4.1 Collocation

Figure 4 A cup of...

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A top-down shot of a table covered in mugs of all colours. The mugs are all filled with different types of liquid (presumably different types of tea and coffee)

Figure 4 A cup of...

You’ve already seen how word classes come together in expected patterns to make phrases and sentences. But word meanings can also pattern in similar ways. If you were asked to complete the following sentences, you’d likely choose tea/coffee, sugars and hot, respectively.

This is because words do not carry their meaning in isolation. In a British context, being offered a cup of tea is a cultural norm and the phrase a cup of tea is well established. Similarly, we don’t understand each sentence we hear in isolation either; if you are familiar with making tea, you’ll know that milk and sugar are often also mentioned in the same context, and so, hearing the first question we are able to surmise that milk and two sugars is a likely response, while milk and two aubergines is not. Furthermore, patterns of word use build up over time and, when used frequently, these patterns come to be expected. Once these patterns have been established, we can get really creative with language and flout expectations by deviating from the established norm (often for humorous or dramatic effect).

Activity 4 More than the sum of its parts

Timing: This activity should take around 20 minutes

Watch the video below which explains how the meaning of a phrase can be more than the literal interpretation of the words it includes.

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Transcript: Video 1 Collocation and idioms

NARRATOR

One of the ways that we can flout expectations when using language is to tamper with well-established patterns. In any language, some words occur very often with other words, so that if we leave spaces in sentences, anyone who knows the language and the relevant culture is likely to be able to fill in the gaps. I'd love a nice cup of-- in a British context, at least, the word that would go in this gap is most likely tea or coffee.

This is because the phrase a cup of tea or a cup of coffee is so well established. This feature of language, the way that words tend to occur together, is called collocation. Collocation is a part of our language knowledge that we often aren't aware of that is, of course, until someone goes against the rules.

For example, how would you react if someone said a cup of self-esteem, a cup of salt, or a cup of melted cheese? You might be able to make some meaning. Perhaps the cup of self-esteem refers to the notion of comfort that is often attached to sipping tea, while a cup of salt is analogous to a cup of sugar.

You probably struggled a bit more to come up with a meaning for a cup of melted cheese. But hey, it doesn't sound like a bad idea. Some collocations can be fixed phrases that have a special meaning on their own. What's more, their meaning is more than the sum of their parts. For example, it's raining cats and dogs doesn't literally mean that our furry friends are falling from the skies, but rather this expression is used to suggest that it is raining quite heavily.

Words that go together in a fixed way and where the meanings of the individual words don't tell you the meaning of the phrase are called idioms. If you looked up the meaning of rain, cat, and dog separately in a dictionary, you would never get to the meaning "really heavy rain." Because the meaning of it's raining cats and dogs is not clear from the words alone, idioms can be particularly difficult to understand if you don't possess the relevant social context, knowledge, and/or shared experience.

For example, if someone told you a summary of a longer story in a nutshell or despaired that they were trying to keep the wolf from the door, how would you know what they meant? Neither of these phrases can be interpreted literally. The only way you would know the intended meaning of these phrases is if you've come across them before.

One of the easiest ways to make clear how difficult idioms are to understand when you don't share the needed knowledge or social context is to look at them in a different language. For this, we can turn to Italian and French. Do you know what In boca a lupo, in the mouth of the wolf, means? How about Avoir du pain sur la planche, "you have bread on the board."

Take a moment to try and work out what these phrases might mean. We might use Ladrando a la luna to tell somebody that they are wasting their breath, but there's not necessarily any literal barking going on, nor does the person involved have to be looking at the moon. For Avoir du pain sur la planche, this refers to someone who has a lot of work to do. An equivalent idiom in English might be to have too much on your plate.

Unless you know Spanish, French, or Italian, you probably found it difficult to guess what these phrases mean. Although, it is interesting that some have roughly equivalent idioms in English. English idioms may seem obvious to you because you are familiar with them as an English speaker. If you think about it, though, phrases like "to kill two birds with one stone" or "the bee's knees" are likely to be just as puzzling as the Spanish, French, and Italian examples to someone who had not heard them before.

Also, there might be several different idioms used to express roughly the same meaning. The cat's pyjamas, the cat's whiskers, and the cat's meow all mean roughly the same thing as the bee's knees. Take a look at each of the examples on screen. It's raining cats and dogs. A cup of tea. That's not my cup of tea. That's a piece of cake. And decide which are idioms and which are general collocations.

Idioms differ from more general collocations in that their meaning is more than the sum of their parts. For example, while a cup of tea may still be an expected phrase, it has a literal meaning that refers to drinking a hot beverage, so it isn't an idiom. This contrasts with "that's not my cup of tea" and "that's a piece of cake," which have both a literal meaning-- it's a description of a dessert or a way of identifying which beverage is or isn't yours-- and they have an idiomatic meaning that suggests something is easy or not to one's taste.

And, staying with the food and drink theme, when we bite off more than we can chew, this usually refers to taking on too much work. It's an idiom rather than eating too much at once. Hopefully, you don't feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew encountering all these idioms in one go.

End transcript: Video 1 Collocation and idioms

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Video 1 Collocation and idioms

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