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Particles in Common: Mastery of Advanced EFL Learners over the Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are considered as one of the most important, although difficult, feature of English language. They are supposed to have the capability of distinguishing a native and a non-native speaker. This paper investigates the impact of classified phrasal verbs' list containing particles in common on the effective use of phrasal verbs in advanced learners of English. Accordingly, it aims to find a more thorough way to facilitate phrasal verbs' practical learning. To reach the goal of the paper, 30 EFL learners who signed up for IELTS courses were chosen, and divided into two groups. The study is designed based on an experiment suggesting that the phrasal verbs are not as problematic as they were portrayed in general, at least for the advanced learners. Concerning the utilization of phrasal verbs, the result indicates that the learners in the experimental group, who were exposed to the phrasal verbs with the use of classified list, had better performance than those in control group exposed to unclassified lists.
1983
This study is the result of an interest in the fields of linguistics and ESL begun ten years ago and nurtured through academic studies and a professional career. I acknowledge and thank Dr. Mary Jane Coole for having introduced me to this very interesting and fascinating field. I thanle her also for encouraging any potential she saw in me that would result in my becoming an 'ES~ specialist'. Finally, I thank her for helping me to continue work leading to a doctoral degree, particularly through the difficulties time and place have offered. This dissertation could not have been completed without her help and professional guidance. I also thanie Dr. William Christie and Dr. Anoop Chandola, who were so kind as to sacrifice vacation time in order to serve on my committee. A large debt of gratitude goes to my mother, Germaine B. Sproul, who took over many of my duties as homemaker and mother to allow me t!1e time and energy to complete this study. Finally, I aclmowledge the love and encouragement of my husband, Reginald A. DaIle, whose emotional support provided the help I needed to continue and finish this worle. I will be forever indebted to him.
Creativity and Unnaturalness in the Use of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Learner Language
Interest in ESL learner language has gained momentum since the 1990s with the generation of learner corpora, development of robust Concordance software and the establishment of the principles of the corpus-linguistic methodology. All these innovations have empowered researchers to investigate not only the frequent but also the idiosyncratic features of different language phenomena in learner language. This corpus-based content analysis stydy was an attempt to explore the phenomena of creativity and unnaturalness in the use of phrasal verbs in an ESL context. Findings revealed that albeit the ESL learners were competent enough in creating compositional phrasal verbs, hence creative, they often produced unusual forms in their attempt to use and create idiomatic phrasal verbs. Materials developers and teachers are, therefore, recommended to provide materials and learning activities that would enable ESL learners to more effectively acquire phrasal verbs in general and idiomatic combinations in particular.
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2019
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Phrasal Verb Usage and L1 Typology: A Corpus-based Study on Chinese and Japanese EFL learners
The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2023
This study investigated the usage of high-frequency English phrasal verbs (PVs) and the effects of L1 typology for learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Essays by native English speakers and by Chinese and Japanese EFL learners from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners (ICNALE) were analyzed to determine directional, aspectual, and idiomatic PV usage. As English, Chinese, and Japanese are typologically different languages, comparing their PV usage revealed preferences for how the three groups expressed motion, as seen in directional PVs, and change of state events, which are often seen in idiomatic and aspectual PVs. A Chi-squared test revealed a significant association between L1 typology and PV types, and a pairwise comparison indicated a disproportionate use of PVs among the groups. For example, the two EFL learner groups used fewer directional PVs than the English native speakers. Accordingly, L1 typology appears to be a factor in influencing the types of PVs that are used. Considering the high frequency of the PVs investigated in the current study, there are important pedagogical implications for educators who are recommended to take into consideration their learners' L1 and how it can affect their ability to acquire and use PVs of varying types.
Use of phrasal verbs in an ESL learner corpus and its corresponding pedagogic corpus
2019
Phrasal verbs are one of the most notoriously puzzling aspects of English language instruction. Despite their potential complexities, they are of high relevance for ESL/ EFL learners because knowledge of them is often equated with language proficiency and fluency. With the emergence of corpus linguistics, phrasal verbs have been extensively studied in General, Learner and Pedagogic corpora. Literature, however, is lacking in how learners' use of phrasal verbs reflects the corresponding pedagogic corpora to which they are exposed. To fill this research gap, this study adopted a corpus-based content analysis as its methodological approach to investigate the treatment of phrasal verbs in an ESL learner corpus and its corresponding pedagogic corpus. Findings are also compared against the presentation of these combinations in the British National Corpus (BNC). The study reveals that the selection of teaching materials is more intuitively than empirically based. It also suggests that teachers can use available corpora as supplementary teaching sources to work out the areas of L2 that tend to cause problems for the learners.
Investigating EFL Learners’ Erroneous Use of Phrasal Verbs
2020
This study concerns itself with the erroneous use of phrasal verbs. In an attempt to investigate the source of the errors committed by 55 first year English majors at M’sila University, Algeria, an error analysis of phrasal verbs test of three controlled, semi controlled and free tasks was conducted. The analysis was paired with a questionnaire to investigate the students’ learning experience of phrasal verbs. The findings showed that the bulk of first year English majors committed errors due to the insufficient knowledge attributed to the scarcity of instructions and lack of practice. Keywords: L1 transfer, Phrasal verbs, Error analysis, Contrastive Analysis.
This study explores Chinese university students’ use of phrasal verbs in comparison with their American and British counterparts by utilizing a corpus of learner English and four native corpora of two English varieties and two genres (argumentative and academic writing). The results show that it is difficult to state whether the Chinese learners of English over- or underuse phrasal verbs in writing because a more striking difference emerges between the British and American students. American students tend to use many more phrasal verbs in both genres than British students and they also use a greater variety of phrasal verbs. Notwithstanding the differences, both American and British students tend to use fewer phrasal verbs in academic writing than in argumentative writing. The learners do not show a fundamental difference from the British students regarding overall frequencies of phrasal verbs; however, the learner-native writer gap does exist between the Chinese and American students.
THE NATURE OF ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS: A SYNTACTICO- SEMANTIC INVESTIGATION
Journal of Communicative English, 2017
The main thrust of this paper is to investigate the syntactic and semantic features of the English phrasal verbs and examine the extent to which undergraduate students understand these features. Phrasal verbs from the stand point of this study were classified into subgroups according to their syntactic and semantic characteristics. The investigation, which is preceded by an extensive literature review, is aimed at tackling silent issues related to phrasal verbs. The paper shades light on the basic definitions of phrasal verbs, deals with the importance of phrasal verbs in English, and examines the syntactic and semantic features of phrasal verbs; to reveal whether these phrasal verbs are transitive or intransitive and separable or inseparable. It also focuses on the differences between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. Finally, the literal and idiomatic usage of English phrasal verbs has been reviewed. 684 fresh undergraduate students of Federal College of Education, Zaria, who registered and passed GENS 103 (English and Communication Skills) at credit level and above were selected for the study out of the over 1,200 that have registered for the course. In the light of the findings of the study a number of conclusions are drawn which includes: English phrasal verb consists of two basic components: a lexical verb and a particle (an adverb or a preposition), the meaning of the phrasal verbs is not implied in the meaning of the constituent elements that form them, both transitive and intransitive phrasal verbs can be used as phrasal verb but their state will be different. The results also reveal that although a number of the participants can be said to understand the different characteristics of English phrasal verbs,(43.85% on semantic knowledge, 50.58% on syntactic knowledge and 39.91% on the distinction between Phrasal verbs and Prepositional Phrases) however, larger percentage of them(56.14%, 49.41% and 60.08% respectively) still find phrasal verbs difficult to understand.