Acquisition of English collocations by adult Turkish L2 learners

The main aim of this study is to pinpoint common mistakes Turkish adult advanced EFL learners commit in academic writing. The study was conducted to display these common errors with a focus on verb-noun collocations in order to determine the influence of L1 Turkish on these errors if any, and to identify possible problems involving either the verbal or nominal component of collocations. The study was conducted on ICLE-TRCU and all 177 essays were scanned and the errors identified were recorded into an error database. The data was then classified according to various criteria, and the resultant data was analysed normatively for felicity and grammatical accuracy. In the light of the observed patterns we have observed that learners have problems with semi-restricted collocations, occurrence, existence/relationship and aspectual verbs and their collocations, and as a result of semantic and discourse transfer they tend to have creative constructions, and redundant and sometimes infelicitous passives. Also, we have observed that L1 has significant effect on the construction of deviant collocations and that deviance occurs with the verbs rather than nominals.Key Words: Collocations, Second Language Acquisition, Error Analysis, L1 Influence, Collocational Errors