Collocations in Methods Section of Masters of English Language Theses

Abstract

Collocation has long been recognised as a problematic domain for Second language learners of English and acknowledged to lag far behind the acquisition of other Second language acquisition (SLA) aspects. This mixed approach study was, therefore, aimed to identify content words and their collocations in the methods section of the Master of Philosophy in English Language theses. Specifically, the research question was: What are the collocations of the content word in the Methods sections of English language MPhil theses at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana? The data was purposively sampled from 20 MPhil theses submitted to the Department of English and analysed using AntConc 3.5.8 software. The Firthian (1986) Collocation Approach was used for the study. The findings showed that the content word data is the keyword typical of the methods section, and it strongly collocates with both nouns and verbs to both the left and to the right in varied ways. Also, near-synonyms collocate differently with the keyword data. This study makes a vital contribution by revealing how the students in the Master of Philosophy in English programme make use of language to present the methods section of their theses. The study offers implications for engendering students’ academic writing, especially at the postgraduate level.

Received: 18 September 2024 / Accepted: 10 November 2024 / Published: 20 November 2024