Arab learners of English Avoid using phrasal verbs Research Paper

Arab learners of English Avoid using phrasal verbs - Research Paper Example Such an observation has been made on the basis of wide ranging studies conducted by various researchers in this regard. As mentioned earlier, recently there has been observed a trend, which indicates the avoidance of phrasal verbs by Arab learners of the English language. Several papers and research articles have focused on this phenomenon which indicates such an avoidance (Kano (2006), Tarone (1981), Kleinmann (1977), etc.) as well as the manner of avoidance i.e., semantic, topical, lexical, phonological, morphological, graphological or void, (Brown,1994). This trend, hence, has been identified as a classic problem or issue of concern among the researchers in the field of linguistic studies. However, consensus on the actual occurrence and the reasons behind such a trend is yet to be arrived, owing to the differing views presented by various researchers. For instance, Schachter (1974) who first observed such avoidance behavior claimed that the learners, who resorted to avoid usage of phrasal verbs, did so, owing to difficulties in constructing sentences using such verbs. Researchers such as Klienmann (1977), Chiang (1980), Dagut and Laufer (1985) etc supported the claims made by Schachter, that the avoidance was mainly on account of difficulty experienced by the learners with respect to structure and semantic aspects of the target language. While yet others such as Seliger, (1989) argues that, there is no clear definition of avoidance and further states that avoidance can only occur in situations wherei the learners are able to form a target structure but lack knowledge regarding appropriate distributional rules. The native language plays a significant role in influencing the manner in which a learner produces different structures. This claim was substantiated by Kleinmann (1977) in his experiments whereby he studied a group of Arabic speakers as well as Spanish / Portuguese speakers with regard to the use of passives, present