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An Error Analysis on the Use of English Phrasal Verbs by Chinese English Majors

Author: LiYan
Tutor: LuMin
School: Shandong University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: phrasal verbs error error analysis learners’ corpus
CLC: H319
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2010
Downloads: 117
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Abstract


Phrasal verbs play an important role in. everyday communication and they, are_widely. used in both spoken and written English. However, the learning of phrasal verbs is a difficult point for most Chinese EFL learners because they have complex meanings and usages and there is no such a linguistic form in the learners’native language. Therefore, it is necessary to find out more effective approaches to help them learn phrasal verbs efficiently.Although various studies have been carried out on the teaching and learning of phrasal verbs, there is no systematic study on the errors made by foreign language learners, especially by Chinese EFL learners when learning phrasal verbs. The present study is aimed at finding out the error types made by Chinese English majors and the causes of these errors through the analysis of the data of two sub-corpora (ST5 and ST6) of CLEC (Chinese Learner English Corpus) based on the theory of "Error Analysis", and searching for effective ways to teach and learn phrasal verbs.The present study was conducted according to the following procedures. First, as CLEC is error-tagged, seven error tags involving phrasal verb misuses were selected. The next step was to retrieve these tags and pick out the errors related to the misuse of phrasal verbs with the aid of the concordance tool AntConc 3.2.1.w. Because the error tags of CLEC are not specially made for the misuse of phrasal verbs, the errors were reclassified into six types according to their different semantic and grammatical features. After that, the frequencies of each of the reclassified error categories were counted up and normalized. At last, a Chi-square Test was conducted to test whether there was significant difference in the proficiency levels between the two groups of learners (intermediate and advanced learners) in the use of phrasal verbs.The results of the study show that the error type with the largest percentage is Sul, which means the substitution of the phrasal verb with a wrong one. And three types of errors are related to the misuse of particles, they are Oml (the omission of particles), Mil (the misuse of particles), Ov1 (the oversuppliance of particles), which indicates that the learners’unfamiliarity with the meanings and usages of particles is a major hindrance to their mastery of phrasal verbs. What’s more, the results of the Chi-square Test show that there is significant difference between the two groups of learners on the use of phrasal verbs on the whole, which means that advanced English learners (ST6) have a better command of phrasal verbs than intermediate learners (ST5). In addition, the analysis of the errors of different types indicates that three main causes lead to the misuse of phrasal verbs: interference of the first language, intralingual factors and some pedagogical and learning factors.The results of the present study reveal the problems existing in Chinese English majors’use of phrasal verbs. It provides helpful information for finding out effective ways to help learners have a better command of phrasal verbs. It is suggested that some approaches and strategies need to be employed in the teaching and learning of phrasal verbs:the approach of particle-centeredness, the application of semantic relations, contextual strategy, and the comprehensible input strategy. Besides, students should be encouraged to take risks in making errors and teachers should help students analyze the causes of their errors, thus students can learn the correct rules from their errors. With the aid of the above-mentioned strategies, the learners’proficiency level in the use of phrasal verbs will be improved.

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