English Majors’ Difficulties in Using Phrasal Verbs in Academic Writing

Abstract

Phrasal verbs (PVs) are notably essential for English language learners due to their common use in spoken and informal written language; however, English as a foreign language (EFL) learners may find it difficult to master phrasal verbs, not only at receptive but also productive levels. The syntactic and semantic complexities prove much more troublesome in academic writing for those learners whose mother tongue does not feature phrasal verb formations. Therefore, this study aims at exploring English majors’ difficulties with phrasal verbs in terms of syntactic, semantic properties, and formality and informality of phrasal verbs in academic writing at a tertiary institution in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The participants of the study consisted of 124 English majors. The quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied to collect data via questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The SPSS software (20.0) was used to process the quantitative data collected from questionnaires, while the content analysis was applied to analyze the qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that research participants faced difficulties in academic writing most from the semantic property, followed by the formality and informality of phrasal verbs and the syntactic property. Such preliminary findings are hoped to contribute to a better understanding of English as a foreign language learners’ difficulties with phrasal verbs as well as to enhance the quality of academic teaching and learning.