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Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)

SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

Journal homepage: http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/

Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

Zarifi, A* and Mukundan, J
Department of Language and Humanities Education, Faculty of Language Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia,
Serdang.

ABSTRACT
Despite the notoriously challenging aspects of the English phrasal verbs, these combinations
are of high relevance for ESL/EFL learners as knowledge of them is often equated with
language fluency and proficiency. They are likely to assume a number of different syntactic
patterns, and grammatical presentation of these structures in ESL materials turns out to
be a major pedagogical concern. Yet, the body of research dealing with the syntactic
representation of these forms is almost missing in the related literature. The present study
was, therefore, an attempt to investigate the grammatical treatment of phrasal verbs in
Malaysian ESL secondary level textbooks. Although there occured a total number of
15 different syntactic patterns associated with these multiword verbs, they were almost
overlooked as a category of language phenomenon enjoying their own grammatical
behaviour. There also appeared to be no guiding principle underlying the selection,
presentation and sequencing of different patterns associated with them, bringing further
home the observation that the development of ELT textbooks is more intuitively than
empirically motivated.

Keywords: Phrasal Verbs, grammatical patterns, ESL textbooks, corpus linguistics

INTRODUCTION brought about a considerable shift in the

The emergence of corpus linguistics, area of language study and instruction.
the advent of machine-readable corpora These groundbreaking developments in the
and development of the lexical syllabus field gave rise to the new sub-discipline
of phraseology. Cowie (1994, p. 3198)
ARTICLE INFO describes phraseology as “the study of
Article history:
Received: 24 July 2013
the structure, meaning, and use of word-
Accepted: 28 August 2013 combinations”. It covers a wide range of
E-mail addresses:
[email protected] (Zarifi, A.),
forms including idioms, proverbs, phrasal
[email protected] (Mukundan, J.) verbs, chunks, prefabs, and prepositional
* Corresponding author

ISSN: 0128-7702 © Universiti Putra Malaysia Press

 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

structures; however, phrasal verbs _ LITERATURE REVIEW

combination of a verb and an adverbial There is a host of different terms like
particle_ are reported to be the largest class multi-word verbs (Parrott, 2000), complex
(Baldwin & Villavicencio, 2002). predicates (Ackerman & Webelhuth, 1998),
The English phrasal verb combinations two-word verbs (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-
are claimed to be one of the most Freeman, 1999), verb particle combinations
notoriously challenging aspects of English (Villavicencio & Copestake, 2002) to
language instruction (Celce-Murcia & refer to these structures with “phrasal
Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Granger, 1996; verbs” (Brinton, 1985) appearing “to be
Siyanova & Schmitt, 2007). Language the winning term” (McArthur, 1989, p.
learners have been reported to experience 38). Likewise, literature offers a number
difficulties in dealing with these forms in of different definitions to describe these
such areas as “‘remembering meaning’, esoteric combinations. Among others, Quirk,
‘grammar’ and ‘word order’” (Pye, 1996, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985)
p. 698). The problems can be attributed to define a phrasal verb as a verb followed by
a number of characteristics of these fuzzy a morphologically invariable particle, which
constructions such as their orthographic idiomatically functions with the verb as a
forms, grammatical configurations, and single grammatical and semantic unit. To
idiomatic nature. Cowie and Mackin (1993), a phrasal verb is
Despite their rather complicated the result of a verb combining with a particle
structures and unpredictable meanings or a preposition forming a unit of meaning.
of some combinations, phrasal verbs are According to Celce-Murcia and Larsen-
of high relevance for ESL/EFL learners Freeman (1999), phrasal verbs are two-word
because a grasp of them “can be a great asset verbs that function as a single verb.
to learners in acquiring a new language” Most of the literature on phrasal verbs
(Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). in corpus-based studies is mainly concerned
Taking into account both the complexity with the presentation and frequency counts
associated with these forms and, at the of these forms across different general and
same time, their usefulness to language specialized corpora (Akbari, 2009; Gardner
learners, the issue of how they are selected, & Davies, 2007; Trebits, 2009; Schneider,
sequenced and presented in terms of their 2005; Von, 2007). Empirical studies of these
grammatical configurations in ESL materials combinations in instructional materials
appears to be a pedagogical concern. The are, however, few and far between. Side
present study thus aimed at investigating (1990), examining a few ELT course books
the presentation of the grammatical patterns and reference materials, argues that the
associated with these combinations in difficulties associated with the phrasal verb
Malaysian ESL textbooks. combinations are to some extent motivated
by the way in which they are presented.

650 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

She observes that description of phrasal is always contiguous to the verb. In some
verbs in teaching materials often fail “to others, the particle is always noncontiguous
create learnable patterns” and sometimes to its verb. There are still other transitive
create “patterns of the wrong kind” (P. combinations in which there is no fixed
150). In addition, Darwin and Gray (1999), word order. The particle in these structures
comparing a list of top 20 phrasal verbs in the can equally occur after the NP complement
BNC with the combinations in a typical ESL or immediately after the verb. To complicate
grammar book, found that only three forms the point, there are combinations (e.g., give
in the textbook matched the items on the up) that may fall in more than one syntactic
list. Likewise, Koprowski (2005) reported type. With that being said, any discussion of
that there was not even a single phrasal phrasal verbs should not only care for their
verb shared by the three contemporary ELT meaning but also for their grammar.
course books that were developed as general Teaching grammar has for long been
English materials for intermediate level the main focus in language pedagogy and
learners. Finally, in another recent study on literature has a lot to contribute to the area
the Malaysian ESL textbooks, Zarifi and both in terms of theory and practice. Over
Mukundan (2012) investigated the use of the past decade, an overwhelming body of
phrasal verb combinations in the spoken empirical studies in the language classroom
sections of the materials. They reported has shown that grammar instruction actually
that textbooks contained combinations results in learners’ substantial gains in L2
of extremely low frequency counts in proficiency, accuracy and rate of progress
general English and vice versa. Findings (Ellis, 2001; Nassaji & Swain 2000). While
enabled the researchers to conclude that there is general agreement on the value of
both the selection and presentation of these teaching grammar, the issue of whether
combinations were inconsistent with their instruction should be explicit or implicit
actual use in the BNC. has been a matter of perennial debate.
Phrasal verbs are usually referred to Norris and Ortega’s (2000) careful analysis
as the multi-word middle ground between of 49 studies has revealed that explicit
lexis and grammar (Gass & Selinker, 2001). teaching leads to better and more durable
Not only are they complicated in terms of learning than implicit teaching. According
their semantics but they are also challenging to DeKeyser (1998), grammar instruction
because of the various grammatical should both stimulate students to reflect on
configurations they may assume. While the the nature of grammatical rules and, at the
transitive combinations are accompanied same time, provide opportunities for them
by an NP complement, no NP follows the to observe those rules used in a meaningful
intransitive combinations. It is interesting, way in realistic contexts.
however, to point out that not all transitive Despite the ink spilled over the
structures have the same syntactic behavior. treatment of the phrasal verbs in teaching
In some transitive combinations, the particle materials, to the best of the researchers’
Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014) 651
 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

knowledge, there has been very little or are used so frequently or infrequently. It
no attempt to investigate the grammatical follows then that even the most elaborate
presentation of these structures in ELT quantitative analyses must be complemented
materials (Zarifi, 2013). The current study by some qualitative interpretations of
was, therefore, directed at the identification the language patterns. Among others, De
of the grammatical behavior of these forms Monnik (2005), Krippendorff (2004), Mair
and, more specifically, the structural relation (1991) observe that combination of the two
that holds not only between the particle and methods is both essential and indispensable.
its associated verb but also the syntactic The present study, therefore, adopted a
relationship between the phrasal verb mixed approach in its methodology.
combinations and the other constituents they
keep company with. Population and Sampling
The five Form textbooks prescribed for
RESEARCH QUESTIONS use by the Malaysian ESL learners at the
The current study seeks to address the secondary level were used as the corpus
following research questions: of the study. This pedagogic corpus was
1. What are the frequencies of different developed by Mukundan and Anealka in
grammatical patterns of phrasal verbs 2007 and contains around 302,642 tokens of
in Malaysian ESL textbooks, and how running words and more than 2,000 tokens
are they distributed within and across of phrasal verb combinations. It comprises
the five Forms? an almost balanced selection of texts in
terms of spoken versus written modalities,
2. How are these patterns presented in the
conversational versus formal registers
grammatical sections of the textbooks?
(Arka, Simpson, Andrews, & Dalrymple,
2007) and the variety of topics it deals
METHODOLOGY AND MATERIALS
with, hence the representativeness of the
Design of the Study corpus.This study adopted a comprehensive
Methodologically speaking, the present data sampling (Ary, Jacob, Razavieh, &
study is a corpus-based content analysis. Sorensen, 2006) as all the instances of the
One major methodological issue in phrasal verbs in the corpus were included
corpus studies, by and large, involves in the analysis.
the choice between the quantitative and
qualitative approach (Mair, 1991). While the Instrumentation
quantitative approach lends such important The WordSmith Tools (version 4.0) was
insights into text aspects as the frequency used to search the corpus of the study for the
counts of different linguistic features and potential phrasal verbs. Concord functions
patterns (Conrad, 2005), numbers alone fail of this instrument provided efficiently
to provide the information why such features and usefully for a two-step research of

652 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

quantitative and qualitative query into the study, went over all the instances of
aspects of the use of phrasal verbs in the particle/preposition elements preceded
current pedagogic corpus. It gave the by a lexical verb to differentiate between
researchers the chance to look at each line these two superficially similar structures.
horizontally in the context to identify the It is, however, interesting to point out
phrasal verbs and the syntactic category that as there are no clear-cut boundaries
associated with each combination. between phrasal and prepositional verbs
but a continuum (O’Dowd, 1994), and the
Data Gathering cut-off boundaries based on the different
One major methodological issue in the definitions still seem to reflect more or less
current study involved the extraction of the subjective feeling of the researchers
phrasal verbs from the corpus. As the (Claridge, 2000), there is a hesitation to
number of lexical verbs which can be claim that a hard and fast classification of
combined with an adverbial particle to form the combinations has been presented. Only
phrasal verbs is overwhelmingly extensive, a simple categorization that looks plausible
it was almost impossible for the researchers has been made. Putting this into perspective,
to look for the phrasal verbs by looking at all wherever a non-prepositional use of an
the lexical verbs in the corpus. Furthermore, adverbial particle followed a lexical verb,
any single lexical verb can occur in a the combination was recognized as a phrasal
number of different forms (e.g. get, gets, verb (Claridge, 2000). Finally, as phrasal
got, and getting) that would make the task verbs behave syntactically differently,
highly formidable and cumbersome. English with particle falling immediately adjacent
particles, however, form a very limited and to lexical verbs (V + Part) or with two or
manageable list to work with. Thus, having more words from it (V + X + Part; V + X +
identified all the particle/preposition cases X + Part; V + X + X + X + Part; etc.), the
in the corpus, the Concordance function of software was programmed to search for
WordSmithwas run to look for the possible these structures within different lengths.
candidates.
Looking through the concordance RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
lines horizontally, a large number of the The first research question aimed at
instances of these elements were ruled identifying the different grammatical
outfrom the data for analysis since they were patterns of the phrasal verbs and their
not preceded by any lexical verb. On the distribution in the corpus. The concordance
other hand, the remaining instances could function of WordSmith Tools (4.0) provided
feature either phrasal verbs or prepositional us with a total number of 16579 particle/
verbs. Therefore, the researchers, in the preposition elements. Having looked into the
light of the operational definition of concordance lines, a large number of cases
phrasal verb combinations adopted in could be ruled out from the population since

Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014) 653
 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

they were not preceded by any lexical verb, 3. V+Pron +Prt (Someone will wake them
hence absolutely not potential candidates for up.)
phrasal verbs. Since the remaining instances 4. V+Prt (Hey, calm down. I was just
could function both as phrasal verbs and joking.)
prepositional verbs, the researchers went
5. V+Prt+Prep (Cut down on your
on to distinguish between the two types in
television time.)
terms of the operational definition of the
phrasal verb combinations as explained 6. V+Pron+Part+Np (I bring them back
above. On the whole, there appeared a total some worms.)
of 16579 particle/preposition cases across 7. V+Part+Np +Prep (… the person who
the textbooks from which only 2212 cases opened up a new world for me.)
(e.g. How well do you and your parents
8. V+Part+to-V (… animals have to move
get ALONG?) acted as particles following
away to look for another home.)
lexical verbs, hence phrasal verbs. The
rest of the cases, that is, a total number of 9. V+Part+V-ing (That’s why you kept on
14367 behaved either as a preposition (e.g. asking the factory tour guide to…)
Walk ALONG Green Avenue.) or as other 10. V+Part+Prep+V-ing (I am looking
functions (e.g. You certainly deserve a pat on forward to reading more about you.)
the BACK!) based on the linguistic context
11. V+Pron+Part+to-v (… helped him out
in which they appeared.
to complete …)
After extracting all the instances of
phrasal verbs in the corpus, the second 12. V+Prt+ as Np (… if you signed up as
step consisted in sorting them into their a volunteer.)
various grammatical patterns as phrasal 13. V+Prt+Adj (… (never forgot) what it
verbs may occur in a wide range of syntactic was like to grow up poor.)
configurations. To this end, a fairly extensive 14. V+Prt+S (… settlers look forward their
list of the distributional possibilities of these crops mature in a month’s time.)
combinations as used in the corpus was
It should be mentioned that there
developed. This list included 14 different
occurred some other structures with phrasal
grammatical patterns of phrasal verbs which
verbs such as “V + Part + Pron” and “V
run as follows:
+ Part + That/Wh-Clause” in the corpus.
1. V+Prt+Np (Jot down all your thoughts, However, as the constituents ‘Pron’ and
feelings and opinions.) ‘That/Wh clause’ are usually known as
2. V+Np+Prt (The wolf then ate the lamb the rewrite forms of an NP constituent, the
up.) configurations in which they occurred were
not treated as separate entities. In such cases,

654 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

instances of ‘Pron’ and ‘That/Wh-clause’ To sum up, a total number of 14

were acknowledged as variations of the different grammatical patterns of phrasal
NP constituent which could be rewritten as verbs occurred in the corpus. It is interesting
follows: to point out that these multi-word verbal
NP → (Pron)( That/Wh-Clause) combinations are also likely to occur in the
same grammatical patterns that single-word
As a result, the combinations featuring lexical verbs of English may assume.
“V + Part + Pron” and “V + Part + That/Wh- Having identified the patterns, the
Clause” were included in the first pattern, researchers found it interesting to see
that is, “V + Prt + Np”. whether the frequencies of the various
Likewise, it should come as no surprise grammatical realizations of multi-word
that passive phrasal verbs were not given verbs developed in similar ways across the
a separate pattern as any transitive verb- textbooks. The relative frequency of each of
particle combination, like any single-word the grammatical patterns of the phrasal verb
transitive verb, usually permits a passive combinations across the corpus is presented
variant. Active forms are also held to be in table 1.
more basic than passive ones (Cappelle,
TABLE 1
2005). Similarly, as any verb is potentially Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency across
likely to be followed by an adverb of Forms 1-5
manner, time, place, etc., the researchers Pattern type Freq across Occurrence
corpus %
decided that no separate pattern be allotted
1 V + Part + Np 1201 54.29
to configurations in which a phrasal verb 2 V + Np + Part 55 2.49
was followed by any adverbial element. 3 V + Pron + Part 116 5.24
However, the combination “V + Pron 4 V + Part 536 24.23
+ Part” was assigned a separate pattern 5 V + Part + Prep 247 11.17
as it could be taken both as an optional 6 V + Pron + Part 2 .09
+ Np
transform of pattern “V + Np + Part”, and
7 V + Part + Np + 8 0.36
as an obligatory transform of pattern “V + Prep
Part + Np” with transitive phrasal verbs. 8 V + Part + to-V 23 1.04
So, in order to do away with the ambiguity 9 V + Part + V-ing 14 0.63
mentioned above, the researchers decided 10 V + Part + Prep 3 0.14
+ V-ing
that it should be assigned a separate pattern,
11 V + Pron + Part 2 0.09
namely, “V + Pron + Part”. Therefore, it + to-V
can be argued that the formulation of the 12 V + Part + as NP 2 0.09
grammatical patterns of phrasal verbs in the 13 V + Part + Adj 2 0.09
current study is far from arbitrary and seems 14 V + Part + S 1 0.04
to be justified. Total 2212 100

Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014) 655
 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

As the table shows, these combinations and 14, that is, more than 92.18% of all the
proved to have been distributed significantly phrasal verbs in the corpus, featured such
unevenly across the corpus. For instance, proximal immediacy. The sheer instances of
while Pattern One alone occurred with a the patterns in which the particle was in the
high frequency of 54.29% throughout the immediate vicinity of the verb might tempt
Forms, patterns 6-14 altogether involved the reader to think of it as a piece of evidence
only about 2.57% of all the phrasal verb of argument in favor of the originality of the
combinations across the whole corpus. structure ‘V + Part + Np’ compared with ‘V
Some patterns had a negligible frequency + Np + Part’, at least in outer circle English,
of one or two instances, and they appeared which is often a matter of dispute among
in only one of the Forms. For instance, linguists (Cappelle, 2005).
patterns 14 occurred just once and patterns Tables 2 through 6 present the frequency
6, 11, 12, and 13 each occurred only twice distribution and the percentage of occurrence
in the corpus. of each single pattern in Form One through
The overwhelming occurrence of Form Five, respectively. Findings show
Pattern One with the predomination of that a total number of 347, 345, 395,
prenominal particle position all across 583 and 542 phrasal verb combinations
these ESL textbooks revealed the writers’ occurred with different syntactic patterns
tendency towards showing the dependence in Form 1 through Form 5, respectively.
of the particle on its related lexical verb and As it is shown, the patterns were unequally
the proximity between these two elements. distributed across the Forms both in terms
This finding is consistent with Schneider’s of type and number. For instance, while 11
(2004) finding that the prenominal particle out of the 14 specified patterns occurred
position predominated all across the ESL in Form Five, and 10 of them came in
or “Outer Circle” varieties of English. It is Form One, there happened only 9 of these
also supported by Von (2007) who found grammatical configurations in Forms Two,
that pattern “V + Part + NP” was preferred Three and Four. As the frequency of each
to its counterpart by both native speakers pattern is concerned, while Patterns 3 and 4
and non-native learners in writing. Arnold, were of moderate frequency, some patterns
Losongco, Wasow and Ginstorm(2000) like number 4 and more noticeably number
argue that constituent ordering is affected 1 were overwhelmingly repeated at the
by a number of psycholinguistic factors. expense of others such as types 12, 13 and
It is also argued that combinations in 14.
which the particle immediately follows
lexical verb are less marked (Dehe, 2002)
and, therefore, easier to decode, hence a
pedagogical priority. Not only Pattern One
but also Patterns 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13

656 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

TABLE 2 TABLE 4 (continue)

Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency in Form 1
5 V + Part + Prep 49 12.41
Pattern type Frequency Occurrence
7 V + Part + Np + 6 1.52
%
Prep
1 V + Part + Np 192 55.33
8 V + Part + to-V 3 0.76
2 V + Np + Part 22 6.34
9 V + Part + V-ing 3 0.76
3 V + Pron + Part 31 8.93
10 V + Part + Prep + 2 0.51
4 V + Part 65 18.73 V-ing
5 V + Part + Prep 29 8.36 Total 395 100
7 V + Part + Np + 1 0.29
Prep TABLE 5
Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency in Form 4
8 V + Part + to-V 4 1.15
9 V + Part + V-ing 1 0.29 Pattern type Frequency Occurrence
11 V + Pron + Part 1 0.29 %
+ to-V 1 V + Part + Np 308 52.83
12 V + Part + as NP 1 2 V + Np + Part 8 1.37
Total 347 100 3 V + Pron + Part 25 4.29
4 V + Part 152 26.07
TABLE 3
5 V + Part + Prep 79 13.55
Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency in Form 2
6 V + Pron + Part 1 0.17
Pattern type Frequency Occurrence + Np
% 8 V + Part + to-V 4 0.69
1 V + Part + Np 174 50.43 9 V + Part + V-ing 5 0.86
2 V + Np + Part 9 2.61 10 V + Part + S 1 0.17
3 V + Pron + Part 17 4.93 Total 583 100
4 V + Part 115 33.33
5 V + Part + Prep 21 6.09 TABLE 6
Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency in Form 5
6 V + Pron + Part 1 0.29
+ Np
Pattern type Frequency Occurrence
8 V + Part + to-V 5 1.45 %
9 V + Part + V-ing 2 0.58 1 V + Part + Np 323 59.59
10 V + Part + Prep + 1 0.29 2 V + Np + Part 12 2.21
V-ing
3 V + Pron + Part 14 2.58
Total 345 100
4 V + Part 113 20.85
5 V + Part + Prep 69 12.73
TABLE 4
Phrasal verb patterns and their frequency in Form 3 7 V + Part + Np + 1 0.18
Prep
Pattern type Frequency Occurrence 8 V + Part + to-V 7 1.29
% 9 V + Part + V-ing 3 0.55
1 V + Part + Np 208 52.66 11 V + Pron + Part 1 0.18
2 V + Np + Part 4 1.01 + to-V
3 V + Pron + Part 29 7.34 12 V + Part + as NP 1 0.18
4 V + Part 91 23.04 13 V + Part + Adj 2 0.37
Total 542 100

Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014) 657
 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

Results of the grammatical analysis (Biber&Reppen, 2002), for ESL learners to

revealed that pattern 1 was the top frequent acquire a given language form, they need
pattern, followed by patterns 4, 5 and 3, to encounter it in different contexts with a
respectively. The relative infrequency minimum degree of seven to ten frequencies
in the corpus of patterns 2 and 3 which of occurrence over spaced intervals (Brown,
appear to be well-known configurations in Waring, & Donkaewbua, 2008; Thornbury,
general English might be attributed to the 2002).
distance between the lexical verb and its Despite the fact that a large number of
particle which is motivated under certain phrasal verbs are ditransitive, occurring with
syntagmatic and pragmatic conditions. For one direct object and one indirect object,
instance, it is often the case that only light these combinations were of a negligible
not heavy NPs may come before the particle frequency (2 instances) in the corpus. The
(Cowan, 2008). In addition, only when the relative absence of these forms from the
direct object is a pronoun, it necessarily corpus brings further home the claim often
intervenes between the verb and its particle made about the selection and presentation
in separable combinations. Otherwise, it of language items in pedagogical materials,
more often than not follows the verb and namely, it is based more on speculation and
its associated particle. Moreover, some of anecdotal experience of materials developers
the combinations are inherently inseparable than on empirical findings (Moon, 1998;
and the particle is always there out to Mukundan, 2004; Sinclair, 1991; Sinclair
immediately follow the verb irrespective & Renouf, 1988). This issue can be raised
of the type of noun phrase that comes with as a major shortcoming the textbooks are
it. By the same token, pattern 1 with the suffering from since these combinations are
particle directly following its lexical verb highly frequent in natural use of language
was predominant. as exemplified by instances such as ‘GIVE
As far as patterns like 6 and 10 through BACK’, ‘GIVE UP’, ‘GIVE IN’, ‘HAND
14 are concerned, it should be pointed out IN’, ‘HAND OUT’, ‘PAY BACK’ and
that irrespective of their low frequency in many more similar combinations. While
real use, they were so infrequently used in the patterns 8 and 9 occurred also with a
corpus that their presentation would be most negligible occurrence of one each, they are
likely to be ignored by the learners. Bley- used quite infrequently in the natural use
Vroman (2003) argues that the grammar that as well. It should be pointed out, however,
L2 learners acquire is significantly based that the low frequency of a pattern alone
on what they have encountered and “how does not warrant its being ignored or
often” (p. 268). While there is no definite underrepresented in the ELT materials as
number of encounters that ensures learning there are factors like range, usefulness,
of a certain form, and different degrees of learner need, and some others that have
learning call for different kinds of exposure also a role to play in making decisions as to

658 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

which forms or patterns to include. Conrad and Bahtt (2008) state that one of the
(2000, p. 556) is strongly emphasizing characteristics of Southeast Asian English
this stance by arguing “Frequency data including Malaysia is the use of prepositions
alone cannot dictate pedagogy”, and it after verbs where they would not normally
is pedagogically insensible to neglect a appear in standard British English, this new
particular grammatical structure simply empirical evidence reveals that, Malaysians
because it is infrequent. may also tend to ignore prepositions in
Empirical findings of the study also contexts where native speakers usually
cast light on some aspects of the localized use them in standard British English. Platt
use of the English language as well. There et al (1984) are, in fact, emphasizing the
were some patterns with phrasal verbs localized patterns in new Englishes when
in the corpus which featured more the they state that phrasal verbs are sometimes
Malaysian variety of English. For instance, used without particles, with different
the sentence “The new settlers LOOKED particles and sometimes new phrasal verb
FORWARD their crops mature in a month’s structures are created.
time.” in Form Four, is a deviation from One more point of pedagogical
the Standard English. Out of the 1097 hits importance to mention is that the guiding
of ‘LOOK FORWARD’ in the BNC, not principle underlying the sequencing of
even a single instance was found to be used different patterns across the Forms was
with this structure. In Standard English, not clear, and it was doubtful why some
‘LOOK FORWARD’ is usually used with structures were prioritized over others.
the preposition ‘to’ followed by a ‘noun’ or While the first five patterns were used in
an ‘–ing’ form of the main verb. Likewise, all the five Forms, the other patterns were
in standard English, ‘LOOK UP’ is used scattered among the Forms almost with
with a preposition like ‘at, in, into, and for’ no pedagogical justification. For instance,
when it is followed by an NP referring to it is unclear why pattern 6, which is more
a geographical name unless it is followed frequent and more familiar to students facing
by another prepositional phrase like ‘in such structures with single word verbs in
telephone directory’ as in “Now LOOK previous Forms, was postponed to level
UP Livesay in the classified telephone Two, but pattern 12 which is very infrequent
directory” (BNC). However, Form One both in natural use and in the corpus came in
used ‘LOOK UP’ in the sentence “One level One. Finally, much to the researchers’
such place is Taman Negara. LOOK UP surprise, Form Four students who were at a
two more such places in your own state.” higher level of language proficiency were
which is grammatically a deviation from denied the chance of coming across patterns
Standard English. Standard English makes 7, 10 and 11 that were introduced to the
use of ‘LOOK FOR’ or ‘LOOK UP FOR’ to learners of lower levels.
convey the same meaning. While Mesthire

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 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

Of main concern with the presentation comprehension of these forms challenging

of phrasal verbs in the textbooks was at least for ESL/EFL learners (Celce-Murcia
that they were presented along with the & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). Unless learners
prepositional verbs like ‘think about’, are provided with some explicit or implicit
‘concentrate on’ (Form Four, p. 144) and information on how phrasal verbs differ
more disappointingly with prepositional from other similar-looking structures, it
constructions like ‘responsible for’ and should come as no surprise that learners
‘happy with’ (Form Five, p. 164). While show tendency to regard them as identical
the textbooks made a distinction between forms. Alternatively, they might come to
prepositions of time, place, direction and consider the verb and particle in a phrasal
so on (Form Four, p. 182), they surprisingly verb as individual linguistic elements
remained silent on the issue of differentiating combining freely together like other free
between particles and prepositions. Such a forms such as “They put the book/it on the
silence, in the absence of any revealing table”.
pattern presentation, would mislead the Phrasal verbs are often known as the
students to conclude that phrases that come middle ground area between grammar and
under the same category behave in a similar lexicon (Gass & Selinker, 2001). They,
way. Consequently, learners would remain like any other phenomenon category in
ignorant of the fact that even though some the language, enjoy their own grammar
combinations share similar elements in (Aston, 2001; Thornbury, 2002), and
their structures, they might have different learning a phrasal verb involves learning
syntactic behavior. For instance, while the grammatical patterns associated with
‘ON’ in ‘INSIST ON’ is a preposition and it. It is, in fact, due to the strong bonding
it is always used before any NP following between the meaning and grammar of each
the verb, and it forms a semantic unit with combination that Liu and Jiang (2009) argue
the NP not the verb, ‘ON’ in ‘PUT ON’ is a that learning of the lexical and grammatical
particle making a semantic and intonational aspects of these phrasal verbs should take
whole with the verb rather than with its place simultaneously. The ESL materials,
following NP. The situation would become however, failed to drop even a single hint as
more problematic if learners come to decode to the grammatical forms that these forms
the phrasal verbs compositionally as with could take on.
prepositional constructions, that is, in terms In order for ESL learners to master
of the meanings of the constituent parts. the grammatical complexity of the phrasal
Particles in phrasal verbs, unlike prepositions verb combinations, their attention should be
in prepositional verbs, no longer maintain consciously drawn towards the essence of
their prepositional meaning. They rather these forms through explicit instruction and
tend to add a new aspectual or figurative meaningful classroom activities (Bishop,
meaning to the lexical verb which makes 2004). This stance of pedagogical practice

660 Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014)
 Grammatical Presentation of Phrasal Verbs in ESL Textbooks

receives much theoretical support from of the Form Three textbook. There also
Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis (1990). existed comments about English definite
According to Schmidt, unless the learner and indefinite articles like ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’
is consciously aware of the target language and the phonological conditions of the nouns
features of any type, he will fail to learn with which they can be used (Form Three,
them effectively. Likewise, Norris and page 36). There were as well grammatical
Ortega (2000), in a meta-analysis of a explanations about changing direct speech
huge number of studies dealing with the to indirect speech in page 210 of the Form
effectiveness of L2 instruction, concluded Five textbook. On the other hand, even the
that form-focused instruction results in proponents of communicative language
substantial and long lasting gain of the teaching have increasingly recognized and
target structures. In a similar way, Lewis stressed the merit of attention to form in
(2000) and Segermann (2003), cited by classroom pedagogy (Nassaji & Fotos,
Siepmann (2008), argue that ESL materials 2011). For instance, Savignon (2005) argues
should not only make the learners aware that “for the development of communicative
of the formulaic nature of these sequences ability, research findings overwhelmingly
through explicit explanation and frequent support the integration of form-focused
use of them, but also draw their attention exercises with meaning focused experience”
to the “re-analyzability” of these forms for (p. 645).
productive purposes.
The lack of grammatical explanation CONCLUSION
on phrasal verbs, however, should not be Data analysis led the researchers to conclude
interpreted that perhaps the presentation that phrasal verbs did not enjoy a good
of the grammar in the textbooks followed reputation in these ELT textbooks. They
a communicative approach and thus it were hardly ever treated as a group as such,
needed to be implicit. While some Forms enjoying their own grammatical behavior
(e.g. Form One) turned out to be highly and were, therefore, rather sparingly dealt
communicatively oriented, tending to with. Despite their pronounced regularity, no
present grammar implicitly, this tendency grammatical explanation was provided for
was not the same across all the five Forms. the language learners. Even in the sections
In some Forms, the authors managed to directly addressing these combinations
dish out elaborate grammatical comments only a few examples were provided just
on different aspects of the language ranging to show that combination of a lexical verb
from bound morphemes to free forms and a particle/preposition element could
and complicated grammatical rules. For lead to new sequences with new meanings
instance, there were explanations on the in the language. No distinction was made
application of plural morphemes –s and between the separable and inseparable
–es and irregular plural forms on page 36 forms. No explanation was given on how

Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 22 (2): 649 - 664 (2014) 661
 Zarifi, A and Mukundan, J

a separable combination behaves if the of structural complexity and discourse status on

accompanying noun phrase is a pronoun constituent ordering. Language 76(1), 28-55.

form. Neither was any differentiation Ary, D., Jacob, L. C., Razavieh, A., & Sorensen, C.
made between these combinations and (2006). Introduction to research in education
other orthographically similar looking (7th ed.). Wadsworth: Thomson Learning, USA.

forms though they are inherently different Aston, G. (Ed.). (2001). Learning with corpora.
both in grammar and meaning. Despite Houston: Athelstan.
the pronounced tendency of the writers of Baldwin, T., & Villavicencio, A. (2002). Extracting
some Forms to have the learners explore the unextractable: A case study on verb-particles.
and discover the grammatical rules on their Paper presented at the sixth conference on natural
own, the frequency count of most of the language learning (CoNLL- 2002), Taipei,
Taiwan.
patterns was far too low for the students to
pick them up incidentally. It can be leniently Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus
argued that presentation of these challenging Linguistics: Investigating language structures
and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
forms in the corpus existed on the fringes
Press.
— as ‘rubbish dumps’ in Sinclair’s terms
(1991, p. 104). By and large, the researchers Biber, D., & Reppen, R. (2002). What does frequency
have to do with grammar teaching? SSLA, 24,
are standing up for the presentation in
199-208.
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corresponding grammar as “a grammatical Bishop, H. (2004). Noticing formulaic sequences-A
problem of measuring the subjective. Paper
structure may be lexically restricted”
presented at the WIGL, Madison.
(Francis, 1993, p. 142), and, at the same
time, use of each lexical item is associated Bley-Vroman, R. (2003). Corpus linguistics and
second language acquisition: rules and frequency
with some grammatical implications (Biber,
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Conrad, & Reppen, 1998; Conrad, 2000).
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Hunston and Francis (2000, p. 33) even Corpus analysis: language structure and
take a stricter stance contending “meaning language use (pp. 255-272). Amsterdam:
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