Processing of literal phrasal verbs by non-native and native speakers of English: an eye movement study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2017.2.26451Keywords:
Phrasal verbs, Processing, Eye-tracking.Abstract
Recent research on the learning of phrasal verbs by learners of English as a second language (L2) still presents a lack of research on the nature of the processing of this type of verb in the course of learning. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the online processing of phrasal verbs by advanced learners of English as L2, native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Sixteen volunteers (8 native speakers of BP and 8 native speakers of English) participated in an experiment in which we examined whether there were differences between the processing of literal phrasal verbs and lexical verbs. In order to do so, the participants’ eye movements were recorded as they read sentences that contained one of the two types of verbs. The measures of first pass reading time and total reading time in the region of interest showed that native speakers of BP devoted more attention to phrasal verbs than to lexical verbs, which we interpreted as evidence that there is a greater cost in the processing of sentences containing phrasal verbs than in those that contain lexical verbs. The results are discussed in the light of proposals concerning the processing of phrasal verbs.
Downloads
References
BIBER, Douglas. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, England: Longman, 1999.
BLAIS, Mary-Jane; GONNERMAN, Laura M. Explicit and implicit semantic processing of verb-particle constructions by French-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. v. 16, p. 829-846, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728912000673
CAPPELLE, Bert. Particle Patterns in English: a comprehensive coverage. Master’s thesis. Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3, 2005.
CAPPELLE, Bert; SHTYROV, Yuri; PULVERMÜLLER, Friedemann. Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units. Brain and Language, v. 115, n. 3, p. 189-201, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2010.09.004
CIEŚLICKA, Anna. Literal salience in on-line processing of idiomatic expressions by second language learners. Second Language Research, v. 22, n. 2, p. 115-144, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1191/0267658306sr263oa
CIEŚLICKA, Anna; HEREDIA, Roberto; OLIVARES, Marc. It’s all in the eyes: How language dominance, salience, and context affect eye movements during idiomatic language processing. In: Aronin , L; Pawla k, M. (Ed.). Essential topics in applied linguistics and multilingualism: Studies in honor of David Singleton, Springer, 2014. p. 21-42.
FRASER, Bruce. Some Remarks on the Verb-Particle Construction in English. In: Languages, G.U.I.o., Linguistics, Languages, G.U.S.o., & Linguistics. Report of the annual round table meeting on linguistics and language studies. Georgetown University Press, 1966. p. 45-61.
GIORA, Rachel. Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics (includes Cognitive Linguistic Bibliography). v. 8, n. 3, p. 183-206, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1997.8.3.183
GIORA, Rachel. On the priority of salient meanings: studies of literal and figurative language. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 31, p. 919-929, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00100-3
GIORA, Rachel. Literal vs. figurative language: Different or equal? Journal of Pragmatics. v. 34, n. 4, p. 487–506, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00045-5
GIORA, Rachel. On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language, University, I.R.G.P.L.T.A. Oxford University Press, USA. 2003. p. 272.
LIAO, Yan; FUKUYA, Yoshinori. Avoidance of Phrasal Verbs: The Case of Chinese Learners of English. Language Learning. v. 54, n. 2, p. 193-226, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2004.00254.x
MATLOCK, Teenie; HEREDIA, Roberto. Understanding phrasal verbs in monolinguals and bilinguals. In: HEREDIA, R. R; ALTARRIBA, J. (Ed.). Bilingual sentence processing. Elsevier. p. 251-274, 2002.
MITCHELL, Don. On-line methods in Language Processing: Introduction and Historical review. In: CARREIRAS, M; CLIFTON Jr., C. (Ed.). The on-line study of sentence comprehension: Eyetracking, ERPs and beyond. New York: Psychology Press, 2004. p. 15-32.
NUNES, Adriana Fontella. Noticing, Instrução e Produção Oral em L2: um estudo experimental sobre os verbos de movimento. 149 fl. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Departamento de Línguas Estrangeiras e Tradução da Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, 2013.
PHRASAL VERBS DICTIONARY LONGMAN. New York: Pearson Education, 2000.
RAYNER, Keith. Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing: 20 Years of Research. Psychological Bulletin, v. 124, n. 3, p. 372-422, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-909.124.3.372
RAYNER, Keith; POLLATSEK, Alexander. Eye-movement Control in Reading. In: Handbook of Psycholinguistic. 2nd ed. Elsevier Inc., 2006. p. 613-657.
RICHARDS, Jack; SCHMIDT, Richard. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. 4th ed. Pearson Educated Limited, 2010.
ROBERTS, Leah; SIYANOVA-CHANTURIA, Anna. Using eye-tracking to investigate topics in L2 acquisition and L2 sentence and discourse processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, v. 35, n. 2, p. 213-235, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263112000861
SIDE, Richard. Phrasal verbs: sorting them out. Oxford University Press. ELT Journal, v. 44, n. 2, p. 144-152, 1990.
STAUB, Adrian; RAYNER, Keith. Eye movements and on-line comprehension processes. In: Gas kell, M. G. (Ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics, 2007. p. 327-342. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568971.001.0001
THIM, Stefan. Phrasal Verbs: The English Verb-Particle Construction and its History. 2012.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright
The submission of originals to Letrônica implies the transfer by the authors of the right for publication. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. If the authors wish to include the same data into another publication, they must cite Letrônica as the site of original publication.
Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise specified, material published in this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is correctly cited.
