This study analyzed the phenomenon of the preference of English learners for the use of single?word verbs derived from Latin rather than the employment of phrasal verbs. The principal reasons for this language learner choice can be found in an examina...
This study analyzed the phenomenon of the preference of English learners for the use of single?word verbs derived from Latin rather than the employment of phrasal verbs. The principal reasons for this language learner choice can be found in an examination of the characteristics of phrasal verbs as well as in the typical methods for studying verbs employed by English learners. However, this second language phenomenon can create a certain distance from the instinctive preferences of native speaker verb choices in real situations.The verbs and particles that compose phrasal verbs tend to be highly polysemous. This polysemity is so extensive that it can easily lead to the overlooking of the systematic expansion of meanings. Phrasal verbs tend to generate a range of integrated meanings that go far beyond what might be expected from the mere combination of individual words. In addition, the meanings that result from these combinations are also highly polysemous. The accumulation of additional layers of meaning within the typical phrasal verb results in the phenomenon whereby even native speakers use phrasal verbs as idiomatic expressions.Phrasal verbs thus take on additional meanings that appear to lack any clear cognitive guidance for meaning expansion. As a result, English dictionaries and study books tend to present phrasal verbs as simply idiomatic. In a similar fashion, most junior and high school textbooks in Korea offer only simple phrasal verb definitions and synonyms. Faced with this learning environment, many student language learners attempt to memorize phrasal verb word meanings individually. This is inevitably perceived as a taxing burden for them.In spite of these second language learning difficulties, it is clear that native speakers prefer phrasal verbs to single?word verbs. The major reason appears to be that phrasal verbs exhibit a dynamic sense based on the concept of “motion-direction-terminal”. In addition, phrasal verbs generate in native speakers much stronger feelings of activeness than the single?word verbs derived from Latin, which tend to be perceived as static. Consisting of two distinct word items, phrasal verbs also seem to be better for imprinting on the cognitive mechanism of the native speaker. In addition, because they tend to have a trochaic rhythm, they are also more easily memorized than the comparatively longer single?word verbs. Finally, thanks to their polysemous characteristics, phrasal verbs are used in much more extensive contexts.The research undertaken was motivated by the theory of cognitive grammar. Cognitive grammar emphasizes human cognitive activity, sense organs, and knowledge of the world. Its educational implications relate mostly to the concept of the semantic web, the use of image schema by the sense organs, and the application of figurative techniques like metaphor or metonymy. In this way, cognitive grammar offers learners the insight that vocabulary is not arbitrary but rather systematic. The concepts behind vocabulary items are best seen as being built up from the level of prototypical meaning.This paper examined how the two phrasal verbs―turn on and turn off―were learned in order to see how the concepts of the semantic web, image schema and figurative techniques interacted. The first experiment involved a reading test, and the second involved a writing test. An experimental class was exposed to a series of cognitive activities, while the control class was exposed to synonyms and contextual definitions. The following hypotheses were tested:1. The cognitive approach involving the use of the semantic web and image schema is more efficient for learning vocabulary than an approach that involves the use of contextual definitions.2. The cognitive approach more effective at promoting long?term retention of vocabulary than an approach that involves the use of contextual definitions.3. The cognitive approach is more effective at promoting meaning analogies than an approach that involves the use of contextual definitions.The results of the experiment proved to be statistically significant, clearly demonstrating that cognitive grammar instruction was more effective than an approach involving contextual definition. The cognitive grammar approach proved to be better for student learning, retention and analogical inference. In addition, the experiment demonstrated that cognitive activity had a positive effect on both the better class of student and on those students who lacked linguistic knowledge and enthusiasm for language learning.Students in an EFL environment often tend to believe that they must memorize individual vocabulary items. Often enough, they undertake this task without recourse to the concept of the semantic network, a situation that results in frustration and poor outcomes. The cognitive approach to language learning offers the possibility of breaking with this unhappy learning cycle. The useful microscopic tools of the semantic web and the image schema can be particularly beneficial. Since good teaching methods ought to stem from the students'' sense of sight and his or her conventional knowledge of the world, the cognitive approach provides a useful vehicle for the promotion of sounder methods of language learning.