The Lexical Features of Types of Linguistic Collocations: A Study with Special Reference to Selected Public Administration Circulars in Sinhala and their English Translations

Abstract

Language is one of the fundamental requirements in communication. In addition to words, gestures, signs, and emotions any standard language is studied based on its different features, characteristics, and functions. Similarly, collocations are known as a vital concept in language learning and they are defined as a set of words that co-occur together to depict a particular meaning. Collocations are useful in translation studies to enhance the quality of language. The main aim of this study is to identify the lexical features of the types of linguistic collocations used in Public Administration Circulars in Sinhala. The qualitative approach was employed in this study and the data were collected after extensive reading of 12 circulars. The content analysis method was applied as the data analysis method. Data were analysed based on the linguistic collocations suggested by Li et al. (2005). Accordingly, the present study focuses on lexical features such as word length, word frequency, high-frequency words, and low-frequency words. The results of the study show that the most frequently used type of linguistic collocation in Public Administration Circulars is fixed collocation. The highest word length of fixed and strong collocations belongs to the 3-letter word group and in loose collocations, the 4-letter word group represents the highest value. Furthermore, the word frequency of fully fixed collocations is equal for each word. The maximum word frequency of fixed collocations and strong collocations is 13, whereas the highest word frequency of loose collocations is 4.