| Popis: |
This paper will discuss four phrasal verbs in English: figure out, find out, make out, and work out. The Japanese learners of English often find them difficult to understand properly in the context. Courtney（1983）puts figure out, make out, work out together under the common meaning of “to understand.” The three phrasal verbs can behave separately by expressing different process of “understanding.” Find out is placed separately under the meaning of “to discover（something）; “obtain information（about something）.”The possibility of substituting the phrasal verbs has been pursued among find out, figure out, and work out. 31 sentences are prepared and a British speaker of English is asked to put the best choice in each sentence to check if he can recover the original expression in Gladwell （2005）. 18 examples including figure out have been picked up. The informant has successfully chosen figure out in 9 cases; in the remaining 9 cases he has opted for work out. The further semantic analysis of the two verbs is required.21 English textbooks for Japanese senior high school students have been digitally-processed to search for the examples of the four phrasal verbs. 13 textbooks have provided examples: 35 examples of find out, six examples of figure out, one example of work out and no example of make out. The number of examples may not be enough but when an example is provided, it is put in a context where the usage of a particular phrasal verb is well illustrated. The textbooks will surely help Japanese high school students to study the phrasal verbs.Following Strong （2013） and Kamiya （2018） the way of teaching phrasal verbs analytically is suggested. Stressing orientational spatial senses encoded in the adverbs of English phrasal verbs will help ease the learning of them by Japanese students. |
