METAPHORICAL INSIGHTS: PHRASAL VERB KNOWLEDGE GAINS IN THE LIGHT OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR THEORY

Abstract

The primary objective of this research is twofold: first, to elucidate the explicit teaching of phrasal verb constructions within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, with a specific focus on the metaphorical aspects of particle usage, and second, to examine the correlation between such explicit instruction in phrasal verbs and the gains in implicit knowledge of these verb forms. This study employed a within-group pretest/posttest design as part of an experimental investigation involving 60 Turkish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners who were students at the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) at a state university in Turkey. The research was analyzed across three dimensions: the achievement and retention of both receptive and productive knowledge of phrasal verbs, subconscious recognition and processing of lexical items, and the processing of phrasal verb meanings in a semantic context. To assess the first dimension, a multiple-choice test to gauge the students' receptive understanding of phrasal verbs and a c-test to measure their controlled productive knowledge of these verb forms were administered at three points: the initial pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. A masked repetition priming lexical decision task was utilized to investigate the subconscious recognition and processing of lexical items. Additionally, a self-paced task was employed to scrutinize the participants' semantic processing of phrasal verb meanings. The study's findings revealed that the explicit presentation of phrasal verb knowledge within the conceptual metaphor framework significantly impacts not only the acquisition and retention of receptive and productive knowledge but also the subconscious recognition and processing of lexical items, as well as the semantic priming of phrasal verb meanings, which substantiates the influential role of conceptual metaphors in the lexical aspects of language learning.

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