A Corpus-based Analysis of Collocations in Korean Middle and High School English Textbooks

Abstract

This study analyzed collocations in Korean middle and high school English textbooks based on the 2015 revised national curriculum. All 1,718 nouns from the curriculum wordlist were selected as node words and paired with their collocates statistically verified using a billion-word reference corpus to better represent the existing lexical syllabus. The analysis revealed that collocation density was higher in the textbooks, with readers encountering one collocation per 16–17 words. However, collocations in the textbooks showed insufficient repetition and a narrower range of association strength. Fewer repetitions and a limited collocational repertoire led to a weaker correlation between the two variables. This suggests that Korean learners may not benefit enough from frequent encounter to consolidate their lexical knowledge or distinguish different collocational strength levels. These findings call for considering the level of repetition and association strength of collocations in developing the English curriculum and materials.