A Comparative Corpus-based Study on the Use of Phrasal Verbs by Turkish EFL Learners and L1 English Speakers

Nebahat Badem, Tuğba Şimşek

Abstract


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.

Keywords


Phrasal Verbs, Learner Corpora, Native Corpora, Turkish EFL Learners, L1 English Speakers, Spoken Register, Written Register

Full Text:

PDF

References


Akbulut, F. D. (2018). The avoidance behaviour of Turkish EFL learners in using multi-word verbs. Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 46, 74-94.

Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.

Can, C. (2010). A Turkish learner corpus of English in second language studies: TICLE as a sub-corpus of ICLE. Language Journal, 144, 16-34.

Chen, M. (2013). Overuse or underuse: A corpus study of English phrasal verb use by Chinese, British and American university students. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(3), 418-442.

Chévez Herra, R. (2013). Phrasal verbs: Their teaching and acquisition. Revista de Lenguas Modernas, (19), 487-509.

Dagut, M., & Laufer, B. (1985). Avoidance of phrasal verbs—A case for contrastive analysis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7(1), 73-79.

De Cock, S. (2004). Preferred sequences of words in NS and NNS speech. Belgian Journal of English Language and Literatures (BELL), 2(1), 225-246.

Fadanelli, S. (2012). A Corpus Study on Brazilian Learners’ Usage of English Phrasal Verbs. Revista Estudos Anglo-Americanos, (37), 158-176.

Gardner, D., & Davies, M. (2007). Pointing out frequent phrasal verbs: A corpus‐based analysis. TESOL quarterly, 41(2), 339-359.

Gilquin, G. (2015). The use of phrasal verbs by French-speaking EFL learners. A constructional and collostructional corpus-based approach. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 11(1), 51-88.

Girgin, U. (2019). Perceptions of Turkish EFL student teachers towards learning phrasal-prepositional verbs through corpus based materials. Language Teaching and Educational Research (LATER), 2(1), 1-19.

Godwin-Jones, R. (2018). Contextualized vocabulary learning. Language Learning & Technology, 22(3), 1-19.

Granger, S. (1998). The computer learner corpus: A versatile new source of data for SLA research. In Granger, S. (Eds.) Learner English on Computer. Addison Wesley Longman, 3-18.

Hulstijn, J. H., & Marchena, E. (1989). Avoidance: Grammatical or semantic causes?. Studies in second language acquisition, 11(3), 241-255.

Karahan, P. (2015). The effect of conceptual metaphors on Turkish EFL learners’ comprehension and production of phrasal verbs. International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, 3(1), 76-86.

Karakuş, E. (2017). The preferences of Turkish EFL learners in using phrasal verbs or synonymous one-word verbs. International Journal of Language Academy. 5/5, 216–225.

Kartal, G. (2018). Phrasal verbs in ELT coursebooks used in Turkey: A corpus-based analysis. Cumhuriyet International Journal of Education, 7(4), 534-550.

Kilgarriff, A., Rychly, P., Smrz, P., Tugwell, D. (2004): The Sketch Engine, EURELEX 2004, 105-116.

Kilimci, A. (2014). LINDSEI-TR: A new spoken corpus of advanced learners of English. International Journal of Social Sciences and Education, 4(2), 401-410.

Lee, J-Y. (2015). The use of English phrasal verbs in American spoken corpora: A comparative analysis of an academic spoken corpus and a casual conversation corpus. International Journal of Language Studies, 9(2), 27-48.

Liu, D. (2011). The most frequently used English phrasal verbs in American and British English: A multicorpus examination. TESOL Quarterly, 45(4), 661-688.

Liu, D., & Myers, D. (2020). The most-common phrasal verbs with their key meanings for spoken and academic written English: A corpus analysis. Language Teaching Research, 24(3), 403-424.

Özgen, M., & Koşaner, Ö. (2015). On phrasal and prepositional verb projections in Turkish. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 5(06), 518-527.

Riguel, E. (2014). Phrasal verbs, “The scourge of the learner”. Papers from the 9th Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics & Language Teaching 2014, 4, 1-19.

Ryoo, M. L. (2013). A corpus-based study of the use of phrasal verbs in Korean EFL students' writing. Journal of Asia TEFL, 10(2). 63-89.

Spring, R. (2018). Teaching phrasal verbs more efficiently: Using corpus studies and cognitive linguistics to create a particle list. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 9(5), 121-135.

Yıldız, M. (2016). A cross-linguistic inquiry into the potential reasons for the avoidance of English phrasal verbs: The case of Turkish and Norwegian EFL learners. The Linguistics Journal, 10(1), 124.

Waibel, B. (2007). Phrasal verbs in learner English: A corpus-based study of German and Italian learners, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.12n.6.p.55

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2010-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies

You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.