Exploring Variables Constraining L2 Learners' Production Of English Phrasal Verbs

The present study,in the framework of usage-based approaches,investigated effects of English proficiency,language exposure,semantic transparency,frequency,entrenchment and preemption on the second language(L2)acquisition of English phrasal verbs(PVs).Participants were Chinese first-year,third-year English majors and English teachers,who were required to finish a fill-in-the-blank task according to the context and initial word of PV.Results showed that teachers scored 24% and 45.6% higher on the productive test than the third-year and the first-year learners,and the third-year learns scored 17.4% higher than the first-year learners as well.It has been found that(a)the L2learners' productive knowledge of PVs was significantly influenced by English proficiency,demonstrating that the more proficient learners were,the more PVs they produced;(b)the three groups of L2 learners' production of PVs was significantly influenced by semantic transparency,namely that the more transparent PVs were,the less PVs L2 learners produced;(c)all participants of the L2 learners' production of PVs was restricted by entrenchment,which shows that English phrasal verbs with high frequency meaning sense inhibited the production of phrasal verbs' low frequency meaning sense,suggesting that the higher frequency meaning sense of a PV,the more learners produce,the less frequency meaning sense of a PV is,the less production is yield;(d)the L2 learners' productive knowledge of PVs was partly influenced by English exposure.Specifically,years of learning English,listening to music and watching videos only affected the first-year English majors;and(e)PV frequency and preemption did not affect all learners' production of English Phrasal verbs.