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Next update: 20 November 2009
Multi-word verbs: Learner problems
Vanessa Steele, British Council, Barcelona
Multi-word verbs are complex and present problems for learners both in terms of their grammatical form and their lexical meaning. I find that learners around the world tend to panic at the mere mention of their name, and to avoid using them for fear of making mistakes. In this article I shall be looking at why this is and how as teachers we can try to encourage students to use them.
Various meanings
Many multi-word verbs carry more than one meaning. Thus, learners who are familiar with the meaning of "turn down" as in, "He turned down the radio", have problems interpreting the meaning of "He turned her down" (rejected her) .
Many multi-word verbs carry a literal meaning, e.g."sit down"," stand up", though many have a non-literal meaning, e.g."I picked up quite a bit of Spanish on holiday last year."
Collocation
Multi-word verbs present problems in terms of the words with which they collocate. McCarthy says that collocation is "a marriage contract between words, and some words are more firmly married to each other than others." Thus, "to call off", for example, collocates strongly with "match", i.e."The match was called off due to the rain", and it also collocates strongly with 'engagement', 'wedding', 'meeting'.
Helping students with collocation
I try to raise students' awareness of collocation by asking them to underline the nouns which follow certain verbs and then later filling in a collocational grid, matching multi-word verbs to their common collocations, e.g.'Call off', 'set up', 'put off" = 'a meeting'.
Particles
The meaning of the particles, i.e. 'up', 'on', 'in', can also cause problems as sometimes the particles can share meaning across a large number, but not all, multi-word verbs. For instance, the particle 'up', is often said to express the idea of 'increase', as in 'grow up', 'heat up', 'hurry up', 'cheer up', but this idea can not be applied to the verb 'split up' for example.
Pronunciation
Research shows that words which are difficult to pronounce are more difficult to learn. Phrasal verbs are not too problematic for learners in terms of pronunciation, though misplaced word stress is a common error.
Students are frequently reluctant to give stress to particles. In the sentence, "We did the kitchen up" for example, "kitchen" is stressed, though when we substitute the noun for a pronoun, "We did it up", the stress falls on the adverbial particle.
One way of helping learners is by using graphics, such as stress boxes ( a small black square) on the board, and getting them to mark the stress above words or syllables in the whole sentence and to practise reading it aloud.
Grammatical form
In terms of grammatical form, multi-word verbs present problems for learners as to whether,
a) they are separable or inseparable
b) they are transitive or intransitive
c) they are formal or informal
In responding to these problems of form, teachers can either focus on the rules, i.e., whether they are Type 1 or 2 etc., or adopt a more incidental learning approach.
Conclusion
Multi-word verbs are therefore quite problematic for learners. However, simply by anticipating and being prepared for problems students may have can do much to erase part of the fear and confusion that surrounds multi-word verbs.
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