Compilation and Analysis of a List of Synonymous Technical Collocations for the International Students of Social Sciences

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The first purpose of this study was to create a new selection of a list of technical collocations in economics (along with the manner in which they are used), for the reference of international students receiving specialized training in social sciences in Japanese. The second purpose was to compile and analyze a list of synonymous technical collocations. A“technical collocation" is a grouping of words, such as bukka ga agaru (prices rise) or shohin no seisan (production of goods), that as a phrase, expresses a specialized concept, and therefore, needs to be defined as a technical term.First, 226 technical terms were chosen as raw material for a survey of technical collocations. The data comprise the indices of the 8 junior high school civic textbooks for the year 2006 and of the 16 high school contemporary society textbooks for the year 2005. Terms listed in the indices of half or more of the textbooks were then selected for the survey.Next, a survey was conducted to identify the techn … More ical collocations that contain technical terms. Sample sentences containing these terms were taken from the above textbooks; an analytical program was then used to isolate technical collocations such as bukka ga agaru (prices rise). If a collocation appeared in two or more examples, three economics experts were asked to rule on whether it constituted a technical collocation. These experts were unanimous in their ruling and determined 658 technical collocations from the 1398 word groupings. After the selection, the experts were interviewed with regard to their selection of technical collocations.Finally, 111 (45 sets) synonymous technical collocations in economics were chosen from the 658 identified. The synonymous technical collocations were classified into (1) verbs of technical collocations that are synonymous, such as shohisha ga erabu and shohisha ga senteisuru (consumers select) and (2) verbs of technical collocations that are not synonymous, such as keiki ga akkasuru and keikiga kotaisuru (economy deteriorates). In the former category, the main verbs in technical collocations were wago (native Japanese words) set and wago-kango (loanwords from Chinese) set. Less