce risks

Reduce uncertainty

Swap interest payments

As it can be seen from Table 2 there are more verb + noun collocations (34) than adjective (or

noun in an adjectival function) + noun collocations (20). Only the collocations specifically

used in exercises were used here, excluding those which appear in texts.

2.3 Procedure

Students were tested during their regular class at the University of Applied Sciences

‘Baltazar’, Zaprešić, Croatia. The test lasted twenty minutes and was done anonymously. The

maximum group of points for each group of questions was five, which makes a total of ten

points. Each correct answer was given one point and only the target collocations were

evaluated. Grammatical competence and spelling were not evaluated.

3. Results and discussion

Answers are shown in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2. Target collocations and results – multiple choice

Target collocation Sentence Answers obtained by

students

Make loan Banks create new money

whenever they

make/take/give loans.

Give loans/Take loans

Issue shares Companies give/emit/issue

shares to raise money for

their business

Give/Emit shares

Check balance With internet banking you

can check/look/provide

___________

your balance whenever you

want.

Transfer money You can also easily

move/transfer/send money

between your current and

saving account.

Send money/Move money

Implement monetary policy The Central Bank

uses/implements/sets

monetary policy in the cash

market.

Set monetary policy/Use

monetary policy

Table 3. Target collocations and results – gap fill

Target collocation Sentence Answers obtained by

students

Asset management ________ management

involves investing in bonds,

stocks, cash, precious

metals.

Finance (financial)

management/Cash

management/Corporate

management/Economic

management/Investment

management

Current account You can receive your salary

directly into your _______

account.

Giro account/Bank

account/Saving account

Standing order With Internet banking you

can easily set up, change

and delete your _______

orders.

Daily order/Shopping

order/Payment order/Stand

order/Online order/Account

order/Equity order/Transfer

order/Saving order

Corporate bond __________ bonds are

issued by companies to raise

capital.

Company bond/Cash

bond/Shares and

bonds/Share bond/Security

bond/Investment bond/Bank

bond/Market bond

Maturity date A debt becomes due for

payment on ________ date.

Due date/Transfer

date/Certain date/Regular

date/Right date

As we can see from Table 2, the first exercise, multiple choice, tested verb + noun

collocations. Although this belongs to a receptive type of exercises, students still made a lot of

mistakes. The easiest collocation was ‘check balance’ and all the students chose the correct

answer. Only eight students (19%) chose the correct collocation ‘make loan’ and the most

frequent mistake was ‘give loans’. ‘Issue shares’ was much easier collocation and 25 students

(59.5%) gave the correct answer. Only four students gave a wrong answer for the collocation

‘transfer money’ which means that 90.5% of students gave the correct answer. Out of four

students who used the wrong collocation, three used ‘send money’ and one ‘move money’.

Nineteen students (45.2%) used the correct collocation ‘implement monetary policy’ while

the others used either ‘set monetary policy’ or ‘use monetary policy’. So, in the reproductive

type of exercise, the easiest collocation was ‘check balance’ followed by ‘transfer money’,

while the most difficult collocation was ‘make loan’ probably due to the lack of

understanding of the whole sentence (or not reading it carefully). The situation was different

in the second exercise, a gap-fill (see Table 3) which belongs to a productive type of

exercises. In this exercise, students had problems with the majority of collocations. The

collocations tested here were noun/adjective + noun. Also, since no answers were provided,

there was a greater variety of obtained answers. None of the students wrote ‘asset

management’ and many omitted the answer. The most usual wrong answers were

‘finance/financial management’, ‘cash management’, ‘corporate management’, ‘companies

management’, ‘economic management’ and ‘investment management’. The next collocation

was ‘current account’. Students were more familiar with it and thirteen students (30.9%) had a

correct answer. However, another answer was accepted here as well and that is ‘bank account’

and twenty students (47.6%) used this collocation. The others either wrote a wrong

collocation like ‘giro account’ or ‘saving account’ or left the gap empty. ‘Standing order’

provided the highest number of interesting wrong collocations like ‘daily order’, ‘shopping

order’, ‘payment order’, ‘stand order’, ‘online order’, ‘account order’, ‘equity order’, ‘transfer

order’, ‘saving order’. Only eight students (19%) wrote a correct collocation. ‘Corporate

bond’ was another difficult collocation resulting in unusual combinations like ‘company

bond’, ‘cash bond’, ‘shares and bonds’, ‘share bond’, security bond’, investment bond’, bank

bond’ and ‘market bond’. Only six students (14.3%) wrote a correct collocation. It was

expected that ‘maturity date’ was the most familiar collocation in this group and that it would

cause the least problems. However, only fourteen students (33.3%) had the correct collocation

while the others either left the gap empty or used a wrong collocation like ‘due date’, ‘transfer

date’, ‘certain date’, regular date’, ‘right date’. Therefore, it can be concluded that both verb +

noun and adjective + noun collocations cause similar problems to students.

In order to check this, results were tested by SPSS and they can be seen in the following

tables.

Table 4. Descriptive statistics for collocational competence

n Min Max Mean SD

First task 42 2 4 3.21 .717

Second task 42 0 5 1.52 1.194

Table 4 shows the results of the descriptive statistics for collocational competence. Since the

average score is 3.21, i.e. 1.52, it can be concluded that overall collocational competence is

quite low. Also, it can be noticed that in the first, productive task the minimum number of

correct answers was 2 and the maximum 4, while in the second, the receptive one, the

minimum number of correct answers was 0 and the maximum 5.

Table 5. Paired sample t-test

Paired differences

Pair I first

task – second

task

Mean Std.

deviation

Std.

error

mean

95%

Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

t df Sig.

(2-

tailed)

Lower Upper

1.690 1.239 .191 1.304 2.077 8.84

0

41 .000

Table 5 shows a paired sample t test which was conducted to evaluate whether a statistically

significant difference existed between the mean results in receptive and productive level of

collocational competence. As it can be seen, the results of the paired sample t-test were

significant t(41)= 8.84, p<.0005 indicating that there is a significant difference between the

receptive (M=3.21, SD= .717, N=42) and the productive level (M=1.52, SD=1.194, N=42).

The mean difference was 1.69 with the 95% confidence interval between the mean 1.30 to

2.8. Thus, the null hypothesis was confirmed.

4. Conclusion and further suggestions

The aim of this research was to show collocational competence of students of financial

English. Forty-two fourth year (1st graduate year) students were tested by means of testing two

types of tasks targeting both their productive and receptive knowledge. Results show that

collocations present a problematic area for the students. The obtained collocations are not the

result of their mother tongue interference but lack of their knowledge of financial terms in

their mother tongue. Thus, they rely on approximation, guessing the collocate they consider

suitable. Therefore, students do not have only to improve their collocational competence but

also work on their professional terminology and knowledge of financial terms.

The answers to the questions posed at the beginning are as follows:

1. Students make mistakes both in verb + noun collocations and adjective + noun. The most

difficult collocation in the first group was ‘make loan’ where only 19% of students gave the

correct answer although this task was easier and belonged to a receptive one. The easiest

collocation in this group was ‘check balance’ where all the students gave the correct answer.

In the second group, the most difficult collocation was ‘asset management’ where none of the

students provided the right answer. The easiest one was ‘current account’ where ‘bank

account’ was also accepted and despite the transparency of the collocation in the sentence

students still used unacceptable combinations like ‘giro account’ or ‘savings account’.

2. Having analysed the results of the test and processed them by SPSS, it can be concluded

that the collocational competence level is quite low (the average score for the first task is 3.21

and for the second 1.52).

3. As in the previous studies mentioned at the beginning, the receptive knowledge is much

better than the productive one (p<.0005).

The results of the study have significant implications for teaching collocations of financial

English indicating that the method of teaching collocations should be more systematic and

more anchored in research. The limitations of the research are a small number of participants

but it included all the students of Financial Management in 2015/2016. Then, only ten

collocations were tested which is due to lack of time – they have only twenty hours of English

where they have to cover ten units and there is not much time for extra activities. Also, the

book itself does not include many collocational exercises which could be solved by extra

activities either done in the classroom or online for homework. Another option is to have a

kind of a project where students could extract collocations from the lessons in groups and

devise a glossary with translations in Croatian. In that way, they would not only remember

most of the collocations but also be able to brush up their knowledge of financial terms both

in English and Croatian.

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SažetakOvaj rad bavi se kolokacijskim greškama studenata Financijskog menadžmenta. Počinje s kratkom teorijom kolokacija od Firtha do ostalih teoretičara. Naglašava se važnost kolokacijske kompetencije prikazivanjem hijerarhije grešaka učenika stranih jezika prema McCretonu i Rideru (u James 1998). Učenici bi trebali biti svjesni važnosti kolokacija i problema na koje mogu naići u svim fazama učenja engleskog. Postoje mnogi primijenjeni lingvisti koji su istraživali usvajanje kolokacija i uglavnom su se bavili kolokacijama u općem engleskom. Ovaj rad želi pokazati najčešće kolokacijske greške studenata Financijskog menadžmenta utvrđivanjem najčešćih grešaka u uporabi kolokacija te nivoa kolokacijske kompetencije studenata engleskog za financijske svrhe. Testirano je 46 studenata. Dobiveni rezultati obrađeni su SPSS-om. Analiza kolokacijskih grešaka pokazalo je uporabu aproksimacije te nepoznavanje financijske terminologije i u materinjem jeziku. Rezultati ispitivanja također imaju važnu implikaciju za podučavanje kolokacija u engleskom za financijske svrhe. . Ključne riječi: kolokacije, kolokacijske greške, kolokacijska kompetencija, engleski za Financijski menadžment