Libyan EFL Learners' Use of English Lexical Collocations

Abstract

One of the most challenging problems for EFL students is to be able to express themselves not just grammatically but also acceptably and naturally in English in appropriate contexts. The ability to produce acceptable and natural expressions in English is closely related to the EFL students' competence in collocation-which words go together in normal usage. In the light of this problem, this study aims at investigating the Libyan EFL learners' use of the English lexical collocations. The theoretical part of this study presents a discussion of lexical collocations in Arabic and English. The practical part is intended to statistically measure the Libyan EFL learners' ability to use English lexical collocations accurately. The statistics shows a low level of performance on the Libyan EFL learners' part. It is also concluded that the learners employ literal transfer from their mother tongue, substitution, and generalization as communicative strategies to overcome their deficiency in using the English lexical collocations accurately.