Measuring “Spoken Collocational Competence” in Communicative Speaking Assessment

ABSTRACT

In vocabulary research there has been a shift from focusing on single words to considering multiword sequences, such as collocations. Despite the general consensus among language researchers that collocation is essential to effective language use in real-world communication, particularly oral communication, language-testing researchers have made little attempt to evaluate this language phenomenon in second language (L2) spoken discourse, nor is it common practice for speaking assessment criteria to embrace the concept. Following a review of three contemporary speech-processing theories and a logical analysis of the relationship between collocation and speech formulation, this article proposes a new construct called “spoken collocational competence” (SCC) to account for the observed collocation usage in naturally occurring L2 speech. It is suggested that SCC be measured in three dimensions (i.e., accuracy, complexity, and fluency), and empirical evidence for this construct is presented. Finally, the implications of SCC for automated speech evaluation are discussed.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Gad Lim and Dr. Evelina Galaczi for their invaluable feedback on the earlier drafts of this manuscript. My special thanks go to Professor Carol Chapelle, Professor Dan Douglas, and Dr. Xiaoming Xi for their guidance on my doctoral research. This research was part of my doctoral dissertation supported by the Small Grants for Doctoral Research in Second or Foreign Language Assessment from Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Notes

¹ Some researchers argue that collocation also covers a word’s significant attraction to a grammatical structure (e.g., Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2003). The problem is, by this definition, almost everything in language seems to belong to a category of collocation.