Investigating Iraqi EFL Learners Mastery And Use Of The Appropriate Lexical Relations

Abstract

This study is concerned with investigating and examining the levels of
mastery and production of third year Iraqi EFL students/University of Tikrit,
with focus on lexical/semantic difficulty occurring when using appropriate
lexical relations as synonyms and collocations. The study presents an analysis of
difficulties in using lexical units from a semantic (lexical relation) perspective,
which results in the production of erroneous sentences and which affect the
collaborative process of communication. The results of the study indicate that
Iraqi EFL students make both combinatorial (collocation) and
substitutional(synonyms) lexical errors; but the latter being more frequent. The results
also show that lexical errors are mostly due to intralingual reasons. And they are
not likely to decrease or diminish with the increasing exposure to the target
language unless a vital change occurs in the method of teaching of lexical
relations. It is verified in the study that lexis is not a random list of words; it is a
rule governed area and must be taught in a systematic way.