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Phrasal verbs in learner English: A corpus-based study of German and Italian students
Abstract
Die Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit dem sprachlichen (Fehl-)Verhalten deutscher und italienischer fortgeschrittener Englischstudierender im Bereich der im Englischen weitverbreiteten Phrasenverben, also fester Kombinationen aus Verb und Adverbialpartikel wie put off oder make up. Sie zeichnen sich durch hohe Frequenz in den unterschiedlichsten Textsorten und Registern des Englischen aus und sind so ein fester Bestandteil der englischen Idiomatik. Allerdings stellen sie wegen ihrer hohen syntaktischen Komplexität und oftmals fehlenden semantischen Transparenz selbst fortgeschrittene Fremdsprachenlerner vor erhebliche Probleme. Diese müssen sich u. a. damit auseinandersetzen, dass die Bedeutung eines Phrasenverbs in der Regel nicht aus der Summe der Einzelbedeutungen besteht, dass Phrasenverben mehrere (nicht zusammenhängende) Bedeutungen annehmen können und dass sie kontextuellen Restriktionen unterliegen. Aus kontrastiver Sicht findet diese Verbenart in den jeweiligen Muttersprachen der Lerner nur bedingt Entsprechung: Im Italienischen existiert zwar ein syntaktisch und semantisch kongruenter Verbentypus („verbi frasali“); im Gegensatz zum Englischen werden die italienischen Phrasenverben aber nur im gesprochenem Kontext verwendet und auch ihre Anzahl ist sehr viel geringer. Deutsche Partikelverben ähneln den Phrasenverben oberflächlich, verhalten sich aber syntaktisch anders, da die (je nach Flexion) freistehende Partikel lediglich ein vom Stamm gelöstes Präfix ist (weggehen – er ging weg). Semantisch sind Partikelverben aber mit Phrasenverben in vielen Fällen vergleichbar.
Italienische und deutsche Englischlernende werden also mit einer ihnen teilweise fremden Konstruktion konfrontiert, deren Beherrschung zwar für idiomatisches Englisch nötig ist, deren Bedeutung aber im (schulischen) Fremdsprachenunterricht nicht klar genug herausgestellt wird. Dies ist der Ausgangspunkt des Forschungsprojektes: Durch detaillierte quantitative und qualitative Analysen aller im Datenmaterial (d.h. der „deutschen“ und „italienischen“ Komponente des International Corpus of Learner English, je ca. 250000 Wörter) vorhandenen Phrasenverben wurde eine genaue Beschreibung der für fortgeschrittene Lerner tatsächlich auftretenden Schwierigkeiten vorgenommen. Die Ergebnisse können als Grundlage für die Entwicklung von Lehrmaterialien dienen, die besser auf die Problematik der Phrasenverben abgestimmt sind als jene, die bisher zur Verfügung stehen. Im Unterschied zu früheren Arbeiten, die meist das Phänomen der Vermeidung der Phrasenverben untersuchten, analysiert die vorliegende Arbeit Texte, die nicht auf den Gebrauch spezifischer, vorher festgelegter Phrasenverben spezialisiert sind und so ein neutraleres Bild der Lernerkompetenzen in diesem Bereich widerspiegeln.
Die Arbeit ist in sieben Kapitel gegliedert. Das erste Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit der Phraseologieforschung im Allgemeinen und in Hinblick auf Fremdsprachenlerner; darauf folgen theoretische Grundlagen zu Phrasenverben und ein Forschungsüberblick zu Phrasenverben in der Lernersprache allgemein (Kapitel 2). Dem schließt sich eine Einführung in die Lernerkorpuslinguistik an, in der besonderes Augenmerk auf dem Potential dieses noch relativ jungen Forschungsbereichs liegt. Hier findet sich auch eine ausführliche Beschreibung des verwendeten Korpus (Kapitel 3). Im vierten Kapitel werden methodische Gesichtspunkte der Studie beschrieben; im fünften und sechsten Kapitel werden die Ergebnisse der quantitativen und qualitativen Analysen besprochen. Das siebte Kapitel fasst die Ergebnisse zusammen, zieht Schlussfolgerungen daraus und bietet einen Ausblick auf mögliche weiterführende Forschungsansätze.
... The majority of the previously published studies on PVs are corpus-based studies (e.g., De Cock, 2005;Waibel, 2007;Wierszycka, 2015;Garbatovič and Grigaliūnienė, 2020). Although extensive investigation has been done on PVs, the majority of them mainly focuses on the influence of the learners' L1. ...
... There is a growing body of literature that recognises the challenges of mastering PVs. Empirical evidence suggests that since English PVs are polysemous and idiomatic, they are challenging for EFL learners to master indicating an insufficient knowledge of the meaning and usage of English PVs (Cowie, 1993;De Cock, 2005;Waibel, 2007;Moore Hanna, 2012;Garnier and Schmitt, 2016;Shareef, 2018;Omidian et al., 2019). The findings established that EFL learners often avoid PVs or use them with low variety and frequency than native speakers. ...
... They found that learners were less likely to produce PVs. Furthermore, a number of scholars examined avoidance and overreliance patterns of PVs among different EFL learners, e.g., Spanish (e.g., Moore Hanna, 2012; Garnier and Schmitt, 2016), Dutch (e.g., Hulstijin and Marchena, 1989), Hebrew (e.g., Dagut and Laufer, 1985), Chinese (e.g., Liao and Fukuya, 2004), Arabic (e.g., Abu Jamil, 2010;Alshayban, 2018), Swedish vs. Hebrew (e.g., Laufer and Eliasson, 1993), German vs. Italian (e.g., Waibel, 2007) and Koran vs. German (Koo, 2015). ...
Foreign language learners often encounter challenges in understanding and using English phrasal verbs (PVs) due to its idiomaticity and complexity. A phrasal verb typically comprises a verb and a preposition, e.g., pick up, look after, and result in. The study attempts to determine the extent to which frequency of occurrence facilitates or hinders mastering the target forms among English Foreign Language (EFL) learners. This study attempts to examine frequency of occurrence as a factor that might account for EFL learners’ receptive and productive knowledge of PVs. English belongs to the Germanic language family and hence it shares some common linguistic features with other members of the language family, e.g., German has detachable prefix verbs (e.g., warten auf) in a way resembling the English phrasal verb (e.g., wait for). On the other hand, other language families such as Semitic languages (e.g., Arabic), rely heavily on single word-verbs (SVs) (e.g., y?nt??r ‘wait’ in Arabic). For this purpose, a total of 37 high school female students in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) took part in the current study.
... (3) PVs are MWIs (multiword items); and productive knowledge of many MWIs supports an ability to speak and write fluently (e.g., Kuiper, 1996). (4) PVs merit special attention in the context of instructed L2 learning because, as mentioned, they tend to be more difficult to learn in that context than other types of vocabulary item, including single words (for reviews see Waibel, 2007;Wolter, 2020). ...
... There is abundant evidence that acquisition of PVs often proceeds slowly in the case of individuals who were not immersed in English during childhood either at home or in school (e.g., Siyanova & Schmitt, 2007;Waibel, 2007). Such individuals include teenagers and adults trying to learn English in their home country (Waibel, 2007) and, plausibly, individuals who emigrated to an English speaking country as adults (Wang, 2019). ...
... There is abundant evidence that acquisition of PVs often proceeds slowly in the case of individuals who were not immersed in English during childhood either at home or in school (e.g., Siyanova & Schmitt, 2007;Waibel, 2007). Such individuals include teenagers and adults trying to learn English in their home country (Waibel, 2007) and, plausibly, individuals who emigrated to an English speaking country as adults (Wang, 2019). The relevant literature presents several likely reasons for the reduced learnability of PVs. ...
There has been considerable discussion about the degree to which English phrasal verbs (PVs) tend to be semantically “compositional” or “non-idiomatic” versus “non-compositional” or “idiomatic”. Much of this discussion relates to evidence that many learners of English as an additional language (L2) find PVs particularly difficult to acquire. This article reports a novel empirical study of the compositionality of PVs which makes use of published and newly collected subjective ratings of lexeme “imageability” (i.e., the extent to which a lexeme evokes mental imagery). The premise is that a PV cannot be wholly compositional if its imageability differs greatly from the imageability of its constituent words (CWs). The study focuses on 150 frequent PVs. Key data are meaning-specific imageability ratings of these PVs and their CWs. Results of multiple linear regression analysis indicate that for native-speakers about 13% of PV imageability is attributable to CW imageability. Literality, measured by two kinds of ratings, emerged as a much stronger predictor. These results suggest that any psychologically real PV compositionality in terms of imageability tends to be weakly accessible to native-speakers engaged in off-line reflection. The results suggest lines of enquiry with respect to treatment of PVs in contexts of instructed L2 acquisition.
... Despite these illuminating lists with various foci, the potential problems have remained. Waibel (2007) studied PVs in written register comparing German and Italian advanced EFL learners' usages to each other and these usages to American native speakers'. The results showed German learners used even more PVs compared to native speakers while Italians used considerably fewer PVs than native speakers. ...
... In addition, the results show up and out as the most frequent AVPs, which are the same as Ryoo (2013). Similarly, 7 out of 10 mostly used AVPs in written register are the same as the ones in Waibel (2007), which are go 48 11 10 7 13 3 3 6 0 1 2 0 0 104 come 21 17 1 1 4 1 0 6 0 2 2 0 3 58 get 19 21 5 3 2 ...
... Furthermore, the results for written register are also parallel since 4 out of 7 the most frequent LVs are the same, which are go, bring, come, and carry. Additionally, the results of this study are also in line with Waibel (2007) as 5 out of 10 the most common LVs are the same, which are go, get, bring, come, and take for the written register. Like German EFL learners, Italian EFL learners also used go, bring, come, get, take, give, and break as the most common LVs in their PVs, which are the same as 7 out of 10 the most common LVs in this study. ...
This quantitative study aims to reveal the most frequently used phrasal verbs (PVs) by L1 speakers of English and Turkish EFL learners in written and spoken registers. With the purpose of spotting any overuse and/or underuse by Turkish EFL learners, it compares their usage to L1 English speakers' through four corpora-two learner corpora and two native corpora. Additionally, the study investigates the most frequent adverbial verb particles (AVPs) and lexical verbs (LVs) in phrasal constructions comparing learners and native speakers. The results show that although LV types differ to a large extent, Turkish EFL learners display a similar profile to L1 English speakers in terms of types of PVs and AVPs. However, these verbs and particles are significantly underused, especially in spoken register-a result that contradicts previous research. Specifically, within the scope of this study, regardless of the register Turkish learners tend to favour few AVPs out of the mostly used ten while leaving out the others. The findings might be of use to EFL teachers regarding raising their students' awareness on the contextual use of PVs in different registers with a combination of both implicit and explicit teaching in mind. In addition, learners can benefit from the ready-made PV lists to enhance their prospective usage in meaningful contexts.
... Although linguists have long been investigating the difficulties that lie behind the usage of phrasal verbs, the interest in this field gained momentum only in the 1990s, when the first learner corpora were compiled and corpus-linguistic methodology emerged. With electronic collections of authentic learner texts at hand, a number of detailed corpus-based studies into the use of phrasal verbs by learners with different mother tongue backgrounds (De Cock, 2005;Waibel, 2007;Mandor, 2008;Chen, 2013;Wierszycka, 2015) were carried out. None of them, however, focused specifically on the use of phrasal verbs in the writing of Lithuanian and Polish learners of English -the two non-Germanic language groups that do not have such a grammatical feature in their native languages. ...
... Mastering the use of phrasal verbs is a notoriously difficult challenge for non-native learners of English. The previous corpus-based studies with regard to phrasal verbs highlight this issue, suggesting that non-native learners of English who lack phrasal verbs in their mother tongue (such as hebrew-speaking, Italian-speaking or Polish-speaking learners) tend to underuse phrasal verbs, preferring their oneword verb equivalents (Dagut and Laufer, 1985;Waibel, 2007;Wierszycka, 2015). Learners with Germanic first languages (such as German-speaking or Dutchspeaking learners), on the other hand, use these combinations more confidently as they are more familiar with this verb type from their native languages (hulstijn and Marchena, 1989;Waibel, 2007). ...
... The previous corpus-based studies with regard to phrasal verbs highlight this issue, suggesting that non-native learners of English who lack phrasal verbs in their mother tongue (such as hebrew-speaking, Italian-speaking or Polish-speaking learners) tend to underuse phrasal verbs, preferring their oneword verb equivalents (Dagut and Laufer, 1985;Waibel, 2007;Wierszycka, 2015). Learners with Germanic first languages (such as German-speaking or Dutchspeaking learners), on the other hand, use these combinations more confidently as they are more familiar with this verb type from their native languages (hulstijn and Marchena, 1989;Waibel, 2007). In fact, through a corpus-based analysis of Italian and German components of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), Waibel (ibid.) has revealed that advanced German learners of English use even more phrasal verbs in written English than native speakers. ...
Phrasal verbs, though very common in the English language, are acknowledged as difficult to acquire by non-native learners of English. The present study examines this issue focusing on two learner groups from different mother tongue backgrounds, i.e. Lithuanian and Polish advanced students of English. The analysis is conducted based on Granger's (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis methodology, investigating the Lithuanian and Polish components of the International Corpus of Learner English, as well as the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. The results obtained in the study prove that both learner groups underuse phrasal verbs compared with native English speakers. It is concluded that this could be due to the learners' limited repertoire of phrasal verbs as they employ significantly fewer phrasal verb types than native speakers. Furthermore, it is noticed that learners face similar stylistic, semantic and syntactic difficulties in the use of this language feature. In particular, the analysis shows that such errors might be caused by native language interference, as well as the inherent complexity of phrasal verbs. The present study not only helps to account for the challenges that are common to those language groups which lack phrasal verbs in their linguistic repository, but also provides insights into the understanding of advanced learner language.
... Hulstijn & Marchena 1989;Laufer & Eliasson 1993;Liao & Fukuya 2004). Some notable exceptions include corpus-based studies, such as Waibel (2007) of written German and Italian L2 English, Mondor (2008) of written Swedish L2 English, Kamarudin (2013) of spoken and written Malaysian L2 English, and Gilquin (2015) of spoken and written French L2 English, all of which compared learners' use of verb-particle combinations with the PV use of native speakers of English. Waibel (2007) studied two groups of advanced learners with different L1s, German and Italian; she found that in comparison with native speakers of English, Italian students underused PVs in the corpus data, whereas German students overused them. ...
... Some notable exceptions include corpus-based studies, such as Waibel (2007) of written German and Italian L2 English, Mondor (2008) of written Swedish L2 English, Kamarudin (2013) of spoken and written Malaysian L2 English, and Gilquin (2015) of spoken and written French L2 English, all of which compared learners' use of verb-particle combinations with the PV use of native speakers of English. Waibel (2007) studied two groups of advanced learners with different L1s, German and Italian; she found that in comparison with native speakers of English, Italian students underused PVs in the corpus data, whereas German students overused them. A logical explanation is that German students often use English verbs with Germanic origin, which is the kind of verbs English PVs are generally based on, whereas the Italian students tend to use more verbs with Latin origin (Waibel 2007: 159-160). ...
... and here, too, the same rate occurs both in speech and writing. In many respects, our findings are also in alignment with some previous studies based on the same corpus collection from CECL (Waibel 2007;Mondor 2008;Gilquin 2015), which show that the learners' L1 affects the frequency of PV use in learner corpora. Since Germanic languages, including Norwegian, have PVs, it will be natural for learners to make use of this structure in their foreign language learning (cf. ...
This chapter explores the use of English phrasal verbs (PVs) by Norwegian L2 learners by investigating data from the Norwegian part of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI). A total of 1,489 PVs were first identified and analyzed for possible contrast between spoken and written modes. While the findings reveal some differences between both individual L2 learners and also between the spoken and written corpora, the general perception that the use of English PVs is highly problematic for language learners is not supported. The roles of metaphoricity and L1 transfer in relation to divergent PVs were also investigated. Findings suggest that metaphor may provide more help than hindrance to L2 language learners, but we find that more reliable investigation requires larger datasets of L2 learner language than are currently available.
... 1. Idiomaticity (or non-compositionality) is a feature of phraseological units, which states that the meaning of the whole unit cannot be deduced by combining every single lexical item. In other words, the meaning of an idiomatic PV is opaque (Waibel, 2007). ...
... Therefore, I will use 'idiomatic' to mean that a PV is 'non-compositional and semantically opaque'. Furthermore, besides the conflicts which have been noted, Waibel (2007) points out that the denotation of 'figurative' is also problematic. It can refer to a traditional figurative use where a literal PV, an action verb with a directional particle, is applied to an abstract proposition (e.g. ...
... For the first level, idiomaticity has been noticed as the marked semantic feature of phrasal verbs; however, this issue has not attracted attention in equal weight to its importance. Especially for learner language studies, idiomaticity is not a peripheral area in studies which focus on phrasal verbs, particularly when the problem of learnability is involved, as stated by Waibel (2007) : ...
... These problems have been ascribed to a variety of factors, including structural differences between the mother tongue and the target language (Gilquin 2011(Gilquin , 2015, the inherent semantic opaqueness of VPCs (Laufer and Eliasson 1993), preference for one-word synonyms (Waibel 2007), and the quantity and quality of L2 input (Sjöholm 1995). In particular, special focus has been placed on the semantic complexity of VPCs as the major cause of learning difficulty (Hulstijn and Marchena 1989;Sjöholm 1995). ...
... Another focal interest in the present study is preference for one-word synonyms, which is a common phenomenon among L2 learners whose L1 does not have a VPC equivalent (Dagut and Laufer 1985;Waibel 2007). This issue, however, has received little attention in learner corpus studies, leaving pending methodological concerns. ...
... This issue, however, has received little attention in learner corpus studies, leaving pending methodological concerns. When Waibel (2007) compared the frequencies of three VPCs (i. e., go on, bring about, and sum up) with those of their one-word synonyms (i. ...
This study analyzes English verb–particle constructions (VPC) in a learner and a native corpus of argumentative essays, focusing on two important factors: structural patterns of VPCs and preference for one-word verbs (e. g., delay vs. put off). The results showed that while every structural type of VPC was significantly underused by L2 learners, greater underuse was observed with discontinuous transitive VPCs (e. g., bring it back). In addition, the frequency of the most underused VPCs in the learner corpus was significantly lower than that of their one-word synonyms, indicating the learners’ strong preference for one-word verbs. Identifying these specific areas of difficulty when learning VPCs, the author explores how contrastive linguistic analyses and corpus-based quantitative approaches can collaboratively contribute to the investigation of complex interlanguage systems.
... Even advanced learners of English have been reported having difficulties in achieving native-like production of PVs (Laufer & Eliasson 1993, Siyanova & Schmitt 2007. These persistent difficulties with English PVs have mostly been accounted for by language-external factors, e.g., L1 influence (Dagut & Laufer 1985) and inefficient instruction (Yasuda 2010) as well as language-internal idiosyncratic features of PVs, for example, semantic opaqueness (Lennon 1996), synonymous one-word verbs (Waibel 2007), and register-or context-appropriateness (Kovács 2014). ...
... Although the structural complexities of PVs have been noted as a primary cause of difficulty in learning PVs in earlier studies (Johnston & Slobin 1979, Side 1990, there remains an evident gap when addressing this area of difficulty. Despite a fair amount of research on the acquisition of figurative and idiomatic meanings of PVs (Akbari 2009, Geld 2009, Houshyar & Talebinezhad 2012, Lennon 1996, Liao & Fukuya 2004, Takahashi & Matsuya 2013, Waibel 2007, Yasuda 2010, very little research has addressed the learner's acquisition of their structural complexities. A recent effort by Gilquin (2015), however, brought to light this less studied, but yet important, aspect of learning PVs. ...
... Another possible cause of the learners' underuse of PVs may be the limited amount of their exposure to PVs. It has been argued that the quantity and quality of input play a determinant role in the acquisition of PVs (Chen 2013, Dagut & Laufer 1985, McPartland-Fairman 1989, Sjöholm 1995, Waibel 2007. Provided that the evident cross-linguistic difference between Korean and English effectively rules out the possibility of positive L1 influence in the Korean learners' acquisition of English PVs, it can be assumed that any knowledge of PVs that these learners have may have come from their instructional and/or environmental exposure to PVs. ...
This study investigates the production patterns of English phrasal verbs (PV) by Korean-speaking foreign language learners of English, with a special focus placed on two structural features of PVs, namely, transitivity and particle placement. It offers a developmental perspective by analysing the production performance of PVs for three learner corpora at different proficiency levels (basic, intermediate, and advanced) and a native corpus. The results show that, while the basic- and intermediate-level learners significantly underused both transitive and intransitive PVs compared to the native speakers, the proportions of transitive and intransitive PVs in the advanced-learner corpus were statistically indistinguishable from those in the native corpus. In addition, verbparticle separation was identified only in the advanced-leaner and native corpora, indicating the specific developmental aspects underlying the L2 acquisition of PVs. The advanced learners, however, were found to be less capable of adhering to the end-weight principle and the givenness condition when structuring transitive PVs compared to the native speakers. These results suggest that associating contextual information with PV structures may be a major source of difficulty when teaching and learning PVs.
... One comprehensive corpus-based study was carried out by Waibel (2007). This was a thorough study in that the data were both qualitatively and quantitatively studied regarding phrasal-verb use. ...
... The results of the two corpora were compared to each other and then to the Louvain Corpus of ative English Essays LOCNESS. Waibel (2007) used the approach introduced by Mair (1991: 67) which called for a "quantitativestatistical" and "qualitative-textlinguistic" analysis of the corpora in order to have complete understanding of the language produced by the learners. He states that "The role of the corpus, after all, is not only to provide a limited and representative database for statistical analysis, but also to provide authentic and realistic data, the close reading of which will allow the linguist to approach grammar from a functional and discourse perspective" (Mair 1991: 77). ...
... He states that "The role of the corpus, after all, is not only to provide a limited and representative database for statistical analysis, but also to provide authentic and realistic data, the close reading of which will allow the linguist to approach grammar from a functional and discourse perspective" (Mair 1991: 77). So according to the method adopted by Waibel (2007) the data were first quantitatively analysed in order to draw conclusions from the frequency of the phrasal verbs used and other frequency related linguistic facts, and then the data were qualitatively analysed in order to find out why certain features were used frequently and why others were rarely used. This study aimed at finding out which features of learner language were under-or over-used compared to native speaker language and why. ...
The study investigates the use of English phrasal verbs by Iranian university students on the basis of a self-compiled digitised learner corpus.
... Learner corpus studies also reveal a mixed picture of phrasal-verb use by ESL/ EFL learners. For example, Waibel (2007) find that while the frequency of phrasal verbs in many sub-corpora of ICLE (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, etc.) is lower than that in LOCNESS (a comparison native corpus), phrasal verbs in the Dutch and Polish sub-corpora do not show a significant numerical difference from those in LOCNESS and phrasal verbs in the German sub-corpus outnumber those in LOCNESS. ...
... The results show that the learners tend to use phrasal verbs more frequently in writing in comparison with native writers, yet their use of phrasal verbs in speech is significantly less frequent than that of native speakers. Both Gilquin (2011) andWaibel (2007) attribute the discrepancies between the learners to L1, i.e. learners whose L1 (e.g. a Germanic language) possesses the phrasal verb construction use phrasal verbs more frequently than those whose L1 does not (e.g. a Romance language). The present study explores phrasal verb use by Chinese EFL learners, whose L1 lacks the construction, in comparison with phrasal verb use by American and British novice writers. ...
... The analysis of the overall frequencies in the learner corpus suggests that in general the learners do not show a numerical difference from the native novice writers in phrasal verb use. This finding is not congruent with the findings in Waibel (2007) and Gilquin (2011) that learners whose L1 possesses the phrasal verb structure tend to use it more frequently than those whose L1 does not: while the phrasal verb structure is missing in the Chinese language, Chinese learners of English are capable of producing a sufficient number of phrasal verbs in writing. The L1 factor, therefore, does not necessarily have a considerable impact on phrasal verb acquisition and production. ...
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.
... empirically validate or refute ideas advanced by Contrastive analysis through the collection of language data produced by foreign language students (Waibel, 2007). Nonetheless, there are a number of differences between the data used in error analysis and the data used in learner corpora. ...
... In addition, the findings are linked to previous research by means of support or rejection. Interestingly, the finding from the present study is not congruent with Waibel (2007), Ryo (2013), and Gilquin (2011) that learners whose L1 does not possess PVs tend to use them less frequently than those whose L1 does. In other words, although the verb-particle construction is missing in Moroccan undergraduate EFL learners' L1s 47 , we found that they use them more frequently than American native-speakers of English. ...
This study investigates whether Moroccan undergraduate EFL learners use phrasal verbs in the same way native speakers do or not. To achieve this objective, written learner corpus data are compared against similar data representing native English. The study focuses on two aspects of phrasal-verb use: the absolute co-occurrence frequency of verbs and particles and the degree of verb-particle attraction. Building on Gilquin's (2014) model of the constructional network of phrasal verbs, the present study distinguishes between three levels of analysis: the higher level of the phrasal verb 'superconstruction', the intermediate level of the constructions, and the lower level of analysis, which contains specific phrasal verbs. Nevertheless, contrary to Gilquin's model, the model used in this study extends the intermediate level of constructions to include, in addition to the [V Prt]i, [V Prt OBJ] and [V OBJ Prt] constructions, the passive transitive construction [V Prt]pt. In general, the results show that whether Moroccan undergraduate EFL learners use phrasal verbs in the same way native speakers do or not is dependent on: (1) the level of abstraction that is under analysis; (2) the native language variety that the learners' corpus data is compared against; and (3) the aspect of use of phrasal verbs that is under analysis. Ultimately, findings of this study inform EFL teachers and curriculum/syllabus designers in relation to how phrasal verbs should be introduced to the learners and how the learners' knowledge of these constructions should be assessed.
... In order to design a model that can identify a working teaching sequence, we need to have a criterion that reflects the degrees of difficulty associated with learning different PVs. Idiomaticity is a good indicator for learning difficulty; Waibel (2007) has noted that PVs' idiomaticity level can impact its learnability. In many previous studies, idiomaticity is also drawn on as the primary criterion used for classifying PVs (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999;Laufer & Eliasson, 1993;Quirk et al., 1985). ...
... Before this PV model is constructed, we should discuss how degree of idiomaticity and collocation restriction is measured in the model. The degree of idiomaticity can be measured by the extent to which the elements of a word combination contribute to its meaning (Waibel, 2007). Higher levels of idiomaticity are suggested if the exact meaning cannot be obtained by interpreting the literal meanings of each element. ...
... Por fim, pode-se concluir que os verbos formados por mais de uma palavra podem ser classificados, de maneira geral, conforme a tabela abaixo: Greenbaum e Quirk (1990, p. 1181). Por outro lado, Waibel (2007) mostra que os verbos latinizados podem parecer mais eruditos para os aprendizes não nativos e, por soarem mais formais, são mais utilizados. Para a autora, os aprendizes tendem a acreditar que o uso de palavras mais "sofisticadas" faz com que eles se pareçam mais proficientes na comunicação em inglês, aproximando suas performances às dos nativos da língua. ...
... Em suma, a importância dos multi-word verbs para a proficiência na língua inglesa e as questões que envolvem seu ensino/aprendizagem são fatores que motivam pesquisadores em todo o mundo a escolherem essas expressões como objeto de estudo, seja no âmbito pedagógico ou descritivo. A maioria dos trabalhos nessa área é internacional, como o de Waibel (2007), que realizou análises quantitativas e qualitativas sobre o uso de verbos frasais nos textos em língua inglesa escritos por estudantes alemães e italianos, e descreveu os atuais problemas que os aprendizes avançados têm em relação ao emprego desses verbos. Seus resultados contribuíram para a compreensão de aspectos gerais da linguagem de aprendizes avançados. ...
p>Motivada pela importância dos verbos compostos por mais de uma palavra na comunicação em inglês e pelos problemas que envolvem o ensino dessas formações lexicais, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo principal investigar o uso dos multi-word verbs em textos acadêmicos escritos por aprendizes brasileiros da língua inglesa. A proposta é identificar quais são os verbos frasais, preposicionados e frasais preposicionados mais comuns nos textos de aprendizes, bem como observar as diferenças e semelhanças no emprego dessas unidades em gênero textual argumentativo por parte de brasileiros e falantes nativos. Para tanto, a pesquisa encontrou suporte teórico na Linguística de Corpus , que “se ocupa da coleta e exploração de corpora , ou conjunto de dados linguísticos textuais, em formato legível por computador, que foram coletados criteriosamente com o propósito de servirem para a pesquisa de uma língua ou variedade linguística” (SARDINHA, 2004, p.3). A investigação foi realizada com base em dois corpora : um de estudo, composto de textos escritos por aprendizes brasileiros do inglês (Br-ICLE) e um de referência, que contém textos de nativos da língua inglesa (LOCNESS). Os resultados sugerem que, na comparação com os nativos, os aprendizes brasileiros empregam quantidades bem significativas de multi-word verbs em seus textos. Entretanto, nota-se que existem erros na forma de uso, especialmente no que concerne às produções textuais dos não nativos.</p
... According to Waibel (2007), a clear distinction among idiomatic and literal senses of phrasal verbs is tough and in several ways also useless. Bolinger (1971) also states that the difference among figurative and literal is regarded as minor. ...
... Difficulties are claimed to be even more pronounced among certain learner populations, in particular those that do not have phrasal verbs in their mother tongue (cf. Waibel, 2007). ...
Aims
This study investigates the possible effect of language exposure on the use of multiword units, and more precisely phrasal verbs with up. It compares two learner populations that receive different types and amounts of input, namely, learners of English as a second language, who get exposed to English in various everyday contexts, and learners of English as a foreign language, whose main source of exposure to English is limited to language classes.
Data and analysis
The study is based on the analysis of written and spoken corpora, including reference corpora of native English. It considers the frequency of phrasal verbs, the structures they occur in, and the verbs used with the particle.
Findings
The results show that the two groups of learners present some similarities, including a tendency to keep the verb and the particle next to each other even when an object could easily be inserted in-between. However, they also differ from each other in ways that could reflect their type and degree of exposure to English, with learners of English as a second language generally behaving in more native-like ways than learners of English as a foreign language.
Originality
The article considers the multiword status of phrasal verbs, and in particular particle placement, among two populations of learners who differ in the type and amount of input they receive in the target language.
Significance and implications
There appears to be a stronger sense of unity between the verb and the particle of phrasal verbs for learners than for native speakers of English. Learners should be made aware of the contexts that favour particle mobility.
... NNSs tend to underuse multiword expressions that differ from and overuse the ones that are similar to their L1 (e.g. Jaworska et al. 2015, Waibel 2007, and it has been suggested that EFL teaching materials should be based on existing information on prefabricated patterns in English and learners' L1 and their usage (Granger 1998). The characteristics of Estonian EFL learners' lexical chunk usage may not be directly comparable to that of speakers of other L1s given that the impacts of L1 are numerous and complex. ...
In addition to individual words, the mental lexicon stores lexical chunks, such as idioms, which provide foreign-language learners with the capacity to acquire the language more effectively. Since the role the parts play in the meaning of the whole reduces the learning burden of multi-word expressions, the present contribution addresses the facilitating effect of idiom transparency and learners’ tendency to utilise it in the comprehension process of unfamiliar English-as-a-foreignlanguage idioms. Moreover, as foreign-language learners automatically tend to look for similarities between languages, it was hypothesised that adolescent Estonian (pre)intermediate English-language learners, first and foremost, utilise native-language knowledge in the comprehension process of unfamiliar English idioms. A think-aloud study, which was carried out to provide an in-depth understanding of their strategies, revealed that whereas the majority of the informants relied on semantic analysis, the recourse-to-native-language strategy was more successful.
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Eesti teismeliste inglise keele kui võõrkeele idioomide mõistmisstrateegiad
Võõrkeele valmisväljendid nõuavad vähem vaimset pingutust ja neid saab kiirelt nii mõista kui ka kasutada. Eelkõige on oluline nendest arusaamine, kuna kõnelejad võivad ennast väljendada ka uudsete fraasidega, samas kui suutmatus idioome mõista võib põhjustada kommunikatsiooniprobleeme. Käesoleva uuringu eesmärk oli välja selgitada, milliseid arusaamise strateegiaid eesti emakeelega teismelised inglise keele kui võõrkeele tundmatute idioomide jaoks kasutavad ning kas strateegiate tõhususes ilmneb erinevusi. Andmete kogumise meetodina kasutati valjult mõtlemise protokolli.
Andmed näitasid, et õpilased eelistasid semantilist analüüsi idioomide tähenduse leidmiseks. Teataval määral toetuti ka teadmistele emakeelsetest idioomidest ning kontekstile hoolimata sellest, et konteksti määr oli minimaalne. Kõige tõhusamaks viisiks idioomi õige tähenduse leidmisel osutus emakeelest saadav tugi.
Kogutud andmete põhjal võib anda mõningaid soovitusi idioomide õpetamise kohta. Kuna uurimistulemused viitasid emakeele toele kui kõige edukamale idioomide mõistmise strateegiale, tasuks keeleõppe algtasemel alustada idioomidega, millel on kas identne või sarnane eestikeelne vaste (eriti veel sellistega, millel on lisaks sõnasõnaliselt mõistetav koostisosa). Tulemuste põhjal on õpilastel tõenäoliselt vaja õppida idioome ka emakeeles. Sarnaste eestikeelsete vastete puhul tuleb arvestada ka õpetajapoolse sekkumise suurema vajadusega, et takistada võimalikku negatiivset ülekannet. Kuna tulemused viitasid ka sellele, et edasijõudnumad õpilased eelistavad pigem semantilist analüüsi, siis keeleõpetajad võiksid suunata õppijate tähelepanu idioomi eri omadustele (nt emakeele ja võõrkeele idioomide identsusele/sarnasusele ja läbipaistvusele) ning juhendada neid kasutama erinevaid strateegiaid.
Uuringudisainist tulenevad piirangud rõhutavad edasise teadustöö vajadust. Lisauurimist vääriksid strateegiaeelistuste võimalikud põhjused: vähene emakeele idioomide tundmine, keeleoskustase, idioomide omadused japuudulik võime mõista kujundlikku keelt.
... Three key non-language-contact factors are often explored to explain singleword and multi-word vocabulary gain during SA: L1, initial L2 proficiency, and length of stay (LoS). Firstly, learners' L1 and the distance between an L1 and L2 can exert an impact on L2 lexical development (Odlin, 2003), with cognate languages playing a positive role in the acquisition process (Waibel, 2007). Secondly, vocabulary knowledge is usually proportional to overall L2 proficiency in that better mastery of single-word and multi-word vocabulary seems to accompany higher language proficiency (Bonk, 2001;Henriksen, 2013;Schmitt, 2014). ...
Phrasal verbs are highly common in informal discourse among native English speakers, yet they pose extraordinary difficulty to second language (L2) English learners. Informed by usage-based theory, this mixed-methods study attempted to determine the relationship between the amount of out-of-class English exposure in study abroad and the phrasal verb knowledge of international adult students in the United Kingdom. It also brought foundation program students (i.e., students in a preparation course for university degrees), a previously under-researched study-abroad population, under the spotlight. One hundred and eighteen foundation program students at a British university completed a modified Language Contact Profile and a productive phrasal verb test. Nine students were interviewed to further unravel how they acquired phrasal verbs via informal language contact. Analyses revealed a significant positive relationship between speaking English with international friends and phrasal verb knowledge. Hierarchical regression identified that overall English proficiency, spoken input contact, and non-interactive language contact were significant predictors of phrasal verb scores. This study points to the importance of having meaningful, emotionally enjoyable, and regular L2 contact to formulaic language competence during study abroad.
... Интегрираниот контрастивен модел (ИКМ) поаѓа од претпоставката дека влијанието на Ј1 има важна улога во оформувањето на меѓујазикот на изучувачите и дека е важно да се испита, како за теориски така и за практични педагошки цели (GRANGER 2002, WAIBEL 2007, GILQUIN 2008. Затоа се користат два типа на контрастирање: ...
... German speakers were familiar with PVs because of the shared ancestry of English and German. Waibel (2007) also correlated learning English to studying and living in a country where English is the primary language. Liao and Fukuya (2004) demonstrated that Chinese learners did not use literal PVs due to semantic difficulty. ...
This study investigates the usefulness of acquiring English PVs (as a key component of English vocabulary) using listening activities. Therefore, this study analyzes how Arabic speakers studying English as a foreign language (EFL) understand and use English phrasal verbs through listening. A self-administered survey was distributed to 74 students, mainly from Saudi Arabia. They listened to a recording incorporating frequently used English phrasal verbs and identified those they could recognize. The survey also measured the ability of respondents to provide sentences in which they used phrasal verbs and gave their meanings in Arabic. The findings indicated that EFL students are likely more familiar with phrasal verbs in writing than in an oral context. For instance, the average respondent could detect six or seven out of ten phrasal verbs they heard, while about 90% of respondents could use the provided phrasal verbs correctly in writing. Respondents recognized some phrasal verbs more than others. At least 80% recognized “pick me up,” “go on,” and “go out,” while less than 47% recognized “came out” and “set up.” More than 81% knew the correct definition of phrasal verbs. These findings offer foundational data to help improve methodologies for Arabic speakers learning EFL through listening activities.
... ducing meaning of PVs due to the contexts/situations in which they are engaged. This means that meaning of idiomatic PVs can be understood and correctly interpreted if they are occurred in appropriate context/situations. Abd Elbagi cause difficulties in understanding IPVs that ineffective techniques in teaching idioms and using inadequate material.Waibel (2007) pointed out that, meaning of a IPVs depends on the context in which it is being used. context and/or inappropriate context/situations of IPVs causes big challenge of understanding them. Thus, figuring out meaning of IPVs out of context/situations for EFL students. However, existence of IPVS in an context/situation is very helpful for EF ...
ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT The study aims to investigate the challenges hindering an understanding of IPVs in EFL university context. The subjects were 42 male and female Sudanese English language major university students at the Department of English Language in Al-Butana University. A questionnaire and achievement test were employed as instruments for data collection. The results showed that students face many challenges in understanding IPVs as follows: practically, there is no intended focus of the area of IPVs as an important part of language, general overuse of single word verbs instead of multi word verbs and adopting not more appropriate contexts in for practicing IPVs. Moreover, the findings revealed that teaching and learning contexts are not varied accordingly. Based on these findings, the study recommends that IPVs are important area of language that should increase focus on this area by as follows: creating more appropriate contexts and situations for the most common IPVs, increasing chances for practicing IPVs in different contexts, adapting teaching and learning techniques accordingly and making use of common IPVs parallel to single word verbs in the classroom interaction.
... On the other hand, there was an abundance of studies that examined PVs in general and learner corpora (Schnider, 2004;Waibel, 2007;Gardner & Davies, 2007;Trebits, 2009;Akbari, 2009;Zarifi, 2013;Kamarudin, 2013). As far as the Malaysian context is concerned, a survey on relevant research on PV constructions shows that some studies focused on learner performance while others chose to examine language materials. ...
Phrasal verbs (PVs) are one of the most notoriously puzzling aspects of English language instruction. Despite their difficulty and idiosyncrasies, they are of high relevance for ESL/EFL learners because mastery of PVs is often equated with language proficiency. Different from prior researches, this content analysis study seeks to identify the PVs used in the Malaysian upper secondary school textbooks and the frequency count of each PV in each textbook using a corpus linguistic approach. The most frequently PVs in each textbook were compared to the list provided by Biber et al (1999)’s Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English corpus. Findings from this study revealed that the selection and presentation of these combinations in the secondary school textbooks used in Malaysia depended more on authors’ intuition rather than on empirical findings and pedagogical principles. There were no clear explanations of Phrasal Verbs in both textbooks that were analysed. Despite the large number of PVs in the corpus, their presentation in the textbooks was far from satisfactory with some being over-repeated at the expense of some others. This paper makes a few suggestions to further improve the present treatment of PVs in the textbooks used at upper secondary schools in Malaysia. It is suggested that accurate definitions and appropriate selection and presentation of PVs should be considered. Rather than relying on intuition, Malaysian textbook writers must consider integrating the use of corpus into their selection of PVs to be presented to students.
... S druge strane, mnoštvo je studija koja proučavaju upotrebu višečlanih glagola u pisanoj i usmenoj produkciji govornika kineskog (Chen, 2007, Becker, 2014, hebrejskog (Dagut i Laufer, 1985), italijanskog i flamanskog (Vanden Hautte, 2016-2017, turskog (Demiray Akbulut, 2018), persijskog (Barekat i Baniasady, 2014), holandskog (Hulstijn i Marchena, 1989), njemačkog (Waibel, 2007), malajskog (Kamarudin, 2013) i korejskog jezika (Ryoo, 2013). Najčešći metod za istraživanje formulaičkog jezika u učeničkim korpusima, ističu Paquot i Granger (2012: 131) jeste poređenje dobijenih rezultata sa onim do kojih se došlo analizom sličnog korpusa izvornih govornika, te utrvđivanje grešaka, kao i primjera pretjerane (eng. ...
DISTRIBUTION OF PHRASAL VERBS IN SERBIAN-SPEAKING EFL STUDENTS’ WRITING IN ENGLISH
Phraseological competence represents an inseparable part of communicative competence. It is reflected in the fluent use of multi-word units, such as collocations, phrasal verbs, etc, and is crucial in achieving a native-like competence. Phrasal verbs are a characteristic of the Germanic languages. They usually have several meanings, and, due to their idiomaticity, they frequently cause difficulties in EFL learning and acquisition. In writing, native speakers of the English language use one phrasal verb per 192 words. On the other hand, when it comes to L2 writing, phrasal verbs are either underused, or overused, and some L2 writers avoid using them. This is particularly common if there isn't a category in their L1 similar to phrasal verbs.
In this paper, we set out to study the distribution of phrasal verbs in Serbian-speaking EFL students' writing in English. The analysis of a 200,000 words corpus, that consists of argumentative essays, offers us an insight into the nature of the interlanguage and the phraseological competence of adult Serbian-speaking EFL students. The corpus is analysed both manually and using the AntConc v3.5.8 software. In the instances of erroneous usage of phrasal verbs, a Contrastive interlanguage analysis is performed, to determine whether the errors are interlingual, or intralingual and developmental.
The results obtained show that, in writing in English, Serbian-speaking students use phrasal verbs nearly as frequently as their native counterparts (one phrasal verb per 187 verbs). This may come as a surprise, since the underuse of phrasal verbs is typical in L2 writing. However, once we look into the 20 most productive lexical verbs that make up phrasal verbs in the writing of the native speakers, and compare them with the 20 most productive in the writing of their Serbian-speaking counterparts, it becomes apparent that there is a significant discrepancy; it appears that Serbian-speaking EFL students rarely use some of the most frequent lexical verbs that make up 18.3% of the phrasal verbs in the writing of native speakers, e.g. set, carry, look, pick, make, point, sit, work, hold, and move. On the other hand, some of the most frequent lexical verbs (e.g. base, grow, sum, end, fit, leave, keep, build, deprive, and cut) that make up 28.43% of the phrasal verbs that Serbian-speaking EFL students use in their writing aren't as frequently used by their native counterparts. The same goes for the most frequent particles that make up phrasal verbs; Serbian-speaking EFL students tend to underuse those most frequently used by their native counterparts, and vice versa.
In some instances, the overuse of certain phrasal verbs can be attributed to the use of the collocational teddy bears (i.e. the structures that the L2 writers are well acquainted with, i.e. frequent collocations), or find them to be congruent with similar structures in their L1. In other instances, the overuse is the result of the use of essay topic related vocabulary. Overall, when it comes to the distribution of phrasal verbs that are present in both the writing of the native speakers of the English language, and their Serbian counterparts, the latter generally tend to underuse them, and this is in line with the results of similar studies conducted thus far. What stands out as well is the fact that Serbian-speaking EFL students prefer using literal and aspectual phrasal verbs to figurative ones. We might say that the phraseological competence of Serbian-speaking EFL students is, to some extent, shaped by the transfer of structures from their L1.
Erroneous usage of multi-word verbs occurs in 3% of the examples that we have singled out. When it comes to phrasal verbs, it is reflected in the use of incorrect particles, incorrect lexical verbs, the use a phrasal verb instead of the lexical verb that it contains, the omission of particles, the use of lexical verbs instead of phrasal ones, and the use of an adjective instead of a phrasal verb. The most common source of the errors is the negative transfer from L1, whereas some errors are developmental and intralingual.
... Insights from lexical grammar on the one hand and the possibility of automated data extraction from corpora on the other have given rise to a number of studies of L2 learners' phraseological competence, which is broadly understood as their ability to use different formulaic sequences (Wray 2000: 465;Wray 2002: 9). Following the first publications of phraseological evidence in L2 language use (Pawley and Syder 1983;Kjellmer 1991), many studies have been undertaken to investigate the use of diverse multi-word combinations in learner corpora, for example, collocations (Nesselhauf 2005;Martelli 2006; Fan 2009), phrasal verbs (Waibel 2007), lexical bundles, also termed n-grams or recurrent word sequences (De Cock 2004;Chen and Baker 2010). This article deals with one of the least investigated multi-word unit in learner English so far, namely, a phrase-frame, first described by Fletcher (2002Fletcher ( -2007. ...
Learner corpus research continues to provide evidence of how formulaic language is (mis)used by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This paper deals with less investigated multi-word units in EFL contexts, namely, phrase-frames (Fletcher 2002–2007), i.e. sets of n-grams identical except for one word (it is * to, in the * of). The study compares Lithuanian and Polish learner writing in English in terms of phrase-frames and contrasts them with native speakers. The analysis shows that certain differences between Lithuanian and Polish learners result from transfer from their native languages, yet both groups of learners share many common features. Most importantly, the phrase-frame approach highlights structural peculiarities of learner writing which are otherwise difficult to capture.
... Seu estudo indicou que, mais do que diferenças ou similaridades entre a primeira e a segunda língua, a questão da esquiva pode ser uma manifestação do desenvolvimento da interlíngua dos aprendizes. Waibel (2007) pesquisou os verbos frasais usando corpora de aprendizes. Suas análises quantitativas e qualitativas foram baseadas em produções escritas de estudantes italianos e alemães e seus resultados contribuíram para o entendimento de aspectos gerais da linguagem de aprendizes de inglês em nível avançado. ...
RESUMO: Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar o uso dos verbos frasais do inglês na escrita acadêmica de aprendizes brasileiros. Para tanto, dois corpora contendo ensaios escritos por estudantes universitários foram utilizados, sendo um para estudo (Br-ICLE) e outro para referência (LOCNESS). A metodologia, baseada na Linguística de Corpus, se compõe de exames quantitativos realizados com o suporte do software AntConc para o tratamento e a análise dos dados. Os resultados sugerem que, em relação a outros tipos de verbos multipalavras, os verbos frasais são pouco usados nos textos de aprendizes. Entretanto, nota-se também que algumas das estruturas verbo + partícula encontradas se tornaram características desse tipo de produção textual, o que indica que o seu uso é cada vez mais comum na escrita de caráter mais formal. Ademais, a investigação também apontou semelhanças e diferenças de uso entre os grupos examinados, e para a constatação de que nativos e não nativos utilizam verbos frasais iguais em proporções bem semelhantes, ainda que haja casos de uso em desacordo com os padrões da língua inglesa por parte dos alunos brasileiros.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: verbos frasais; corpus de aprendizes; escrita acadêmica; linguística de corpus.
ABSTRACT: This study aims at analyzing the use of English phrasal verbs in the academic writing of Brazilian learners. Therefore, two corpora containing essays written by college students were used: one as the study corpus (Br-ICLE), and the other as the reference corpus (LOCNESS). The methodology, which is based on Corpus Linguistics, consists of quantitative exams performed with the AntConc software support for the treatment and analysis of the data. The results suggested that, considering the other types of multi-word verbs, phrasal verbs are less used by learners in their essays. However, it is also noted that some of the verb + particle structures found have become typical of this type of textual production, which indicates that its use is increasingly common in a more formal writing. In addition, the research also pointed out similarities and differences in the use of phrasal verbs in both groups examined, as well as the finding that natives and non-natives use equal combinations in very similar proportions, although Brazilian students sometimes use phrasal verbs in disagreement with the English language standards
KEYWORDS: phrasal verbs; learner corpus; academic writing; corpus linguistics.
... However, the range and the frequency of MWCs are limited to only a few common MWC structures. This finding is consistent with the findings in (Waibel, 2007) and (Gilquin, 2011) in that the language learners whose native languages (L1) are rich in collocations and word combinations are more likely to frequently use word combinations. The BAWE corpus included more word combinations than the learner corpus but within the scope of the analysis, only those MWC samples found in both corpora were taken for analysis. ...
It is an old consensus by now that the students of English as a Foreign Language all around the globe are facing a variety of problems that are likely to make their ability to write expository and academic essays fail to meet the required criteria in terms of lexical complexity, phraseological richness and syntactic variation. Part of the reason for the conduct of the present study, which is mainly a computerized contrastive learner corpus analysis of BAWE and KTUCLE corpora, is to make an analysis of the overall frequency, variation and development of multi-word combinations (lexical combinations) as well as investigating the common multi word combinations in terms of underuses, overuses and misuses. For this purpose, the expository and academic essays written by tertiary level EFL students of English in 1 st and 2 nd years were taken as the samples for the study. Lexical and phraseological investigation of KTUCLE corpus, which was solely compiled to serve the objectives of this study, entailed the presence of another similar sized academic corpus and, as a result, British Academic Written English (BAWE) was selected as the reference academic learner corpus for the study. In the selection of the samples for the study purposive sampling methodology was used and the analysis was done by comparing the language use of the learners who were categorized into two distinct levels with respect to their present language proficiency levels through Oxford Online Placement Test and the levels of the subjects (n: 120) were determined based on the scores they got from the online test. The data for the study were both qualitative and quantitative in nature. Quantitative analysis of the learner corpora findings was followed by a qualitative analysis of the learners' responses to the open ended interviews. The result of this computerized and contrastive learner corpus analysis revealed the following findings: First of all, it was observed that KTUCLE learner corpus turns out to be much less complex in terms of lexical diversity, phraseological variation and density than the reference corpus BAWE. The second finding was that the multi word combination samples from KTUCLE were observed to possess overuses and underuses of some of the most frequent combinations. Yet another finding was a high level of diversity in terms of the incorrect use of multi word combinations as a result of the learners' limited word stock rather than from their ignorance of these multi-word combinations.
... Интегрираниот контрастивен модел (ИКМ) поаѓа од претпоставката дека влијанието на Ј1 има важна улога во оформувањето на меѓујазикот на изучувачите и дека е важно да се испита, како за теориски така и за практични педагошки цели (Granger, 2002;Waibel, 2007;Gilquin, 2008). Затоа се користат два типа на контрастирање: ...
... With regard to learner English (EFL), the (semi-)productivity of verb constructions has raised interest amongst corpus linguists (cf. Akbari 2009, Waibel 2007, Zarifi 2013. Recent EFL work by Gilquin (2014) shows how the uses of PVs by French learners of English deviate from those of native English speakers. ...
This study investigates 2,909 phrasal verbs [PVs] in (in)transitive constructions across native English and French- and German-English interlanguages (ILs). Recent work by Gilquin (2014) shows that, as verb-particle combinations, PVs associate more or less strongly with particular syntactic constructions. Further, those association patterns vary across native and learner Englishes. Building on Gilquin (2014), the present study digs deeper into PV constructions by assessing degrees of mutual attraction between verbs and particles as well as between PVs and their semantic uses. Degrees of association are measured using a co-varying collexeme analysis approach (Stefanowitsch & Gries 2005). Generally, it emerges that within given syntactic constructions (e.g. verb-particle-object constructions), different verbs and particles (i.e. bring and up in the case of build up or bring and about for bring about ) combine in different degrees, suggesting that, as cognitive routines, those combinations are not equally entrenched. In addition, French and German English learners seem to operate at different levels of semantic complexity when using PVs in their L2. Ultimately, the study bears important pedagogical implications, namely the need (i) to focus on phrasal verbs’ aspectual uses to help learners develop a more confident use of PVs in completive, inceptive and continuative semantic contexts and (ii) to develop resources that help learners improve their uses of PVs in verb-object-particle constructions.
... According to Waibel (2007), a clear distinction among idiomatic and literal senses of phrasal verbs is tough and in several ways also useless. Bolinger (1971) also states that the difference among figurative and literal is regarded as minor. ...
Phrasal verbs are regularly used in spoken English. Because of the difficulties experienced by Iranian EFL students in learning phrasal verbs (Khatib & Ghannadi, 2011), the present study intended to examine the effects of using English captions on Iranian EFL learners’ learning of phrasal verbs in terms of recognition and production. A language proficiency test was managed to 68 EFL learners, among whom 60 intermediate learners were chosen as the participants of the study. They were randomly assigned into two groups: control group and experimental group. Prior to giving any instruction, the researcher administered a pre-test. Then, students in the experimental group watched video clip with captions whereas learners in the control group received video clips without captions. To compare improvement between and within each group t-test analyses were conducted. The result of the study indicated that the learners in the experimental group outperformed those of control group in their writing performance. So, watching English captioned movies affects student’s phrasal verb knowledge.
... The French-speaking learners may therefore be assumed not to have any phrasal verb construction (or network of constructions) stored prior to their acquisition of the English language and not to be influenced by their mother tongue when producing phrasal verbs in English. 3 This is important, given the acknowledged influence that the L1 may have on the use of phrasal verbs (see, most notably, Waibel 2007). On the other hand, since phrasal verbs are a 'can't-miss topic' in learners' curriculum, the learners under study are almost certain to have been exposed to several instances of phrasal verbs through reading and listening (also probably outside the classroom), although the exact amount of exposure will vary between the individuals. ...
This paper investigates the use of phrasal verbs by French-speaking foreign learners of English, using spoken and written learner corpus data and comparing them against similar data representing native English. It adopts a constructional approach, which distinguishes between three levels of analysis: the higher level of the phrasal verb `superconstruction', the intermediate level of the structural patterns [V Prt], [V Prt OBJ] and [V OBJ Prt], and the lower level of lexically specified phrasal verbs. The approach is also collostructional in that it seeks to bring to light lexical associations at the constructional level. The results show that the difficulties that learners are known to have with phrasal verbs are mainly situated at the level of the superconstruction; at the lower levels of analysis (especially the intermediate one), on the other hand, learners seem to have largely internalised the main features of the constructions. More generally, the paper highlights the benefits of combining Construction Grammar and learner corpus research to gain insights into the L2 construction.
... Several recent learner-corpus-based studies have been conducted to compare the use of multiword units or formulas in different corpora (Allen, 2011; Chen & Baker, 2010) as well as to determine the most frequently used multiword expressions in different prose (Biber, 2006 (Wiktorsson, 2003), collocations (Nesselhauf, 2005), phrasal verbs (Waibel, 2007) and lexical bundles (Hyland, 2008). Many linguists have tried to develop academic formula lists to be used as guides for academic writing teachers. ...
This paper discusses the results of a study on formula instruction conducted among mixed-ability diploma level university students. The main objective of the study was to investigate whether incorporating direct instruction of academic formulas (DIAF) into an academic writing class would encourage the use of the target academic formulas (TAF) in the post academic essay writing (AEW) test, and improve the subjects" academic writing performance. Two intact groups of diploma level university students enrolled in an academic writing course employing a process-oriented writing approach participated in the study. Both groups consisted of forty students and were assigned as the experimental and control groups. DIAF was incorporated into the existing academic writing course"s syllabus and was conducted two hours per week over six out of the fourteen-week semester. Pre and post AEW tests were used to assess the subjects" academic writing performance before and after the treatment. The results of the study are discussed by addressing three research questions: 1) What are the effects of DIAF on the TAF use in the post AEW test? 2) What is the effect of TAF use on the post AEW test scores? 3) What are the effects of DIAF on the subjects" academic writing performance? It was concluded that DIAF encourages the use of more TAF and a more varied selection of TAF in the post AEW test. There is a significant but weak positive linear relationship between the number of TAF used in the post AEW test and the post AEW test scores (r=0.473), and the number of TAF used is a significant predictor in estimating the scores for all the three AEW test components. DIAF is also beneficial at enhancing the subjects" academic writing performance with a large effect size of 0.98 for "language" component, 0.86 for "organization" component and a small effect size of 0.45 for "content" component.
... Language Value 4 (1), 33–62 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 35 methodology used, which only allows the analysis of a limited number of PVs taken as representative of the whole phenomenon (however, see Waibel 2007). Moreover, PVs are defined exclusively following a structuralist approach (usually based on Quirk et al. 1985) which gives priority to syntax and semantic opacity and therefore disregards the chunking mechanism at play in cases of multiple constituency (she'd come out of the water cf. ...
In this paper, the acquisition of phrasal verbs (PVs) by L2 learners is explored from the perspective provided by a usage-based approach to language. This involves looking at low scope or item-specific schemas, which in this article are identified as the actual particles, prepositions and PVs used by the learners, together with the more abstract syntactic or semantic schemas that emerge from their use. Given the labour intensive work required by this type of analysis, the focus is placed on the use of verb-out constructions made by L2 learners of the PVs as reflected in a corpus of learner language, i.e. the Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Russian and Bulgarian subsections of the ICLE (1,287,517 words). More concretely, I analyse L2 use of out-PVs at different grain levels and provide an account of the factors influencing the acquisition of these linguistic units. The results obtained from the analysis show 1) that out is underused by learners, at the lowest level of constituency, the level of the word and its collocates and that this may be due its low cue answer contingency (it is a short form with many meanings); 2) that out-PVs, as other formulaic sequences, shows a pattern of overuse of a small number of frequent verbs and underuse of the rest; 3) that, at a morpho-syntactic level, out-PVs used by L2 learners are typically frozen with little variability in both the tenses and the syntactic patterns chosen; and 4) that at the semantic level, more prototypical and frequent meanings in the text type analysed, not necessarily literal uses, are used with greater frequency by NNS. All in all, the usage-based approach adopted has allowed us to reveal the complexity of factors involved in explaining the difficulty L2 learners have in acquiring phrasal verbs.
... The amount of exposure may explain the difference observed between the Dutch and Tswana learners on the one hand and the French and Spanish learners on the other, as a high degree of exposure to the target language is said to be necessary in order to acquire phrasal verbs (Sjöholm 1995). The influence of the mother tongue may also be at work and account for the particularly good results of the Dutch learners, who have phrasal verbs in their mother tongue, unlike the other three groups of learners (see Waibel [2007] on the influence of the mother-tongue background on the use of phrasal verbs). Whatever the reason(s) for these results, however, it is remarkable that the Dutch, French and Spanish ICLE subcorpora, once again, are ordered as predicted in Section 2. As for the Tswana subcorpus, it occupies an intermediate position, being situated in-between ICLE-DU and ICLE-FR. ...
This chapter revisits the dichotomy that is traditionally made in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) and argues, on the basis of data from the International Corpus of Learner English, that it should be viewed as a continuum instead, with many in-between categories corresponding to a variety of learning contexts. Using the case of the preposition into as an illustration, we show that the different environments in which Spanish-, French-, Dutch-and Tswana-speaking students learn English are reflected in their syntactic, semantic and lexical use of the preposition. More precisely, it appears that the Spanish-, French-and Dutch-speaking learners, who represent a cline in terms of exposure to the target language, from little exposure for the Spanish learners to considerable exposure for the Dutch learners, also form a cline in their use of into, from most distant to most similar to native (British) English. As for the Tswana variety, which clearly displays characteristics of both EFL and ESL, it occupies different positions along the cline, being sometimes closest to native English and sometimes most dissimilar, depending on the features of the use of into that are considered.
... Using the appropriate computer tools, it is possible to identify multiword units in corpora, count and sort them in various ways, analyze them and compare the results with those obtained from corpora representing other learner groups and/or expert speakers or writers. Several recent learner-corpusbased studies have shed new light on different categories of multiword units: idiomatic expressions (Wiktorsson 2003), collocations (Nesselhauf 2005), phrasal verbs (Waibel 2007), lexical bundles (Milton 1999, Hyland 2008). Most studies deal with learners' use of multiword units in writing. ...
The two major corollaries of Sinclair's contextual approach - the interdependence of lexis and grammar and the idiom principle - constitute a major challenge for linguistic theory, language description and all language applications, but in no field is the challenge more acute than in foreign language learning and teaching. Both Sinclair's contextual approach and Hoey's (2005) theory of 'lexical priming', which builds upon it, see each word form as having its own phraseology, viz. its preferred collocations, colligations, semantic prosody, syntactic positioning, etc. This fine-grained approach is extremely useful for explaining learners' difficulties, as learners - even advanced ones - are susceptible to getting things wrong at any of these levels. However, it also lays a heavy burden on teachers who usually have limited time to teach a syllabus where vocabulary is measured in breadth as well as (and in some cases, more than) depth of knowledge. The gap between the fine-grained corpus-driven analysis of words (cf. e.g. the analysis of the phrasal verb set in in Sinclair 1991: 70-75 or the verb maintain in Hunston 2002: 139- 140) and the reality of the classroom is dauntingly wide and has so far not been given the attention it deserves. Lewis's (1993, 2000, 2002) Lexical Approach has admittedly opened up exciting new avenues for pedagogical implementation and created an upsurge of interest in lexical approaches to teaching. However, the diverging interpretations of the very concept of lexical approach and the very forceful pronouncements found in the literature are liable to create confusion in the minds of teachers and materials designers and may even end up being less rather than more efficient in learning terms. This chapter is an effort to reconcile Sinclair's contextual approach and the realities of the
... The availability of a corpus such as the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) has made it possible to use a corpus-linguistic methodology (Waibel 2007(Waibel , 2008Alejo 2010). The advantage of such an approach lies in that it analyzes natural occurring data and that a much greater number of PVs can be studied. ...
Phrasal verbs (PVs) have recently been the object of interest by linguists given their status as phraseological units whose meaning is non-compositional and opaque. They constitute a perfect case for theories of language processing and language acquisition to be tested. Cognitive linguists have participated in this debate and shown a certain interest for PVs, although their research on this topic stems in most of the cases from their central interest on prepositions and the language of spatiality. In this paper, I aim to make a comprehensive and critical summary of the cognitive linguistics (CL) literature on PVs with particular attention to its connection with usage-based approaches, especially in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and to the concept of (meaning) motivation, which has proven to be useful in teaching. I will also present a CL analysis of the
out-
PVs (i.e., those containing the particle
out
) used by 3 groups of non-native speakers of English whose L1 respectively belongs to a Germanic satellite-framed (S-) language (Swedish and Dutch), a non-Germanic S-language (Russian and Bulgarian) and a verb-framed (V-) language (Spanish and Italian). The results obtained from this analysis show: (1) that both Germanic and Non-Germanic S-language learners use a greater number of
out-
PVs than V-language learners, not only when these verbs have a motional meaning but also when they express other meanings; and (2) that S-language learners also use a greater elaboration of path (Slobin 1996) when non-motional
out-
PV meanings are involved. These findings suggest that ‘the thinking for speaking hypothesis’ (Slobin 1996, 1997; Cadierno 2004), which has been shown to work for the domain of manner and path of motion, may in part be extended to the acquisition of PVs by L2 learners.
This research investigates the effect of extensive vs. intensive reading on Iranian
advanced English Language learners' knowledge of collocations (idiomatic phrasal verbs). It aims to determine whether providing students with extensive or intensive
reading might have any effect on Iranian EFL learners' knowledge of idiomatic
phrasal-verbs or not. To answer the question, 60 advanced-level language learners
from Tehran Technical and Educational Institute in Chalus town participated in the
study. The subjects took a standard OPT test to demonstrate their English
proficiency. They were also assigned to two experimental and comparison groups;
30 in each group. A collocation (idiomatic phrasal-verbs) pre-test was administered
in each group. After 16 sessions of treatment a post-test of collocation (idiomatic
phrasal-verbs) was administered again. The treatment comprised intensive reading
for the experimental group, while the comparison group received extensive reading.
The data were analyzed using Independent samples t-test and Paired sample t-test.
The results showed that both groups were improved but the experimental group was
improved more than comparison group, which was significantly different.
Keywords: Collocations; EFL Learners; Extensive reading; Idiomatic Phrasal verbs;
Intensive reading
Although it is widely acknowledged that phrasal verbs constitute a major difficulty for language learners, only a few studies have examined how to best learn phrasal verbs in the EFL context. With the aim of addressing this gap in the literature, the current study compared the influence of different learning conditions on phrasal verb knowledge development. The 77 EFL participants were divided into two experimental groups (incidental learning vs. enhanced exposure) and a control group. While the incidental learning group read the target phrasal verbs within restaurant reviews, the enhanced exposure group had the phrasal verbs bolded and underlined in the same texts and the control group did not receive any treatment. The participants’ performance on the post-test revealed a clear advantage for enhanced exposure over incidental learning. The results also revealed a significant relationship between the participants’ prior vocabulary knowledge and their phrasal verb knowledge, and that opacity and vocabulary knowledge modulated learning gains. The results are discussed in light of the existing literature. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are highlighted.
Although it is widely acknowledged that phrasal verbs constitute a major difficulty for language learners, only a few studies have examined how to best learn phrasal verbs in the EFL context. With the aim of addressing this gap in the literature, the current study compared the influence of different learning conditions on phrasal verb knowledge development. The 77 EFL participants were divided into two experimental groups (incidental learning versus enhanced exposure) and a control group. While the incidental learning group read the target phrasal verbs within restaurant reviews, the enhanced exposure group had the phrasal verbs bolded and underlined in the same texts and the control group did not receive any treatment. The participants’ performance on the post-test revealed a clear advantage for enhanced exposure over incidental learning. The results also revealed a significant relationship between the participants’ prior vocabulary knowledge and their phrasal verb knowledge, and that opacity and vocabulary knowledge modulated learning gains. The results are discussed in light of the existing literature. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are highlighted.
En este artículo nos proponemos investigar el tratamiento de los phrasal verbs ingleses en una muestra representativa de manuales de inglés de Educación Secundaria y Bachillerato, con el objeto de analizar, desde el punto de vista tanto cuantitativo como cualitativo: (i) si se nombran explícitamente en el índice de los manuales; (ii) si existen apartados teóricos específicos donde se expliquen sus características sintácticas y semánticas (y de ser así, en qué consisten); (iii) si se ofrecen actividades y ejercicios concebidos para practicar e interiorizar dichas estructuras y a qué enfoque metodológico atienden; si se observan diferencias en el tratamiento de los PV en general (iv) y dependiendo del nivel lingüístico de referencia de cada manual (v).
Phrasal verbs present numerous challenges to second language learners of English, who often view verb + particle combinations as random (Side, 1990). This article proposes a pedagogical approach that focuses on particles as a means of spotlighting systematicity within this traditionally problematic area of English phrasal verbs and sentence structure. This investigation was an endeavor to investigate the impact of the function of phrasal verbs on ESP learners' phrasal verbs and sentence structure Knowledge retention for showing phrasal verbs in Iranian ESP sentence structure recognition. Initial, 28 homogeneous understudies who had a similar language capability, sentence structure and phrasal verbs learning were partitioned into an exploratory group. One gathering was allocated as a sentence structure group who got the image guidance of phrasal verbs and sentence structure incorporated into ESP phrasal verbs and sentence structure content, while the other gathering was the control group and the members got no special guidance of phrasal verbs of ESP sentence structure maintenance by glossing strategy. The outcomes demonstrated that the experimental group gathering had enhancement and they improved aftereffects of treatment while there was not such an adjustment in the control group. The discoveries of the present examination can help EFL language educators and materials, developers, in training phrasal verbs.
The present study examined Chinese speakers’ knowledge of English polysemous phrasal verbs (PVs) and factors that may constrain the development of PVs. The intermediate and advanced learners judged the acceptability of 100 senses of 50 PVs. Results indicate that both the intermediate and the advanced learners tended to favor the high-frequency senses (51.2%∼67.2%) of PVs but disfavor the low-frequency senses (32.9%∼46.3%) of PVs. PV frequency, semantic transparency, and time spent reading books and watching films/TV could predict the advanced learners’ mastery of the high-frequency senses, while PV frequency and preemption could predict their mastery of the low-frequency senses. Semantic transparency, PV frequency, and preemption could predict the intermediate learners’ knowledge of the high-frequency senses, while semantic transparency, frequency of high-frequency senses, and preemption could predict their acceptance of the low-frequency senses. No reliable relationship was detected among the learners’ PV knowledge, entrenchment, time spent in second language immersion, listening to music, and communicating with others for the two groups.
The main objective of this study is to investigate the (linguistic) variables that may influence learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in their selection of continuous vs. discontinuous particle verb constructions in the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage. The study is driven by two research questions: (1) What factors influence EFL learners' particle placement alternation in speech?; (2) How do EFL learners' particle placement preferences compare with those of users of first language varieties, and more particularly British English? Results show that for EFL learners with Germanic L1s, the grammar overlaps with the native grammar both in terms of its overall complexity and in the relationship(s) between those factors. By contrast, for EFL learners with non-Germanic L1s, the grammar is notable for its simplicity and for its heavy reliance on semantics.
Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Textkohäsion im geschriebenen Englisch von fortgeschrittenen Lernern mit Persisch als Muttersprache. Datengrundlage der Untersuchung ist ein digital lesbares Korpus mit Aufsätzen, die der Verfasser zusammen mit einem Kollegen an mehreren Universitäten im Iran erhoben hat. Die Analyse ist ausschließlich sein Werk.
Die Arbeit umfasst elf Kapitel. Die Einleitung stellt das Projekt vor und zeigt, wie es in die internationale korpusbasierte Lernersprachforschung passt. Das zweite Kapitel erklärt das untersuchte Phänomen, die Textkohäsion. Das dritte Kapitel ist der Forschungsbericht über bisherige Arbeiten zum Thema. Es gibt zahlreiche Studien zu anderen Sprachen, aber nur wenig Literatur zum Englischen von iranischen Lernern. Das vierte Kapitel präsentiert die Daten und Methoden genauer. Die Arbeit will ein Beitrag zur Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis nach Sylviane Granger sein. Das Material soll später erweitert und Teil des International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) werden. Das fünfte Kapitel behandelt das Schulsystem und die Rolle des Englischunterrichts im Iran. Das sechste Kapitel behandelt Konjunktionen im Persischen. Der Vergleich zwischen dem Persischen und dem Englischen ist wichtig, um das Ausmaß des muttersprachlichen Einflusses auf das Englisch in den Lernerdaten abzuschätzen. Das siebte Kapitel behandelt die englischen Konjunktionen und Konjunktionaladverbien, die in der Korpusstudie selbst untersucht werden. Die Auswahlgrundlage ist das Modell von Halliday & Hasan (1976) und die umfassende Liste in Quirk et al. (1985).
Die nächsten drei Kapitel präsentieren und diskutieren die Ergebnisse der Studie. Kapitel 8 gibt eine Übesicht. Kapitel 9 präsentiert eine genaue quantitative Analyse der Lernerdaten im Vergleich mit Aufsätzen, die von britischen und amerikanischen Studenten verfasst wurden. Kapitel 10 ist eine qualitative Analyse von einzelnen Beispielen. Sie zeigen, dass Lerner manchmal die Bedeutung von Konnektoren nicht verstehen und manchmal den stilistischen Wert nicht richtig erkennen.
Das elfte Kapitel fasst die wichtigsten Ergebnisse noch einmal zusammen. Die Arbeit zeigt, dass die Lerner insgesamt mehr Konnektoren verwenden als die englischen Muttersprachler. Einzelne Konnektoren (z.B. so) sind ebenfalls häufiger bei den Lernern. Andere (z.B. however) sind aber seltener. Die meisten Konnektoren bei den Lernern kommen ganz am Anfang des Satzes vor, die wenigsten am Ende. Das Schlusskapitel vergleicht die Ergebnisse der Studie mit denen einer ähnlichen (Altenberg & Tapper 1998), in der Lerner mit Schwedisch als Muttersprache untersucht wurden, und gibt einige Empfehlungen für die Verbesserung des Englischunterrichts im Iran.
This article mainly aims at examining the use of phrasal verbs in
the written discourse of Omani student-teachers. The participants of the study composed
of three groups: first-year student-teachers, fourth-year student-teachers, and a group
of native speakers. Two production tests and one recognition test were presented to the
participants to find out if they could produce and recognize phrasal verbs, especially
idiomatic ones. The results of the study showed that phrasal verbs were rare or
non-existent in Omani students? writing. Hence, the researchers identified implications
and provided recommendations through which Omani learners of English can be helped to
use phrasal verbs efficiently in their communication.
This study investigates whether congruency (+/– literal translation equivalent), collocate–node relationship (adjective–noun, verb–noun, phrasal-verb–noun collocations), and word length influence the learning burden of EFL learners’ learning collocations at the initial stage of form–meaning mapping. Eighteen collocations were selected on the basis of a pretest. They were divided into 9 congruent and 9 incongruent collocations and into 6 verb–noun collocations, 6 phrasal-verb–noun collocations and 6 adjective–noun collocations. Forty-one EFL learners (first language: Dutch) were asked to read a word list containing the 18 target collocations, their translation and a sample sentence and to complete four online exercises, in which the 18 collocations were presented twice. Learning gains were measured at three levels of sensitivity: form recall test 1, form recall test 2 (+ clue), form recognition test. Although mixed findings were revealed, all factors seemed to affect the learning difficultly of the collocations. Incongruent collocations appeared to be more difficult to recall than congruent ones. Adjective–noun collocations were better recalled and recognized than (phrasal) verb–noun collocations. Depending on the posttest, participants’ vocabulary size and word length of the individual constituents making up the collocation also affected the learning process.
The central aim of this work is to describe semantic determination, i.e., topological vs. lexical determination, by investigating aspects of construal (Langacker 1987) in English PVs with in and out. The paper focuses on L2 processing related to what we might call strategic thinking about linguistic meaning. More specifically, it attempts to demonstrate the following: a) how the nature of verbs affects the overall semantic determination of particle verb constructions, and b) if/how the users of English make sense of particle verbs, and how much they rely on topological/grammatical components in the process of constructing meaning. The results suggest that the nature of verbs does affect the users' strategic meaning construal – it differs in terms of their tendency towards one of the following types of semantic determination: a) topological, b) lexical, and, c) compositional.
This study investigates task-related variation in learner performance in a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environment. For our study, we collected data from 15 beginner and then intermediate second language (L2) learners of German who worked on 3 distinct activity types over 16 months: free composition, translation, and sentence building. Study results reveal that grammatical accuracy with respect to German word order was significantly higher with the meaning-focused task type (i.e., free composition) for both the beginner and intermediate levels. Moreover, proficiency level also had a significant effect on L2 word order accuracy: Beginner students performed significantly better than intermediate learners on the two form-focused task types (i.e., translation and sentence building). With the ultimate goal of understanding learner performance as it relates to different task types and success in CALL, this article provides possible explanations of these study results and suggests areas for future development of task design in CALL.
This study presents a critique of some of the corpus-based studies on phrasal verbs carried out in different types of corpora. Not only is it an attempt to provide the reader with some of the revealing findings these works have to offer but it also tends to critically discuss some of the methodological issues associated with them. It starts off discussing the works done on phrasal verbs in general corpora, then goes on to review the studies dealt with the combinations in learner corpora and ends up with looking into the research focused on the presentation of the phrasal verbs in ELT materials. It is hoped that the methodological issues addressed in the study would be taken into account by the interested researchers in their future research attempts.
Among the trends which have recently emerged in ELT, two are challenged in this article. One trend suggests that researchers' attention should be focused on the learner rather than on the teacher. However, the implicit message of this article is that the road to the learner leads through the teacher and that teacher-related research should therefore be increased. The other trend attempts to get rid of the native speaker versus non-native speaker division, offering various alternative terms and concepts to replace it. I argue, however, that a non-native cannot aspire to acquire a native speaker's language competence. I also argue that, in ELT, native-and non-native-speaking teachers reveal considerable differences in their teaching behaviour and that most of the discrepancies are language-related. It does not follow from this, however, that non-native-speaking teachers are by definition less efficient. Indeed, I would contend that a deficient command of English may even have hidden advantages. The explicit message of this article is that natives and non-natives have an equal chance to become successful teachers, but the routes used by the two groups are not the same.
In this study we focus on cohesion in discourse, and more specifically on connector usage. Acknowledging the importance of combining a top-down and a bottom-up approach in the study of discourse, we adopt a bottom-up approach which is favoured by our methodology. In the first section we evaluate previous studies of learner connector usage and the literature on contrastive French-English connector usage. We hypothesize that we will discover a general overuse of connectors by learners and use the ICLE corpus of learner English to test the hypothesis. Our study reveals no overall overuse of connectors by learners and thus contradicts the initial hypothesis. A more qualitative look shows strong evidence of overuse and underuse of individual connectors, as well as semantic, stylistic and syntactic misuse. We conclude that learners should not be presented with lists of ‘interchangeable’ connectors but instead taught the semantic, stylistic and syntactic behaviour of individual connectors, using authentic texts.
The contributions in this book are a representative cross-section of recent research on verb-particle constructions. The syntactic, semantic, morphological and psycholinguistic phenomena associated with the constructions in English, Dutch, German and Swedish are analysed from various different theoretical viewpoints.
With an introduction by the editors
Research which began in the Lexical Research Unit, Leeds University has yielded insights into the pattern underlying a large group of verb-collocate combinations in which the collocate changes the meaning of the verb in a systematic way by subordinating it to a new meaning introduced by the collocate. These insights into a large, productive sub-group of phrasal verbs appear to be of relevance to EFL teaching. The paper summarizes the main findings and suggests practical ways in which they might be useful to teachers.
This paper focuses on the errors made in lexical verb choice in speech by a small group of advanced learners of English. Of a corpus of 745 total errors 100 consisted of verb choice error (13%). This figure represents types per subject per text (15 texts x 4 subjects). There was considerable recurrence of verbs used erroneously across subjects and texts and almost without exception the verbs involved were high-frequency verbs, first encountered in the early stages of learning English. In most cases, too, the posited target verb was a high-frequency, 'easy' verb. For this reason the explanation that learners are 'overextending' verbs available in their lexicon to compensate for lack of rarer, more 'difficult' or specialised verbs was rejected. Erroneous uses of 'put', 'go', 'recognise' and 'take' are scrutinised Although in some cases L1 (German) influence is to be discerned, subjects' problems are more fundamental. In particular they include lack of knowledge of collocational probabilities and restrictions, and confusion as to the semantic boundaries of verbs of deictic movement and apperception, respectively, complicated where these do not map onto the German system neatly in terms of 'translation equivalents'. It is suggested that teaching at the advanced level should aim not only to increase the word store but also to flesh out the incomplete or 'skeleton' entries which even advanced learners may have for high-frequency verbs.
A comparative analysis is made of organizational cohesive devices in the English essays of Form 6 writers from a native speaker group and three groups of Cantonese speakers. The analysis is based on the work of Halliday and Hasan (1976) on cohesive conjunction and determines differences in the use of internal conjunctive cohe sion between native and ESL writers. Results show that Cantonese writers use a significantly higher frequency of devices in their English writing than their native speaker counterparts. There are also differ ing patterns in the positioning of devices and the choice of particular devices to express the same conjunctive relation. Some difference is found between ESL groups in these patterns. The findings are dis cussed in terms of the developmental level of the writers, the acquired behaviour of second language learning from teachers and textbooks and the transfer of writing habits and linguistic patterns from the first language.
The concepts native speaker and mother tongue are often criticized, but they continue in circulation in the absence of alternatives. This article suggests some. The terms language expertise, language inheritance, and language affiliation sort out some of the mystification, and they allow us to place educational questions of language ability and language loyalty alongside a broader view of society.1
A learner's awareness of success, failure, and error potential encountered in free speech in a second language was studied with three subjects. The speech of adult learners of English as a Second Language was recorded and replayed to the subjects, who were asked to listen to their utterances and to recall the mental experience that surrounded each utterance. The subjects were asked to use categories to aid in recalling and characterizing their metalinguistic awareness during speech. Recording and self-analysis were carried out on a weekly basis for 10 weeks. A search was then made for grammatical structures that appeared frequently throughout the data. Each example was checked for progress over the 10-week period in the hope of discovering whether a growing awareness of error preceded mastery of the structure. Among the findings are the following: (1) the learners did not recognize 65 percent of their errors, even with the aid of the tape recorder and time for reflection; (2) when the subjects did identify and attempt to correct an error, they were successful in that correction 89 percent of the time; (3) there was a significant difference between learners' recognition of errors while speaking and their recognition of errors upon hearing the tape; and (4) awareness of error just before or just after the moment of speaking resulted in only 8 percent improvement in performance. (SW)
In the description of such usages as argue away, measure up and zonk out, a venerable orphan comes in from the linguistic cold
In this article, I describe the puzzle of idiomaticity in native and non-native uses of English: why are idioms so resistant to acquisition, even by advanced leaners and users of English? I identify the main cause of this problem in the “idiomatic paradox”, whereby the very reasons which make idiomaticity so natural and necessary in native-speaker discourse are precisely the reasons non-native speakers find them so elusive. I look at some of the implications of of the idiomatic paradox for language teaching and the use of English as a Lingua Franca.
This study investigates the avoidance of English phrasal verbs (PVs) by Chinese learners in relation to their proficiency levels (advanced, intermediate), PV types (figurative, literal), and test types (multiple-choice, translation, recall). Each of the six groups of Chinese learners took one of the three tests and a group of native speakers took the multiple-choice test. The ANOVA results showed that the intermediate learners, whose L1 lacks the PV structure, tended to avoid using PVs and preferred their one-word equivalents. Also, both advanced and intermediate learners tended to produce less figurative than literal PVs, which was manifested in the translation test alone. Incorporating the findings of three previous studies on the same topic, this study claims that learners' PV avoidance behavior is a manifestation of IL development and that the semantic nature of the PVs tends to interact with the translation test.
Diss. -- Oxford -- The Queen's College.
In recent years there has been considerable discussion of how far ELT syllabuses and materials should be 'corpus-driven' in order to better reflect linguistic reality. In this paper we argue that this debate has tended to overlook the potential of corpora as tools in the hands of learners, for whom they can provide a wide range of opportunities to observe and participate in real discourse for themselves.
king these assumptions explicit, perhaps by using the book as the basis for a large-scale computational grammar, very likely one in the tradition of Pullum's earlier work (Gazdar et al. 1985). Such a project, although very worthwhile, would probably be too long-term for most of us, so we now turn to other ways in which the availability of the grammar may enhance the practice of computational linguistics. One obvious role is as a guide to English grammar for people who build grammatical artifacts. Such artifacts include not only large-scale computational grammars (Grover, Carroll, and Briscoe 1993; Copestake and Flickinger 2000) but also treebanks (Marcus, Santorini, and Marcinkiewicz 1994). It is idle to speculate on whether the Penn Treebank or the Alvey Natural Language Tools would have been significantly different if the Cambridge Grammar had been around to influence them, but it should become a routine part of the training of future grammar writers and treebank annotators that the
scription and is intended largely for an applied-linguistics audience (e.g., teachers of English as a second language). Computational linguists who want a source of pattern descriptions for help in designing and implementing NLP applications would be better served by the reference works cited above (but should not expect to find formal descriptions there either). The book begins with a brief history of H&F's notion of pattern, which has its roots in the pedagogical language description of Hornby (1954) and Sinclair's (1991) work in corpus linguistics. Chapter 2 introduces patterns, mostly through examples. The patterns presented range from the very general, such as V n (a verb followed by a noun group), in which case they resemble basic phrase structure rules, to the quite specific-- for example, it V n/amount before/since (i.e., the word it followed by a verb followed by a noun phrase expressing the semantic notion "amotmt" followed by the word before or since). Chapter 3 discusses m