Conventional collocations
Collocations are words which are conventionally used together (e.g. collect data, change dramatically, highly significant, etc.).
Collocation errors
Violating collocation conventions can result in errors (e.g. *depend of something) or awkward, non-idiomatic text (e.g. *a large mistake).
fluent texts
ColloCaid offers thousands of collocation suggestions to help you expand your vocabulary and write more fluently
?The ColloCaid project investigates user needs, the visualisation of lexicographic data and human-computer interaction in the development of a tool to help writers with collocations, i.e., words that are conventionally used together such as 'collect data', 'change dramatically', 'successfully achieved', 'entirely appropriate', and so on. Collocations can be problematic for language learners who cannot recall them as a single chunk. The effective use of collocations can increase the readability and fluency of texts. We have compiled the largest public lexical database of academic English collocations using state-of-the-art lexicography tools and resources, and integrated collocation suggestions into a text editor in a way that helps writers use better collocations as they write. Our proof of concept can be broadened to other languages and usages beyond academic. ColloCaid is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/P003508/).
Team
Dr Ana Frankenberg-Garcia
Prof. Jonathan C. Roberts
Prof. Robert Lew
DR Geraint Paul Rees
Nirwan Sharma
Peter Butcher
is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council for a period of 36 months.
Keywords: Applied Linguistics, Computer Graphics & Visualisation, Corpus Linguistics, Human Communication in ICT, Language Acquisition.
The AHRC’s Vision and Strategy
and the AHRC Strategy 2013-2018 the Human World (PDF, 3.6MB)
AHRC grant AH/P003508/1Recent activities
ColloCaid in Euralex Plenary
ColloCaid will feature in Robert Lew and Ana Frankenberg-Garcia’s Joint Hornby Lecture: Writing with Dictionaries. The lecture is the opening plenary at Euralex XIX. It will take place place at 10:00 CEST on Tuesday 7 September. More information is available at https://euralex2020.gr/.
ColloCaid in the International Journal of Lexicography
Issue 34 Volume 2 of the International Journal of Lexicography features an article about issues in automated lexicography and the need for skilled lexicographers. The article was informed by the development of ColloCaid. It is open access and available to all here.
ColloCaid in Featured Talk at AILA2021
Ana Frankenberg-Garcia gave a featured talk at AILA 2021. Using ColloCaid as an example, the talk, entitled Dynamic data-driven learning, outlined the possibilities of providing just-in-time corpus data to address authentic language queries interactively, but at the same time sheltering learners from complex software and an overload of language input. A recording of the talk Read more about ColloCaid in Featured Talk at AILA2021[…]
A FLaRN Webinar about ColloCaid
On Friday July 9 2021 at 2pm UK time, ColloCaid Principal Investigator Ana Frankenberg-García will be giving a webinar on Academic English Collocations: from corpus data to assisted writing. The event is hosted by the Formulaic Language Research Network (FLaRN), and is free for all. Reserve your place here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/academic-english-collocations-from-corpus-data-to-assisted-writing-tickets-162302056821?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb Note: You will find the Read more about A FLaRN Webinar about ColloCaid[…]
ColloCaid in IATEFL Voices Magazine
ColloCaid features in the May/June 2021 edition of IATEFL Voices Magazine. The article “Helping writers with academic English collocations” offers an accessible, non-technical account of collocation and how it impacts language use.
ColloCaid at Infolex
On the 12th of April 2021 at 1400 GMT + 1, Geraint Rees gave a seminar talk entitled Collocation and collaboration: Developing the ColloCaid writing assistant. The seminar was hosted by the Infolex research group at the Institut de Lingüística Aplicada, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. More information can be found here. A video can be Read more about ColloCaid at Infolex[…]
ColloCaid code and documentation released
The ColloCaid sample code and documentation has been released. The release includes a fully working implementation of the ColloCaid editor and visualization panel. The ColloCaid editor is a modified version of TinyMCE (https://www.tiny.cloud/) which integrates with the ColloCaid visualization panel, a ReactJS (https://reactjs.org) component that can be used to reproduce the visualizations available in the Read more about ColloCaid code and documentation released[…]
A Unesp Webinar about ColloCaid
On Friday the 5th of February 2021, Ana Frankenberg-Garcia gave a webinar about using ColloCaid in corpus-based translation and teaching pedagogy. The talk was attended by staff and student at Unesp and was followed by an interesting discussion about the ways in which ColloCaid could be employed in the teaching of translation.
Academic Collocation Errors and Other Problems Database Released
Introducing the Academic Collocation Errors and Other Problems by ColloCaid. This dataset comprises 361 collocation errors and other issues found widely and frequently in English academic writing.Problems are classed as: (1) errors like *knowledge in how instead of knowledge of how; (2) atypical word combinations that are grammatically acceptable but not very common, like lose control over (atypical) compared Read more about Academic Collocation Errors and Other Problems Database Released[…]
BALEAP TELSIG webinar about ColloCaid
On Friday, 29 January 2021 at 12:00 pm UK, Ana Frankenberg-Garcia gave a webinar on ColloCaid. Ana presented some practical ideas and activities to help students make the right choices in terms of vocabulary and more specifically collocations in general academic English. Slides from the webinar can be found here. A recording of the presentation Read more about BALEAP TELSIG webinar about ColloCaid[…]