A Corpus-based Comparative Study of English Synonyms: A Case Study of “Totally”, “Absolutely” and “Completely”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/a506tp26Keywords:
Discrimination of Synonyms, Semantic Prosody, Colligation, COCA CorpusAbstract
The discrimination of synonyms has always been an intractable problem in foreign language learning. Previous studies mainly focused on synonyms of verbs, adjectives and nouns whereas few studies have ever been concerned with synonyms of degree adverbs. So, it’s necessary to explore degree adverbs used by native English speaker, aiming to provide references for Chinese English learners to choose and use degree adverbs reasonably. This study is based on the COCA corpus (Corpus of Contemporary American English). Three synonyms including “totally”, “absolutely” and “completely” are selected as the research objects, and a multi-dimensional comparative analysis in terms of word frequency, register distribution, colligations and semantic prosody are conducted. The results show that: (1) “completely” has the highest frequency of use among English native speakers and appears in various fields, with wide applicability. It is not only applicable to informal occasions, but also to formal ones, mostly showing a negative semantic prosody. (2) The frequency of “absolutely” in the COCA Corpus is second only to that of “completely”. It is often used in informal occasions with neutral semantic prosody. (3) “totally” is commonly seen in the field of film and television with negative semantic prosody in most cases. Based on these findings, some suggestions for foreign language teaching and learning are provided.
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