Multiword Expressions
Lawrence J. Zwier, Frank Boers · 2022
After having focused mostly on single words in the preceding chapter, this chapter turns to a dimension of lexis that has received increasing attention in recent decades—multiword expressions. The wide diversity and ubiquity of multiword expressions in discourse is illustrated, and various terms and concepts are clarified that will help readers follow subsequent chapters of the book. These include terms such as idiom , collocation , and formulaic sequence , and concepts such as compositionality and bondedness . The chapter compares complementary perspectives on the question of what multiword expressions need to be prioritized in second language learning and discusses some of the methods that researchers have used to identify these expressions in language corpora and through consulting experienced language instructors. Activities at the end of the chapter help readers to appreciate the challenges this dimension of lexis poses to language learners, and they familiarize learners with some of the tools that are available to find multiword expressions in a language corpus.