Lexical teddy bears and advanced learners: a study into the ways Norwegian students cope with English vocabulary

This article is based on a two-part investigation into the ways Norwegian advanced learners – first year university students and upper sixth-formers – cope with English vocabulary in their written language. The study looked at both ‘wrong words’ found in translation texts and ‘different words’ found by comparing the vocabulary elicited by Norwegian students and English native speaker sixth-formers in response to specific test questions. The principle aims of the investigation were: 1) to establish how learners make wrong lexical choices and what effects these have on the discourse, and 2) to see to what extent Norwegian students use native speaker-like collocations. The findings indicated that these learners depend heavily on the familiar, either by choosing words and phrases closely resembling their first language or those learnt early or widely used, or by dividing their English vocabulary structure along Norwegian lines, leading to one-to-one translation equivalents. This report highlights this learner dependence on ‘lexical teddy bears’ and suggests how it has come about, what effect it has, and how it may be overcome.