LIGHT VERB CONSTRUCTIONS IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

Phraseological constructions play a crucial role in L1 and L2 language learning, thus their acquisition becomes a fundamental component in the development of linguistic competence, both in specialized and general contexts. Unlike other typologies of formulaic sequences, light verbs constructions (LVCs) have received no, or not enough, specific attention in L2 until recently despite their high-frequency index (Wanner, Verlinde, Alonso Ramos 2013) and despite the fact that they are a source of numerous mistakes at all language competence levels, even among advanced students or bilinguals (Beas Teruel 2009; Lozano Zahonero 2013). In this paper a distinction will be made between high-frequency free combinations, collocational LVCs (c-LVCs) and locutional LVCs (l-LVC), highlighting the crucial relevance of learning c-LVCs in L2. Unlike the l-LVCs, students hardly notice c-LVCs in the linguistic input (Lindstromberg and Boers 2008) and their processing, storage and retrieval are particularly complex. Additionally, c-LVCs are not immediately or intuitively predictable (take/ *make a walk, take/ make a trip, *take/ *make a travel; dar/ *hacer una vuelta, *dar/ hacer un viaje) (Samvelian, Danlos, Sagot 2014) and are subject to collocational non isomorphism and L1 transfers (Italian L1: fare un esempio - *make an example; Spanish L1: yo desayuno - * io colaziono). The aim of this theoretical contribution is to (a) explore c-LVCs, (b) describe the phenomenon from the L2 learning process point of view, and (c) try to lay the foundations for their teaching and learning introducing a bidirectional selection hypothesis.