A Research Of The Synonym Differentiation In Chinese Textbooks

Knowing the difference between synonyms is a key to teaching any language’s vocabulary,this also is an important basis for the classroom teaching,a language textbook should clearly explain differences between synonyms to both teachers and students.This paper focuses on each way these explanations can be shown in Chinese textbooks,including the ways of displaying,methods and content.The research is carried out under two frameworks:quantitative and qualitative.First of all,in the quantitative research,we found that only a small number of Chinese textbooks describe differences between synonyms,which is not appropriate for the importance of knowing synonymic differences.It’s also necessary to do related studies and to promote the development of synonym differentiation in Chinese textbooks.Meanwhile,based on the statistics from the selected textbooks with synonym differentiation,we found that the ratios(the number of analyzed synonym/the number of vocabulary)are relatively low when compared with some synonyms in Chinese dictionaries.And the proportions of different parts of speech are relatively reasonable,those selected are various and flexible.The number of synonyms that share a same morpheme is quite big,which reminds us that we should take good use of the morpheme-type method when analyzing the synonyms.Besides,more than half of the selected synonyms in the textbooks do not belong to the level of vocabulary in their stage,it proves that the differentiating synonyms has a cohesive function in vocabulary teaching&learning.In the qualitative research,three parts are included:the methods of synonym differentiation,example sentences and exercises.The methods part consists of three aspects:the analysis methods,the analysis languages and forms,and the paraphrase methods.We found out that the textbooks for advanced Chinese have comprehensive angles,some explanations are too hard;while most textbooks for primary and secondary Chinese have less methods,the explanations are understandable,the analysis forms are flexible.For the paraphrase methods,the dictionary-type,the synonym/antonym-type,the morpheme-type and the context-type are the main methods used in these textbooks.All textbooks have designed example sentences for synonym differentiation,but the number is quite small,the comparative of some sentences is not strong enough,and some sentences are not grammatically accurate.As for the exercise part,several problems need to be solved:some textbooks do not have this part at all,some have very few exercises or very few types of exercises,and some exercises are too boring.Based on the studies above,this paper put forward some relevant suggestions:(1)the synonym differentiation should be included in all comprehensive Chinese textbooks and most oral Chinese textbooks;(2)the analysis ratio should be close to 20%;(3)the proportion of different parts of speech and the proportion of different grade vocabularies should be reasonable;(4)the methods of synonym analysis should be suitable and various,including reasonable angles,simple language,and flexible forms;(5)the example sentences and exercises should be enough in number and targeted in nature;(6)books of different levels in one set should be reasonable in gradient and be coherent;(7)embody the achievements in the field of Chinese research;(8)use various teaching forms.