Recognizing different combinations

As the previous modules have shown, there are may different combinations of collocations. The key is to be able to recognize these combinations when you are reading academic texts. Once you record the collocations you encounter, you will be able to refer back to them when you are writing your own work. The following examples below are from current research articles. Some useful collocations have been bolded.

"Picking up a second language is predicted by ability to learn patterns" (source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/afps-pua052813.php)

A new study suggests that learning to understand and read a second language may be driven, at least in part, by our ability to pick up on statistical regularities. The data revealed a strong association between statistical learning and language learning."This finding points to the possibility that a unified and universal principle of statistical learning can quantitatively explain a wide range of cognitive processes across domains, whether they are linguistic or nonlinguistic," they conclude.

(click on the link above to see the entire article)

"While in womb, babies begin learning language from their mothers" (source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/uow-wiw122812.php)

Babies only hours old are able to differentiate between sounds from their native language and a foreign language, scientists have discovered. The study indicates that babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb, earlier than previously thought.
Previously, researchers had shown that newborns are born ready to learn and begin to discriminate between language sounds within the first months of life, but there was no evidence that language learning had occurred in utero.
"This is the first study that shows fetuses learn prenatally about the particular speech sounds of a mother's language," said Christine Moon, lead author and a professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. "This study moves the measurable result of experience with speech sounds from six months of age to before birth."

(click on the link above to see the entire article)