Corpus-based Analyses of the Problem-Solution Pattern: A phraseological approach (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, SCL 29)

Corpus-based Analyses of the Problem–Solution Pattern

Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL) SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich discipline.

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Elena Tognini-Bonelli

Wolfgang Teubert

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Sylviane Granger

Michaela Mahlberg

M.A.K. Halliday

Jan Svartvik

Susan Hunston

John M. Swales

Stig Johansson

Yang Huizhong

University of Auckland Northern Arizona University University of Modena and Reggio Emilia University of Wales, Swansea University of Louvain University of Sydney University of Birmingham Oslo University

Victoria University of Wellington University of Lancaster University of Helsinki University of Hannover University of Liverpool University of Lund University of Michigan Jiao Tong University, Shanghai

Volume 29 Corpus-based Analyses of the Problem–Solution Pattern. A phraseological approach by Lynne Flowerdew

Corpus-based Analyses of the Problem–Solution Pattern A phraseological approach Lynne Flowerdew Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

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TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flowerdew, Lynne. Corpus-based analyses of the problem/solution pattern : a phraseological approach / Lynne Flowerdew. p. cm. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, issn 1388-0373 ; v. 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Corpora (Linguistics) 2. Grammar, Comparative and general--Data processing. I. Title. P128.C68F56    2008 415'.0285--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 2303 6 (Hb; alk. paper)

2007031621

© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa



For my father Albert Frederick Scovell, scientist and inventor

Table of contents

Acknowledgments chapter 1 Problem-Solution pattern: An overview and corpus analytic perspective Clause relations as a means of identifying the Problem-Solution pattern  1 Grammatical signals of clause relations for the Problem-Solution pattern  4 Lexical signals of clause relations for the Problem-Solution pattern  5 Corpus analysis of a grammatical signal for the Problem element  8 Corpus analysis of a lexical signal for the Problem element  10 Conclusion  11 chapter 2 Issues in corpus linguistics and discourse studies Methodologies  14 Contextual features  15 Interpretation of data  16 Corpus linguistics: Towards a multi-faceted approach  19 chapter 3 The two corpora: Context and compilation Contextual background of the Professional and Student corpus  21 Issues in corpus compilation  24 Conclusion  32 chapter 4 Frequency, key word and key-key word analysis of signals for the Problem-Solution pattern Classificatory framework for signals: Appraisal system  33 Frequency analysis of signals  35 Key word analysis of signals  39 Key-key word analysis of signals  44 Differences between PROFCORP and STUCORP  49 Conclusion  50

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viii Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

chapter 5 PROFCORP: Phraseological analysis of signals for the Problem element Classificatory framework: Causal semantic relations  53 Classificatory framework: Lexico-grammatical patterns  55 Analysis of problem and problems  57 Analysis of need  62 Analysis of impacts and impact  63 Conclusion  73 chapter 6 PROFCORP: Phraseological analysis of signals for the Solution element Classificatory framework: Functional categories for nominal signals  76 Classificatory framework: Grammatical / causal categories for adjectival and verbal groups  77 Analysis of recommendations  78 Analysis of solutions and solution  80 Analysis of recommended  82 Analysis of proposed  89 Analysis of implementation  92 Conclusion  94 chapter 7 STUCORP: Phraseological analysis of signals for the Problem element Analysis of problem and problems  98 Analysis of need  110 Conclusion  113 chapter 8 STUCORP: Phraseological analysis of signals for the Solution element Analysis of recommendations  115 Analysis of solutions and solution  117 Analysis of recommended  120 Analysis of proposed  123 Analysis of implementation  126 Conclusion  128

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chapter 9 General conclusions and implications for pedagogy Some principal findings from PROFCORP  129 Expert vs. apprentice writing  131 Pedagogic implications and applications of findings  133 Overall conclusions  138 Appendices References Name index Subject index

Table of contents

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141 165 175 177

ix

Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to Michael Hoey for his invaluable guidance, inspiration and encouragement in carrying out the research for this book. I am also grateful to Tony McEnery and Mike Scott for their insightful comments on an earlier draft. My thanks go to the anonymous reviewer and Elena Tognini-Bonelli, the series editor, for all their advice. I would also like to thank Ulla Connor for her support and encouragement for my work over the years. Colleagues, Pansy Lam, Edward Li, Jacqui Lam McArthur and John Milton, have provided friendship, conversations and moral support over the past 15 years, for which I am very grateful. Last, but not least, I wish to thank my husband John and my sons, Rupert and Humphrey, without whose constant support, encouragement and understanding this book might never have been written.

chapter 1

Problem-Solution pattern An overview and corpus analytic perspective

One of the most common patterns of text organization is the Problem-Solution pattern, comprising four main elements: Situation, Problem, Solution and Evaluation. This pattern functions as the main organizing principle of many different kinds of written and spoken texts ranging from advertisements to workplace reports and has been extensively studied by Hoey (1983, 1986, 2001) and Jordan (1984) among others. An annotated bibliography of the early work on the Problem-Solution pattern by linguists such as Beardsley, Becker, Labov and Winter can be found in Hoey (1983: 189–201). Much of the discussion and analysis of this pattern has focused on clause relations as a means of identifying the pattern, and also on the grammatical and lexical signals for realizing the basic elements of the pattern. This introductory chapter illustrates these key concepts and concludes by making a case for identification of the signals for the Problem-Solution pattern using corpus analytic techniques.

Clause relations as a means of identifying the Problem-Solution pattern Hoey and Winter’s (1986) starting point for analysis of the Problem-Solution pattern is with how discourse is created through clause relations, then moving on to the ways in which these clause relations are signaled. Moreover, both Winter and Hoey stress that a clause relation is a cognitive process whereby the reader interprets the discourse in a particular way set up by inferential connections made by the writer. Besides the interpretative nature of clause relations, another observation is that the clause relation does not relate only to clauses or adjacent sentences, but can also refer to the relation between two paragraphs, which can be seen as a larger clause relation (Hoey 1983). This aspect is important in that it recognises that the Problem-Solution pattern is not confined to the level of the clause, sentence or paragraph (as was initially thought by Becker 1965), but can refer to any unit of discourse above the level of the clause. The observation that different elements are



Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

not necessarily co-terminous with paragraphs, sentences or clauses can be illustrated by the following example for an Internet service from Hoey (2001: 128): TRYING TO WORK WITH THE INTERNET? IS THE INTERNET TURNING YOU INTO A MONSTER? LET MCIS HELP YOU TO CONTROL THE BEAST. MCIS is a Total Internet Solution Provider and can assist you in the following areas: [A list follows]

The Situation element in the first sentence and the Problem element in the second sentence are both co-terminous with their respective sentences. However, the third sentence offers a Solution (MCIS) as well as a positive evaluation (help) and reiterates the problem (beast), signaled by the near-synonym monster in the previous sentence. In the above example, the evaluative element is embedded in the Solution and both the Problem and Solution elements extend across clauses and sentences. This nature of textual patterning has been commented on by other discourse analysts, most notably McCarthy (1991): These patterns are manifested in regularly occurring functional relationships between bits of text. These bits may be phrases, clauses, sentences or groups of sentences; we shall refer to them as textual segments to avoid confusion with grammatical elements and syntactic relations within clauses and sentences. A segment may sometimes be a clause, sometimes a sentence, sometimes a whole paragraph; what is important is that segments can be isolated using a set of labels covering a finite set of functional relations that can occur between any two bits of text.  (McCarthy 1991: 28)

‘These functional relationships between bits of text’ referred to by McCarthy above are synonymous with the types of clause relations summarised in Hoey (2001: 30), namely Sequence relations (e.g. time, cause-consequence, means-purpose, and premise-deduction) and Matching relations, which include contrast, similarity, exemplification, preview-detail and exception. These clause relations can themselves act as signals of Problem-Solution patterns because these signalling relationships regularly co-occur. With specific reference to the Problem-Solution pattern, Hoey notes that ‘… the relation between Problem and Response is also one of Cause–Consequence and that between Response and Result is also one of Instrument–Achievement’. (Hoey uses the term ‘Response’ rather than Solution when referring to this individual part of the pattern, and employs the term ‘Result’ when a successful outcome to the Solution is achieved). However, it should be noted that evidence of the existence of the cause-consequence relation



Chapter 1.  Problem-Solution pattern

does not necessary entail evidence of the existence of the Problem-Solution pattern (Hoey 1983). By way of illustration, in an excerpt from the discussion section of a finalyear undergraduate engineering project report in Figure 1-1, in the Problem 1b + Solution pair, the cause is signalled by However, in the first sentence and the consequence by As a result, in the second sentence. In this example, there is also an Instrument–Achievement pair, where the main clause in the second sentence (…we added an air pump…) signals the Instrument, and the subordinate clause (…allowing external air …) the Achievement. Results Analysis Modifications Although we could not test the concentration of oxygen in the seawater due to equipment failure we could observe that the fish in the tank lacked oxygen as most of them came up to the water surface for respiration. The original air injection system integrated with the filter could not provide enough oxygen to the culture. We added an external air pump to improve the situation. However, we could not inject air into the tank directly as foam might form. As a result, we added an air pump into the foam removal unit, allowing external air to be injected into the unit.

Situation Problem 1a + partial Solution Problem 1b + Solution

In order to remove carbon dioxide from the culture, we put some seaweed Problem 2 + in the tank. This is the most efficient way to remove carbon dioxide from Solution + the water. Evaluation

Figure 1-1.  Example of clause relations in the Problem-Solution pattern (Flowerdew 2003: 491)

In fact, the above extract in Figure 1-1 is a modification of the pattern, in this case ‘progressive multilayering’, where each Solution only solves part of the Problem (see Hoey 1983: 81–106 for variations of the basic pattern). The following section examines clause relations in more detail to determine how the clause relations (and hence the Problem-Solution pattern) are signalled grammatically and lexically to the reader. Although the means of signalling clause relations for the Problem-Solution pattern have been discussed in the literature under the categories of elicitation techniques (i.e. questioning and paraphrasing), grammatical signals, lexical signals and lexical repetitions, I shall confine my discussion to grammatical and lexical signals as these are the foci of the computational analysis in this book.





Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

Grammatical signals of clause relations for the Problem-Solution pattern The earliest work in this area was carried out by Winter (1971, 1977) who illustrates how certain closed-set grammatical items such as subordinators and sentence connectors (comprising adjuncts) act as signalling devices for the Problem-Solution pattern. A list of the subordinators and sentence connectors, which he terms Vocabulary 1 and Vocabulary 2 items respectively, is given in Winter (1977). I will now examine some examples from the literature where the logical sequence of Instrument–Achievement clause relations, which as stated previously can signal Response and Result, can itself be signalled by these finite categories of grammatical connectives. One key aspect to note about these Vocabulary 1 and 2 items is their interchangeability, in certain circumstances, not only within a vocabulary type but also across vocabulary types. Winter (1971: 45) cites the following example of an Instrument-Achievement relation to show the syntactic and semantic properties of so. In the sentences below, so can be replaced by thus, another grammatical item from the same Vocabulary 2 class. However, one of the questions that still needs an answer is under what circumstances we would use one signal rather than another given their apparent changeability. (3) a. The hovercraft terminals can be sited away from the main ports, and so relieve overcrowded dock systems. (3) b. The hovercraft terminals can be sited away from the main ports, thus relieving the overcrowded dock systems.

Other examples of the Instrument–Achievement relation taken from Proctor (1988: 25) demonstrate how a Vocabulary 1 item, the subordinator by -ing, can be substituted by the Vocabulary 2 sentence connector Thus. By appealing to my father’s sense of humour, I avoided upsetting him immediately when I told him that his car had been stolen outside the police station. I appealed to my father’s sense of humour. I thus avoided upsetting him immediately when I told him that his car had been stolen outside the police station.

However, replacement of one item with another is not always possible, as the choice of one over the other is governed by the context. As Proctor (1988) points out the grammar of subordination in the first sentence above presents the information of its clause as given by the context of the utterance, whereas the grammar in the second sentence presents the same information as new. Grammatical choices are therefore highly dependent upon not only the semantic relations ex-



Chapter 1.  Problem-Solution pattern

isting between clauses and sentences, but also pragmatic factors derived from the context. So far, these grammatical items have been discussed in terms of their signalling effectiveness for identifying clause relations, but as Hoey (1983) points out our starting point can also be with a description of clause relations as a way of shedding light on the nature of these devices. He also notes that for Winter the signal and relation are of equal importance, with each requiring a description of the other for identification. Another important point to note is that although these clause relations tend to be realised by certain grammatical items, by no means is there a one-to-one correspondence between the signal and its clause relation: ‘Texts often contain strong clues or signals as to how we should interpret the relations between segments; these are not absolutely deterministic but are supporting evidence to the cognitive activity of deducing relations’ (McCarthy 1991: 29). However, attempts have been made to provide lists of grammatical items as ‘supporting evidence’ for identifying the Problem-Solution pattern by Jordan (1984) and Proctor (1988). Based on her example texts, Proctor, conflating Winter’s Vocabulary 1 and 2 items, gives a list of grammatical exponents for realising each of the four basic components of the Problem-Solution pattern. Jordan’s lists are somewhat different from those of Proctor as he does not discuss Winter’s vocabulary 1 and 2 items, but classes both grammatical and lexical items under a category of Signals of Logic. Here, some of the grammatical items such as by …ing and so belong in Winter’s Vocabulary 1 items of subordinators, whereas others such as as a result and therefore belong to his Vocabulary 2 items of sentence connectors. Although the classification lists of Jordan and Proctor are not without their respective merits, an inherent weakness with both of them is that they do not consider the mediating role of clause relations in the process: ‘… supplying connections to a discourse with subordination and conjuncts is a test not of the existence of the Problem-Solution pattern but of the existence of particular relationships (i.e. Cause–Consequence, Instrument–Achievement) holding between (normally) adjacent parts of a discourse’ (Hoey 1983: 57).

Lexical signals of clause relations for the Problem-Solution pattern The picture is a little clearer for those lexical signals of the Problem-Solution pattern as there exist more areas of agreement among researchers as to what constitutes lexical signals. Although Hoey (1983) mentions that lexical signalling can take the form of a sentence, clause or phrase, the normal procedure is to focus on individual lexical items, which is the case in this section. Hoey’s definition (1983: 63) emphasises the importance of their role in the encoding/decoding of





Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

textual meaning, thus underscoring the intentional and interpretative nature of such signals: ‘Lexical signals are the author’s/speaker’s explicit signalling of the intended organisation and are therefore obviously of primary importance; it is probable that they are one of the main means whereby a reader/listener ‘decodes’ a discourse correctly’. Jordan (1984: 4–5), meanwhile, suggests specific lexis for signalling the Problem-Solution pattern: Within a defined situation, you will recognise a ‘problem’ in the widest sense of the word. …words that indicate this concept – not just the word problem itself, but its near-synonyms difficulty, dilemma, drawback, danger, snag, hazard, and so on, and words such as pest, unpleasant, disorganised, fear, smelly and illness. Whenever we recognise such a word in the text, we expect the text to tell us of a solution (actual, attempted, or proposed), and solutions are recognised as things or actions that avoid, counteract, reduce, prevent or overcome the problem. Then the text may evaluate the effectiveness of the solution with such words as excellent, important, quick, unique and failure.

Lexical signals for the Problem-Solution pattern have been discussed by Winter (1977) under the rubric of ‘Vocabulary 3’ items. These are discourse-organising words which can also replace Vocabulary 1 or 2 items, outlined in the previous section, to express the same meaning. To take an example from McCarthy (1991: 29), the Cause–Consequence relationship can be expressed through the Vocabulary 3 item reason, e.g. ‘The reason he went home was that he was feeling ill’ as well as through the Vocabulary 1 item because as in the sentence ‘Because he felt ill, he went home’. There therefore exists a choice between a lexical (i.e. Vocabulary 3) or a grammatical item, Vocabulary 1 in the case above, just as there exists a choice between different grammatical items within Vocabulary 1, as mentioned previously. However, under what conditions one grammatical item would be preferred over another, or a lexical item preferred over a grammatical item to convey the same clause relation, is obviously dependent on certain pragmatic and contextual features of the discourse. To illustrate how these various Vocabulary 3 items operate in text as signals for the Problem-Solution pattern, let us examine the following example from Harris (1986: 163). S3 On October 9th Henry set off for Calais, leaving half of his arms at Harfleur and taking the other half with him. S4 It had been raining heavily in the last few days and all the rivers were swollen. S5 Henry found it very difficult to cross the fords and rivers as the French army always ran parallel and protected each fording place.



Chapter 1.  Problem-Solution pattern

S6 Henry solved this problem by cutting very quickly across a neck of the land before the French could and he managed to get across. (H.2.A.11)

In the above example, the lexis difficult, solved this problem and managed all function as signals for various elements of the Problem-Solution pattern, but act as signals in different ways. Solved and problem clearly have a discourse-organising role: the item this problem refers retrospectively to the fact that it was ‘very difficult to cross the fords and rivers’ and solved sets up an anticipated solution. However, it should be pointed out that whether a noun such as problem functions anaphorically is dependent on its accompanying deictic. In the phrase This problem, it is the demonstrative This which carries the burden of anaphoric reference. Here, problem has the function of what is being referred to. The items difficult and managed, while not signalling the overall text organisation, still operate as lexical signals for Problem and Evaluation respectively, acting as the referential vocabulary for these elements, and thus play a more local role in creating textual coherence. Obviously, the same lexical item can operate either as a referring (discourse-organising) or referential (discourse) signal depending on other contextual features of the discourse. For instance, in the example supplied above, in S5 we could paraphrase ‘… very difficult to cross the fords and rivers’ as ‘a problem to cross the fords and rivers’. In this case, the item problem would be acting as a local discourse signal rather than a connective one, binding adjacent clauses and sentences, as in S6 above. It is also worthwhile to mention here the other terms used in the literature, besides Vocabulary 3 items, to designate those types of nouns which have a metadiscursive i.e. discourse-organising function and rely on the context for their full interpretation. Francis (1986, 1994) refers to ‘anaphoric nouns’, Ivanič (1991) talks of ‘carrier nouns’ and Schmidt (2000) of ‘shell nouns’ – see Schmidt (2000, Chapter 2) for a helpful review of these overlapping categories. More recently, Flowerdew’s (2003a, 2003b, 2006) corpus-based research on signalling nouns reveals the key discourse role such types of abstract nouns play in establishing links across and within clauses. As regards the Problem-Solution pattern, both Jordan and Proctor have supplied useful sets of lexis realizing different elements of the pattern; however, the drawback of both of these lists is that they are based on a limited number of texts. Proctor’s analysis is based on only four academic texts in the fields of Science and Technology while Jordan’s list is derived from a somewhat random choice of various text segments covering different genres and registers. Proctor, writing presciently in 1988, notes that such analysis for the identification of lexical signals could very usefully be aided by computational techniques:





Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

The work of compiling an index of discourse signals that could eventually be incorporated in the contextual grammar of English, though lengthy and timeconsuming, is not impossible. Recent advances in information technology have greatly facilitated statistical counts and storage. It is possible that certain word or phrase locating programs can be used to speed up parts of the analysis. Indeed, the development of computational techniques for this kind of analysis may present challenging and rewarding lines of enquiry for interested individuals.  (Proctor 1988: 42)

The following two sections give a taste of how a grammatical and lexical signal for the Problem element can be fruitfully analysed from a corpus analytic perspective based on the phraseological approach to language.

Corpus analysis of a grammatical signal for the Problem element One key grammatical item that has been frequently mentioned as a signal for the Problem-Solution pattern is the connector however. This item was searched in a corpus of professional environmental reports (PROFCORP) of approximately 225,000 words comprising 60 executive summaries, one of the two specialized corpora under discussion in this book (see Chapter 3 for a description of this corpus). Out of a total of 8,724 types (the number of different word forms), however was found to be the 100th most frequent with 264 tokens. In spite of its high frequency, it did not show up as a key word, i.e. a word of unusually high frequency when compared with a large-scale general reference corpus (Scott 1997, 2001a) in this case, the 100-million word British National Corpus, BNC. This may well be because however is used not only in the technical genre of report writing but also in everyday English as providing evidence for the Problem-Solution pattern. It would be of interest to examine how this item functions from a phraseological perspective, i.e. to have a look at its colligational and lexico-grammatical patterning and how it relates to different elements of the Problem-Solution pattern. Colligation, a phenomenon first described by Firth (1957), refers to ‘the grammatical company a word keeps’ (Hoey 1997: 8). For example, Hoey (1993), using a corpus of just under 100 million words, demonstrates how reason has a colligational relationship only with the demonstrative deictics and not with the possessive ones. Colligation also refers to the positioning of a word in a sentence, another concept which has been variously defined. Francis (1991) takes this to mean the distribution of a word across subject, object and complement slots in a sentence, whereas Hoey also considers this term from the Hallidayan perspective of Theme / Rheme position. In my specialized corpus, however was found to have



Chapter 1.  Problem-Solution pattern

a colligational preference for sentence-initial position with 184, i.e. 70% of the tokens occurring in this position. As expected, most of the instances of however introduced problems that might or might not arise from the proposed construction activities, with reasons given. However, water quality impacts may arise due to contaminated runoff from the construction sites. However, as the proposed road improvement scheme is well away from the sea, there would not be any direct discharge of effluent to sea waters.

Three other patterns for however were also discernable. First, it was used to indicate that the solution was only a partial one, and that an aspect of the problem still remained (an example of ‘multilayering’), as in Table 1-1 below. In the other two patterns however was used as a linking device, binding the Problem and Solution elements. The structure in Table 1-3 (however, with + nominalization) was found to occur in concluding-type sentences where the proposed solution had already been discussed earlier in the report.

Table 1-1.  Concordance for however to indicate a partial solution Site were used to accommodate the car park. ul design of flood lighting to minimise glare. ng Lap Kok eastern shore will remain intact. ecked over so that the noise will be enclosed.

However However However, However,

these are insufficient to allow full co the effectiveness of these measur the revised configuration will also these new roads will attract addit

Table 1-2.  Concordance for however to signal solution to problem or disposal to a non-containment landfill site. e of the acceptable noise levels are exceeded. ishing activities in the Western harbour will, ting vegetation will result in visual intrusion ondary schools near the road. The impact can

However, However however, however, however

filtered dust could be landfilled at S 3 dBA should be added to the pre be progressively curtailed in the a these slopes will be planted and the d be minimized by appropriate mitigati

Table 1-3.  Concordance for however to signal solution to problem mended TSP hourly guideline of 500 ug/m3. in noise levels similar to ambient conditions. itive receptors at the Lung Kwu Tan villages. concentrations may exceed acceptable limits. suspended particles lost from surface soils.

However, However, However, However, However,

with the implementation of standard with the provision of suitable site with the provision of appropriate with the adoption of dust supression with the use of hard surfaces and an



10

Corpus-based Analyses of Problem-Solution Pattern

Corpus analysis of a lexical signal for the Problem element Pollution was found to occur 220 times in PROFCORP. Although this item was less frequent than however (264 occurrences), it was found to be key in the corpus as a whole, whereas however was not. When each individual report was compared with the larger-scale reference corpus, pollution was also found to be key in 10 out of the 60 reports (see Flowerdew 2003 for further details on keyword analysis). These results show that the keyness of a word may not necessarily be related to frequency, in cases where the word reflects the topic of a specialized genre. Pollution was also found to have certain collocational preferences and patterning. It should be noted that, like colligation, collocation has been variously defined. Whereas Sinclair (1987) and McEnery and Wilson (2001) relate collocation to measures of statistical significance, i.e. considering lexical items with items that appear with greater than random frequency, Cowie and Howarth’s (1996) approach is to favour the “textual” over the “statistical” identification of collocates for the following reasons: Collocations are often described as fixed and recurrent word-combinations…. But both parts of this description are misleading. Typically, collocations are not fixed but variable to a limited and arbitrary degree. As for frequency, it can be shown that individual restricted collocations may recur to only a limited extent within a given text or across several texts devoted to the same topic [my italics]. It is best to think of a collocation as a familiar (institutionalized), stored (memorized) word-combination with limited and arbitrary variation.  (Cowie & Howarth 1996: 82)

Likewise, Stubbs (2001c: 74–75) puts forward a similar reason as to why measures of statistical significance may be of limited use in some cases. He cites the example of a small corpus yielding the following data for the node adverb ‘distinctly’: –