HomeAbstract of 11th-rssconfCollocational Predictors of Polysemous Word Disambiguation in Business and General English: A Corpus-Based Study of “charge,” “interest,” and “order.”

Collocational Predictors of Polysemous Word Disambiguation in Business and General English: A Corpus-Based Study of “charge,” “interest,” and “order.”

  • Jun 22, 2026
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Abstract Book of the 11th International Conference on Research in Social Sciences

Year: 2026

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Collocational Predictors of Polysemous Word Disambiguation in Business and General English: A Corpus-Based Study of “charge,” “interest,” and “order.”

Huy Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Nha Linh, Pham Ngoc Thinh, Nguyen Hong Thanh Vi

ABSTRACT:

For EFL learners, polysemous vocabulary is a crucial challenge inasmuch as understanding a word involves not simply knowing its written form but also mastering its multiple meanings (Nation, 2001). Nonetheless, according to Schmitt (2000), learners tend to know only the common and frequently encountered meanings, but have difficulty grasping the specific meanings of the word in particular or highly specialized situations. Since meaning in professional discourse is commonly encoded through prefabricated collocational patterns rather than isolated lexical items, accurate sense identification relies heavily on the ability to recognize recurring co-textual configurations. In other words, according to Sinclair (1991), to correctly understand the meaning of a word in a professional context, learners should not view the word in isolation but rather observe the surrounding phrases and fixed structures. Therefore, This corpus-based study analyzes how polysemous lexemes “charge,” “interest,” and “order” are disambiguated through collocational environments in General and Business English. Using 24,369 KWIC instances from COCA, the study performs sense coding using a positionally weighted rule-based process based on large dictionaries. Pearson chi-square test results show that words on the right (R1) carry stronger disambiguating information than those on the left (L1). Semantically, register narrowing dominates “charge” and “interest,” while grammaticalization shapes the meaning of “order.” Finally, statistically grounded disambiguation rules are proposed for application in ESP teaching and lexicographical compilation of business English documents.

Keywords: Business English; Collocational Analysis; Corpus Linguistics; Polysemy; Sense Disambiguation