An Investigation Of Chinese Non-English Majors' Use Of Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal verbs are generally defined as combinations of verbs with adverbial or prepositional particles. They are pervasively used in English, which constitutes an essential part of everyday communication. Therefore, students find them vital for understanding. However, it is a most difficult and troublesome lexical area, especially for learners of English as a foreign language. Phrasal verbs cause difficulties for English learners because of their meaning and grammar.Based on the literature review, a comprehensive illustration of phrasal verbs is made in respect of phonetics, morphology, semantics and syntax. It is widely recognized that Chinese students frequently make mistakes in phrasal verb use, which could find evidence in many of their exam papers and daily performance in classroom. However, the reasons why they often make such kind of mistakes have not been systematically studied. The present study is designed not only to examine Chinese non-English majors' proficiency of using phrasal verbs, but also to explore the causes that lead to the misuse of phrasal verbs. It aims to study phrasal verbs from the respect of error analysis, involving both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The instruments used in the present study consist of a phrasal verb test, an interview as well as a report writing task. From the statistics analyzed by SPSS software package, it can be seen that all the subjects' performance in the phrasal verb test was far from satisfactory. The results of the independent sample t-test testify the hypothesis that there are significant differences among the students' use of phrasal verbs at different English proficiency levels. Furthermore, based on the results of the self-report and the interview, three major causes that lead to the students' misuse of phrasal verbs are generalized. They are guessing the meaning of the phrasal verb solely literally, inferring the meaning of phrasal verb largely influenced by L1 and neglecting the context to infer its meaning. However, sometimes these causes may overlap and there are no clear-cut distinctions among them.The present study exposes some problems existing in Chinese non-English majors' use of phrasal verbs. Some pedagogical implications and suggestions are put forward. It is suggested that language teachers and students should raise their awareness of the importance of phrasal verb learning. Specific techniques for teaching phrasal verbs involve instructing learners to use specialized phrasal verb dictionaries; using the strategy of association to memorize phrasal verbs by establishing semantic networks among them; providing sufficient meaningful contexts to help learners successfully infer the meanings of phrasal verbs; at the same time providing sufficient and effective practice in classroom teaching. Specific exercises should be elaborated designed to help students improve the proficiency of using phrasal verbs. More communication activities can be involved in phrasal verb teaching, for the purpose of stimulating students' interests and keeping high motivation. The present study provides insights into some accessible approaches to help learners grasp phrasal verbs more efficiently and effectively. More studies with larger sample sizes, or being carried out cross-culturally are suggested to be done for future research.