Exploring crosslinguistic influence on learning particles in phrasal verbs through a cognitive linguistic approach

It is now well established that English phrasal verbs cause English as foreign language learners no small degree of confusion due to the semantic complexity. However, the influence of crosslinguistic transfer on learning phrasal verbs has remained unclear. There even has been little qualitative analysis of the crosslinguistic difference between literal and metaphorical meanings of particles. This paper proposes an instructional approach underpinned by metaphor and categorization in cognitive linguistics and highlights particles as a means of disentangling polysemous verb-particle constructions. Fifteen students from four universities in Taipei City and City of Newcastle upon Tyne participated in the study. Results of the qualitative data, i.e., discussion tasks, in-session tasks, and interviews, suggested that despite the difficulty of understanding some target items, the crosslinguistic similarities and differences generally aid the learning of the phrasal verbs via the proposed approach. Raising an awareness of crosslinguistic difference between metaphorical meanings of particles can be pedagogically useful.