Conference English #1: Phrasal Verbs in European Parliament Conference English
In short: Phrasal verbs in European Parliament conference English: A corpus-based pedagogical list (Wu, 2023), published in The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 17(2): 301–318, identifies the 169 most frequent phrasal verbs used in European Parliament (EP) plenary sessions, together with their key meanings in conference contexts. These 169 phrasal verbs account for 87.07% of all phrasal verb occurrences in a 724,054-word corpus. The findings have been compiled into the European Parliament Conference English Phrasal Verb Pedagogical List (EP-CE PHaVE List), a 34-page, 9,000-word resource that anyone can download for free as the article's supplemental material.
Why are phrasal verbs difficult for interpreters?
A phrasal verb (PV) is a two-part verb made up of a lexical verb and an adverbial particle, such as set up, carry out or put forward. Phrasal verbs are a notoriously difficult category of multiword units, even for advanced learners of English, for two reasons:
• Syntax. The verb and the particle can be separated in some cases but not in others.
• Meaning. Many phrasal verbs are idiomatic and polysemous, so the combined meaning cannot be worked out from the two parts.
Comprehension. Every word is familiar, but the combination means something else:
• flesh out means to add more details to something: "Subsidiarity can be fleshed out with substance."
• water down means to make a text or position less forceful: "I would vote against any attempt to change that or water it down."
• put forward means to propose: "We intend to put forward a new package of measures."
• wake up to means to become aware of a problem: "…get us to wake up to the fact that things can't go on in the way that they have been going on."
Production. Research on simultaneous interpreting shows that professional interpreters working into English as a non-native language (English B) use phrasal verbs much less often than native English interpreters (English A). The rate is one phrasal verb every 409 words, compared with one every 236 words (Cresswell, 2018). Under the time pressure of simultaneous interpreting, trainee interpreters tend to fall back on literal one-word choices. Some examples:
• "increase / enhance efforts" instead of step up efforts
• "in order to cause change" instead of bring about change
• "let people know the points being made" instead of get the points across
What corpus did the study use?
The study is based on the European Parliament Conference English Corpus 2.0 (EP-CEC 2.0), which contains 724,054 words of transcribed speech from EP plenary sessions. It combines two sources:
• TC-STAR English Training Corpora for ASR: Transcriptions of EPPS Speech (May 2004 to January 2005)
• part of the European Parliament Interpretation Corpus (EPIC, February 2004)
About three quarters of the corpus (536,483 words, 74.1%) is simultaneous interpretation into English from 19 source languages. The remaining quarter (187,571 words, 25.9%) consists of speeches delivered in English by Members of the European Parliament. Because so many speakers and interpreters contribute to the corpus, the phrasal verbs identified are not the idiosyncratic habits of any single person.
How common are phrasal verbs in European Parliament English?
The corpus contains 461 different phrasal verbs with 3,551 occurrences in total. That works out to roughly one phrasal verb in every 200 words, the same ratio as in the British National Corpus (Gardner & Davies, 2007) and in EU documents (Trebits, 2009). Given how fast speakers deliver in EP plenaries, listeners and interpreters meet a phrasal verb roughly once a minute.
Which phrasal verbs matter most?
A small group of phrasal verbs accounts for most of the occurrences:
• The top 27 phrasal verbs account for 45.34% of all phrasal verb occurrences.
• The top 104 account for 77.67%.
• The top 169, about one third of all 461 types, account for 87.07%.
The 10 most frequent phrasal verbs in European Parliament conference English are:
1. carry out
2. set up
3. go on
4. point out
5. put forward
6. come up
7. set out
8. look forward
9. move on
10. bring together
How the list was built:
• Phrasal verbs were identified with the CLAWS4 part-of-speech tagger and WordSmith Tools 7.
• The search allowed up to five intervening words between the verb and the particle, to catch cases such as get a piece of legislation through.
• Every hit was checked manually against phrasal verb dictionaries.
• The results were cross-checked against earlier lists by Liu (2011) and Trebits (2009).
• The cut-off for the pedagogical list was a raw frequency of 4, equivalent to 5.5 occurrences per million words.
How many meanings does each phrasal verb have?
Every one of the 3,092 concordance lines for the top 169 phrasal verbs was analysed for meaning. Instead of relying on dictionaries, which may list up to 20 meanings for a single phrasal verb, the study recorded the meanings that actually occur in conference English. The results:
• In total, the 169 phrasal verbs have 314 meanings, an average of 1.86 per phrasal verb.
• The list includes only meanings that cover at least 10% of a phrasal verb's occurrences. That leaves 264 listed meanings, or about 1.56 per phrasal verb.
• 109 of the phrasal verbs have only one listed meaning, and 36 have two.
• The primary meaning (Sense 1) accounts for 85.79% of all occurrences.
• The listed meanings cover 98.4% of the occurrences of the 169 phrasal verbs.
How is conference English different from general English?
The EP-CE PHaVE List was compared with the general-English PHaVE List by Garnier and Schmitt (2015):
• 78 phrasal verbs (46.2%) on the EP-CE PHaVE List do not appear on the general-English list. They are marked with two asterisks (**), for example put forward, look forward, bring together, step up, flesh out and water down.
• 31 phrasal verbs (18.3%) appear on both lists but have a different primary meaning in conference English. They are marked with one asterisk (*).
• 60 phrasal verbs (35.5%) share the same or similar primary meaning on both lists. Their examples show how they combine with the abstract nouns typical of conference English, such as open up new prospects.
Bring in shows the difference. In general English, it usually means "bring something to a place" (I brought in my laptop today). In the European Parliament, its main meaning is "introduce something abstract" (bring in the rule of law), followed by "invite a country to join the EU" (bring in 25 Member States).
What does the EP-CE PHaVE List contain?
The free 34-page list includes:
• a user's manual explaining how the list was built and how to use it
• the 169 phrasal verbs ranked by frequency, with asterisks marking conference-specific items
• context-specific definitions with typical collocates. For example, set up is defined as "establish, create, or arrange something (commissions, procedures, priorities, objectives, guidelines, etc.)"
• the frequency percentage of each meaning
• authentic, unsimplified example sentences taken directly from European Parliament plenary speeches and interpretations
A sample entry:
88. COME DOWN
1. Move from a higher location to a lower one (often fig.) (33.3%)
We are pleased to see these borders come down.
2. (+ to) Reduce itself to one particular thing that is the most important or essential matter (33.3%)
But we do need more money. I think it comes down to that.
3. (Idiom: When it comes (down) to the crunch) When a situation becomes extremely serious and a decision must be made (11.1%)
We say that for ten years and then suddenly we go back on our word when it comes down to the crunch.
4. (+ against) Decide or say in an official or public way that one opposes SB/STH (11.1%)
It must come down heavily against the legality of this particular barrier.
5. (+ on) Punish or criticise SB/STH very strongly (11.1%)
The authorities are coming down on independent media.
How can trainers and trainees use the list?
• For comprehension: sight translate each example sentence into your mother tongue, making sure the nuance of each listed meaning comes through.
• For production: group phrasal verbs by function so they are easier to remember. For example:
o to make proposals: put forward, bring forward, come forward, bring in, put in, put up
o to explain in detail: flesh out, set out, lay out, put down
o to establish something: set up, lay down, set down
o to wrap up a speech: sum up, wind up
• For prioritising: start with the items marked with asterisks, because they behave differently in conference English than in general English.
The list is designed for conference interpreter trainers and trainees working with English as a B or C language. It is also useful for teachers of English for Specific Purposes and for researchers in corpus linguistics.
What are the limitations?
• The list is based purely on frequency. It does not rank items by how transparent or difficult their meanings are.
• European Parliament debates are politically oriented, so the list may not fully cover conferences on finance, technology or other fields.
• As Garnier and Schmitt (2015) put it, such a list "should be seen as a starting point for instruction and learning, not the end-point."
Free resources
• Download the EP-CE PHaVE List (free, Word, 34 pages): [https://www.tandfonline.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1080%2F1750399X.2023.2183452&file=ritt_a_2183452_sm2764.docx]
• Read the full article: a limited number of free e-prints (50 copies) are available: [https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NZN66SARPVHRMWKWR4B7/full?target=10.1080/1750399X.2023.2183452]
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2023.2183452
Frequently asked questions
What is the EP-CE PHaVE List?
The European Parliament Conference English Phrasal Verb Pedagogical List (EP-CE PHaVE List) is a free, corpus-based list of the 169 most frequent phrasal verbs in European Parliament conference English, with their key meanings, meaning frequencies and authentic examples. It was compiled by Yinyin Wu (2023).
How many phrasal verbs should a conference interpreter learn first?
According to Wu (2023), the 169 most frequent phrasal verbs cover 87.07% of all phrasal verb occurrences in European Parliament plenary English. They are an efficient, data-driven starting point.
What are the most common phrasal verbs in European Parliament speeches?
The top five are carry out, set up, go on, point out and put forward.
How often do phrasal verbs occur in conference English?
About once every 200 words in European Parliament plenary English, the same ratio as in general British English.
How is the EP-CE PHaVE List different from the PHaVE List by Garnier and Schmitt (2015)?
The PHaVE List covers general English. On the EP-CE PHaVE List, 46.2% of the phrasal verbs do not appear on the PHaVE List at all, and another 18.3% have a different primary meaning in conference English.
Is the list free?
Yes. The 34-page list can be downloaded free of charge as the supplemental material of the article in The Interpreter and Translator Trainer.
How to cite
Wu, Y. (2023). Phrasal verbs in European Parliament conference English: A corpus-based pedagogical list. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 17(2), 301–318. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2023.2183452
The Interpreter and Translator Trainer is indexed in A&HCI and SSCI. It ranked 19th of 203 (top 9%) by five-year Impact Factor in the 2023 JCR "Language & Linguistics" category.
About the author: Yinyin Wu teaches at the Graduate Program in Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan University, Taiwan. This is the first post in the Conference English series, which moves from two-word phrasal verbs to longer word sequences and the rhetorical structure of whole speeches.
