Facts, ideas, questions, problems, and issues in advanced learners’ English

Abstract

Recurrent word combinations containing the nouns fact, idea, question, problem and issue are explored in three corpora of advanced learner English and a corpus of native speaker English, focusing on the comparison between Norwegian learners and native speakers. Native speakers use the nouns in recurrent word combinations more frequently than learners. Norwegian learners underuse idea and issue, whose use in English cannot be easily related to any structure in their L1. They also underuse combinations that reflect extended noun phrases, e.g. the NOUN of/that, and favour simple phrases such as this NOUN and the NOUN is.