The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency and the figurative meaning senses of out-PVs in two contemporary novels read in Swedish secondary schools. The study was delimited to PVs with the particle out. The aim was further to find out how potential misunderstandings or misinterpretations of figurative meaning sense of PVs by L2 learners of English can be prevented. Furthermore, an aim was to raise awareness of different figurative meaning senses that could make the reading and understanding richer for English L2 learners. There were raised three research questions concerning the frequency of out-PVs and the interpretation of the figurative meaning sense of some selected out-PVs that resulted in three investigative steps concerned with each of the research questions. The hypothesis was that out-PVs can have different figurative meaning senses at the same time in the closer or nearer context in the novels investigated in this study. Therefore, it was seen as important for English L2 learners to learn how to interpret the figurative meaning senses. Furthermore, it was seen important to consider which PVs are the most frequent ones and how the frequency might be a relevant factor for teaching implications. A corpus-based analysis was used to investigate the selected out-PVs. Four different studies, discussed in section 2, were used as models and approaches to investigate the out-PVs in three different ways: the most frequent out-PVs in Gardner and Davies (2018) and Garnier and Schmitt (2016), the figurative meaning senses for some out-PVs listed in Garnier and Schmitt (2016) and Kang (2020) and the six meanings for the particle out in out-PVs in the cognitive approach in Liao (2020). The three approaches were investigated in three steps and were later compared. Furthermore, the study concentrated on the main part, step 2, to analyze the figurative meaning senses of some selected out-PVs. The idea of a metaphor for out-PVs, the movement out of a ‘container’, named by Liao (2020) and Walková (2015), was found to be helpful for many cases with out-PVs, but not for all. In some cases, this metaphor could even cause confusion. Similar to this it was found that analyzing the out-particle’s meaning of an out-PV separately also could lead to a misunderstanding for the L2 learner. Some meanings of the particle out were not found for the six meanings listed by Liao (2020). The present study was limited. Therefore, it would be necessary to make a larger study in order to determine if this approach might be effective or not. The raised awareness that PVs need extra attention and that some PVs are more likely to be used in certain texts can help L2 learners in understanding and producing PVs in different texts and text types. It can also make their understanding of a text richer by finding the right figurative meaning sense of a PV in a certain context. / <p>Godkänt datum 22-03-09</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-44680 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Henriksson, Carola |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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