About ColloCaid – ColloCaid

A two-minute video about ColloCaid
What is our research about?
What are collocations?
How do we provide collocation help?
Which collocations do we focus on?
Who is behind ColloCaid?
Where can I learn more about ColloCaid?

A two-minute video about ColloCaid

What is our research about?

The ColloCaid project is about the development of a text-editing tool to help writers find the words they need as they write. Our research involves investigating user needs, the visualisation of lexicographic data and human-computer interaction, and compiling a large lexical database of collocation suggestions.

What are collocations?

Collocations are words that are conventionally used together, like collect data, change dramatically, successfully achieved, entirely appropriate, and so on. Violating collocation conventions can result in errors (e.g. *depend of something) or awkward, non-idiomatic text (e.g. *a large mistake). This affects not only writing, but also reading, since texts with typical collocations sound more fluent and are more comfortable to read.

How do we provide collocation help?

We help writers by feeding forward, raising real-time awareness of collocations they may not remember to use or know where to look up, in a way that does not disrupt their writing. We do so in a data-driven approach to learning, by showing collocations typically used by expert writers in authentic texts. The suggestions are integrated into a text editor, so that writers can access them as they write.

Which collocations do we focus on?

The focus of our research is on supporting users with collocations that are typical of written academic English across a wide range of disciplines. Our lexical database provides over 32 thousand collocation suggestions for nearly 600 core academic English words that are frequently used in student essays, research papers, and other types of written academic texts. The database is further enhanced with nearly 30 thousand authentic examples of collocations in use. Although ColloCaid only covers academic English, our proof of concept can be broadened to other languages and usages beyond academic.

Who is behind ColloCaid?

The ColloCaid team is led by Dr Ana Frankenberg-Garcia, in collaboration with Professor Robert Lew, and Professor Jonathan C. Roberts. Our researchers are Geraint Rees, Peter Butcher and Nirwan Sharma. ColloCaid is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council for a period of 36 months (AH/P003508/1).

Where can I learn more about ColloCaid?

To find out more, check our publications about ColloCaid, try our prototype or contact a member of our team.