The Second Language Acquisition of English Phrasal Verbs by Arabic, Chinese and German Speakers

Abstract

This thesis examines the acquisition and use of English phrasal verbs by adult L2 learners, focusing on learners’ use of phrasal verbs, phrasal verb types, literal and figurative, and phrasal verb collocation. Although English phrasal verbs are often described as a lexical and grammatical category characteristic of Germanic languages, learners from non-Germanic backgrounds are frequently reported to experience persistent difficulty in acquiring their form, meaning, and use. Drawing on the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, this study scrutinises whether learners’ performance is shaped by their L1, language proficiency, and phrasal verb frequency. Data were collected from 160 participants across four language groups: Arabic, Chinese, German, and English. Learners’ proficiency was established using the Cambridge Assessment English test, allowing participants to be categorised as intermediate or advanced. Learners completed four tasks targeting different aspects of phrasal verb knowledge: a phrase collocation task, a linguistic preference task, a story completion task, and a meaning retention task. The tested phrasal verbs were selected through corpus-based frequency analysis to ensure familiarity and comparability across items. The data were analysed using chi-square tests and mixed-effects logistic regression models. The results show that learners across all L1 groups have acquired the category of English phrasal verbs, but their performance remains consistently lower than that of English speakers. Learners relied more heavily on one-word verbs and literal meanings, particularly in tasks with higher production demands, and showed persistent difficulty with figurative meanings and collocational accuracy. Language proficiency was a robust predictor, with advanced learners outperforming intermediate learners across phrasal verb use, phrasal verb types, and collocation, though native-like mastery was not achieved. On the other hand, phrasal verb frequency did not show a clear positive effect. It is worth noting that Arabic and German learners frequently performed more similarly to each other than to Chinese learners, despite Arabic lacking a structure resembling English phrasal verbs. Overall, the findings support an interpretation of phrasal verb acquisition as a gradual process of feature reassembly in which learners develop partial but incomplete representations of form, meaning, and use. The study contributes to research on second language development by showing that L1 influence operates through differences in feature organisation and interface mapping rather than through surface-level structural similarity, and by highlighting phrasal verb collocation as a particularly demanding and late-acquired aspect of phrasal verb knowledge.