Learning vocabulary is often a challenge for foreign lang uage learners, particularly in recognition and understanding of lexical collocations in academic discourse. The aim of this study is to analyze the comprehension of verb + noun collocations in academic texts in English by students at foreign language courses at Comahue University. A multiple choice test to recognize thirty six collocations was administered to sixty students, with three groups of twelve collocations, each showing neutral, positive or negative prosody. A semi-structured interview was also carried out and information obtained from a group of fifteen respondents chosen at random. A significant number of students had difficulties when recognizing collocations in context. However, in the interview the level of comprehension proved higher. There is no significant evidence of influence of type of prosody on collocation recognition.
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