Register and phrasal verbs
by Bryan Fletcher

• Introduction: are phrasal verbs 'informal'?
• Some corpus-based statistics
• When a phrasal verb is the best choice

Introduction: are phrasal verbs 'informal'?

Phrasal verbs can cause anxiety for learners and teachers alike. Apart from resolving the problems of meaning and grammar, there is the difficult question of when it is appropriate to use them. Many articles written as guides for using phrasal verbs claim that they should be used mainly in speaking rather than writing, and in informal rather than formal situations and texts. It is often said that, in formal contexts, single-word equivalents are more appropriate than phrasal verbs. This advice may sometimes be useful but it is an oversimplification, and if it is followed too closely, it can sometimes lead to unnatural or over-formal language. In fact, there are many situations – even in quite formal texts – when a phrasal verb is the most natural-sounding way of expressing a particular idea, so learners should be encouraged to use phrasal verbs as and when they are most appropriate.

Phrasal verbs can be found in all types of text. Take the example below:

Sentence 1a is an extract from a very formal written text. The writers of this document could have chosen to use raised in place of brought up, but clearly the phrasal verb is natural and acceptable in this context. On the other hand, sentence 1b is from an online book review – a much less formal register – and in this case the writer chose to use raise rather than bring up. This is probably because the combination 'raise+question' is a strong collocation, whereas 'bring up+question' is a rather rare combination. Phrasal verbs are used across all types of text, even where the writer or speaker has the option of choosing a single-word alternative. Although phrasal verbs tend to enter the language through casual speech, in most cases they progressively become accepted across a wider range of texts, until they reach even the most technical or conservative of text types.

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Some corpus-based statistics

In order to illustrate this point, consider the following statistics (based on the evidence of a large language corpus) showing the frequency of the phrasal verb give up across different text types; the figures show the approximate number of times this verb is used per million words of text:

So although give up is clearly less common in academic writing, it is by no means always avoided. Learners should appreciate that it is possible to use phrasal verbs in formal contexts, and that they limit themselves unnaturally by accepting the idea that they should use phrasal verbs in informal chat, for example, but not in academic writing or in a presentation to business colleagues. Most of the verbs included in the Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Plus dictionary (apart from those that are marked as informal, very informal, impolite, or offensive) can be found in all types of text, and their use in English is widespread and prevalent. Writers of legal documents and scientific papers may still opt for tolerate in preference to put up with, or decelerate rather than slow down, but even these extremely formal texts will contain some phrasal verbs.

A similar search in the corpus shows that the single-word verb tolerate is more common than put up with in academic texts, with around 16 occurrences per million words of text, compared with 3 for put up with. But with decelerate and slow down, the figures are different, showing that decelerate is simply a rare and rather specialized term, with fewer than 0.5 occurrences per million words in all registers. By contrast, the equivalent phrasal verb slow down registers about 10 occurrences per million in academic texts.

Below are some examples of texts that include slow down, showing that this common phrasal verb appears even in very formal texts:

Once dormant, however, their metabolism slows down so much that the pineal is virtually switched off.
(from a zoology textbook)

The current structure would need to be searched to establish whether or not the required paths exist, which would slow down the building algorithm.
(from a computer science textbook)

The second WHO review of its 'Health for All' policy concludes that 'the implementation of strategies to achieve those aims has in many cases slowed down'.
(from a medical journal)

There are many situations in which a phrasal verb may be more appropriate than a single-word verb. Often there are subtle differences in meaning. The meaning of one will rarely cover exactly the same semantic ground as the other. In the case of the slow down / decelerate pair, we find that slow down can comfortably be used in a much wider range of contexts:

Decelerate provides an alternative to slow down only in certain specialized contexts, and this explains its comparative rarity. The learner who ignores slow down in formal registers will be left searching for another expression for some time.

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When a phrasal verb is the best choice

The idea that phrasal verbs should be avoided in formal registers perhaps reflects a belief that the phrasal verb is somehow an 'imperfect' alternative to the single-word verb. But this is a misconception. Phrasal verbs are not just an informal version of 'purer' English. In many cases they fill important lexical gaps: that is, they express concepts for which there is no obvious single-word equivalent. In such cases, there really is no natural way of saying something other than through a phrasal verb – and choosing a single-word equivalent risks sounding stilted or pompous. Compare:

In 3a the use of the verb don is either slightly affected, or is used in order to emphasize the special nature of the night referred to. But in most contexts, put on is a much more natural choice.

There is a large number of phrasal verbs that native speakers use in all registers including formal and technical. The Macmillan Defining Vocabulary – a list of the 2,500 English words used for writing the definitions in Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Plus – includes the following 16 phrasal verbs:

These words are included in the Defining Vocabulary because they are the most usual and natural ways of expressing these ideas. Compare some of the one-word equivalents to these very common phrasal verbs:

Most of these single-word verbs are much less common than the phrasal verbs. Put on is 20 times more frequent than the rather literary word don. Protrude is only about half as frequent as stick out, and it is used mostly in technical contexts and occasionally in fictional descriptions.

Learning phrasal verbs is very much a part of learning English and not just something a learner does to sound 'authentic' or to be able to talk to native speakers. Phrasal verbs are found in all types of text and are essential for expressing many ideas in natural English. Learners and teachers alike should study them in context and get to know the collocational patterns they most commonly occur in, just as they do for other vocabulary. Understanding when it is appropriate to use a phrasal verb instead of a single-word verb, and knowing which gaps in the language are best covered by phrasal verbs, are two keys to writing and speaking natural English. A good dictionary and a lot of exposure to phrasal verbs will make it easy.

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