Aspectual phrasal verbs in adult learners of English as a second language

Abstract

On the basis of the Cognitive Metaphor Theory, it has been proposed that the aspectual meanings of particles in phrasal verbs are susceptible to being interpreted from their spatial meanings. This research sought to establish whether non-native English speakers interpret aspectual phrasal verbs metaphorically and whether this is related to their level of English proficiency as a second language (L2). An online self-paced reading task and an off-line selection of images task were applied to native and non-native English speakers, split into three groups according to their hours of exposure to L2. In general, non-native English speakers do not use metaphorical semantic networks in phrasal verb particle processing to interpret their aspectual meaning. In fact, they seem to abandon the metaphorical interpretation of particles in direct relation to the increase in the hours of exposure to L2. Finally, the interpretation of the particle as a unit with spatial (not aspectual) meaning seems to be related to the non-identification of phrasal verbs as lexical units.