A Corpus-based Study of Comparative Analysis of Verb-Noun Collocation in Pakistani and European English Academic Writing

This corpus-based study presents a comparative analysis of verb–noun collocations in Pakistani and European English academic writing. The primary objective is to identify and compare the use of verb–noun collocations in both varieties of academic English. Seven diverse verbs—make, do, take, have, get, solve, and play—were examined across both corpora. The methodology is qualitative in nature. A total of ten research articles were selected as the sample, with five articles from Pakistani academic writing and five from European (native English) academic writing, totaling 10,562 words. The AntConc software was used to analyze the corpora and extract verb–noun collocations. The analysis revealed that verb–noun collocations were more frequently and diversely used in European academic writing compared to Pakistani writing. Specifically, native English writers used approximately 185 and 48 instances of verb–noun collocations with the selected verbs, while Pakistani writers used only 35 and 17 instances, respectively. The findings suggest that Pakistani academic writers are relatively less familiar with natural collocational patterns and tend to rely on simpler syntactic constructions. This points to a limited awareness or use of collocational competence in academic discourse among Pakistani scholars.