Abstract
*O processamento de phrasal verbs literais por falantes não-nativos e nativos de inglês: um estudo do movimento dos olhos*Estudos recentes sobre aprendizagem de phrasal verbs por aprendizes de inglês como segunda língua (L2) ainda apresentam uma lacuna na discussão acerca da natureza do processamento desse tipo de verbo no curso da aprendizagem. O principal objetivo do presente estudo foi investigar o processamento online de phrasal verbs por aprendizes de inglês como L2, de nível avançado, falantes nativos de português brasileiro (PB). Dezesseis voluntários (8 falantes nativos de PB e 8 falantes nativos de inglês) participaram de um experimento em que foi verificado se houve diferenças entre o processamento de phrasal verbs literais e verbos lexicais. Para esta verificação, foi registrado o movimento dos olhos dos participantes enquanto liam sentenças que continham um dos dois tipos de verbos. As medidas de tempo de primeira leitura e tempo total de leitura na região de interesse mostraram que os aprendizes de inglês como L2 dedicaram mais atenção aos phrasal verbs do que aos verbos lexicais, o que interpretamos como evidência de um custo maior no processamento de sentenças com phrasal verbs do que naquelas com verbos lexicais. Os resultados são discutidos à luz de hipóteses sobre o processamento de phrasal verbs.
Highlights
The present study attempts to investigate the processing of phrasal verbs, a linguistic item that has been at the center of a hot debate in linguistics due to their complex nature as lexical items and the difficulty to determine whether they are more phrase-like or word-like
In the remainder of this article, we present a linguistic description of phrasal verbs, introduce two models that, in the context of discussion of the literal versus figurative language processing account for literal language processing, review studies on phrasal verbs in the area of L2 learning, present the eye-tracking technique and the methodological procedures adopted in the study, and report the results of a psycholinguistic experiment aimed at investigating how nonnative speakers of English as L2 process literal phrasal verbs in comparison to lexical verbs
Given the lack of psycholinguistic research on the processing of phrasal verbs in the L2, in the case of Brazilian learners of English, and taking into consideration that phrasal verbs are linguistic items that are present in Germanic languages, but absent in romance languages, standing as a potential source of difficulty for learners of English, the present study aims at contributing to research on the processing and learning of literal phrasal verbs, as compared to lexical verbs, by means of an online experiment that adopts eye movements as a source of data
Summary
The present study attempts to investigate the processing of phrasal verbs, a linguistic item that has been at the center of a hot debate in linguistics due to their complex nature as lexical items and the difficulty to determine whether they are more phrase-like or word-like. The complex nature of phrasal verbs may be the source of problems to learners of English as an L2 and may imply first language (L1) interference over the L2 (SIDE, 1990). Phrasal verbs are verb-particle combinations characteristic of Germanic languages. In pedagogical approaches to the teaching and learning of English as L2, for instance, phrasal verbs are commonly defined as “a verb construction consisting of a verb plus an adverb particle” Richards and Schmidt (2010) explain that, depending on the grammatical pattern in which they occur, verb-particle combinations can be distinguished between phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasalprepositional verbs.
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