Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently - Using Corpus Studies and Cognitive Linguistics to Create a Particle List

Q: Why are phrasal verbs difficult for EFL/ESL learners?

They are frequent but difficult due to the large number of phrasal verbs and their polysemy, meaning one form can correspond to multiple interpretations.

Q: What does the study propose for teaching phrasal verbs?

It combines cognitive linguistics with corpus-based research to create a concise yet comprehensive list of phrasal-verb particles and their meanings.

Q: How does particle-list instruction compare with learning whole phrasal verbs?

Learners taught with the particle list improve more on pre-/post-tests than learners who studied common phrasal verbs as whole entities, and they infer meanings of novel phrasal verbs more effectively.

Oct 15, 2026

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Phrasal verbs are central to EFL/ESL instruction due to their high frequency, yet they are challenging because learners face large numbers of forms and frequent polysemy. Building on earlier work, this study improves teaching for phrasal verbs using cognitive linguistics, combining event conflation theory with corpus-based methods to compile a particle list and meanings covering about 95% of common phrasal-verb interpretations. An experiment shows that instruction using this particle list yields stronger gains on pre/post tests than learning the most common phrasal verbs as unanalyzed wholes, and improves learners’ ability to infer novel phrasal-verb meanings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Review of the Literature

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 [www.alls.aiac.org.au](www.alls.aiac.org.au) | Teaching Phrasal Verbs More Efficiently: Using Corpus Studies and Cognitive Linguistics to Create a Particle List
Ryan Spring*
Tohoku University, Sendai City, Aoba-ku, Kawauchi 41, Japan
Corresponding Author: Ryan Spring, E‑mail: [spring.ryan.edward.c4@tohoku.ac.jp](spring.ryan.edward.c4@tohoku.ac.jp)
The research is financed by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, project number 16K16868 | | | --- | --- | | ARTICLE INFO | ABSTRACT
Phrasal verbs are important for EFL and ESL education because of their high frequency, but | | Article history | | | Received: May 10, 2018 | can be difficult for learners because of their number and polysemy. While there are a number | | Accepted: August 26, 2018 | of studies on phrasal verbs, the widening focus of such studies has left a gap between theory | | Published: October 31, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 5 | and practical instruction. This study improves upon previous studies related to teaching phrasal verbs through cognitive linguistics by combining the theory of event conflation with corpus- | | Advance access: August 2018 | based research to create a list of phrasal verb particles and meanings that is concise and yet comprehensive enough to account for approximately 95% of common phrasal verb meanings. It also reports the results of an experiment in which learners taught with this particle list improved more on pre‑/post‑tests of phrasal verbs than learners that studied a list of the most common | | Conflicts of interest: None | | | Funding: JSPS | phrasal verbs as whole entities (p<0.001, d=1.34) . Quantitative and qualitative data presented | | | in this study also indicate that learners taught with the particle list improved their ability to conjecture the meanings of novel phrasal verbs more effectively than learners who studied common phrasal verbs as whole units. | | Key words:
Phrasal Verbs, | | | Cognitive Linguistics, Corpus, | | | Instruction Materials,
TEFL, | | | Second Language Acquisition | | INTRODUCTION Though phrasal verbs1 (henceforth PVs) are important for EFL and ESL learners because of their high frequency, they are notoriously difficulty to learn, which often causes learn‑ ers to avoid studying and using them (Liao and Fukuya, 2004; Jahedi and Mukundan, 2015; etc.) . There have been many studies conducted on PV education, and can be gen‑ erally categorized as: analysis of the syntactic and semantic properties of PVs, comparative analysis of non‑native learn‑ ers’ avoidance of PVs, analysis of ESL learner corpora in comparison with native learner corpora, and corpus‑based analysis of PVs in language teaching materials (Jahedi and Mukundan, 2015: 161)2. However, there are few studies that attempt to straddle these different areas of research to offera wider, more beneficial guide to PVs for learners and ed‑ ucators. For example, studies such as Gardner and Davies (2007) and Garnier and Schmitt (2015) offer learners and instructors lists of the most common PVs, which are surely important as a guide for which PVs to study first, but teach‑ ing methods and instruction are outside of the scope of their work. Thus, even if a learner were to obtain such a list, thereis the strong possibility that they would simply attempt to learn the PVs by memorizing them as whole units. However, as pointed out by Side (1990) and Lee (2012), studying PVsin parts, focusing on the particles, seems to be a more effec‑ tive way to learn them. Though Side (1990) and Lee (2012) are promising studies, both studies only focused on three PV particles, which covers a very limited number of PVs. This paper thus attempts to advance the ideas of Side (1990) and Lee (2012) by using corpus studies, such as Garnier and Schmitt (2015), and cognitive linguistic theory to create a comprehensive list of PV particles that learners can utilize to study a wide

FAQs

Why are phrasal verbs difficult for EFL/ESL learners?

They are frequent but difficult due to the large number of phrasal verbs and their polysemy, meaning one form can correspond to multiple interpretations.

What does the study propose for teaching phrasal verbs?

It combines cognitive linguistics with corpus-based research to create a concise yet comprehensive list of phrasal-verb particles and their meanings.

How does particle-list instruction compare with learning whole phrasal verbs?

Learners taught with the particle list improve more on pre-/post-tests than learners who studied common phrasal verbs as whole entities, and they infer meanings of novel phrasal verbs more effectively.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Cart