Semantic Prosodies Of The Near Synonyms Of "DESTROY":English-Chinese Contrastive Linguistic Perspective

The discrimination of near synonyms has always been a difficulty in language teaching and learning.Because of the similarities of near synonyms in denotative meanings,they are always considered to be completely equivalent,resulting in atypical collocation or even errors.In recent years,with the prosperity and development of corpus linguistics,the study of semantic prosody has become a hot issue.Semantic prosody refers to the semantic atmosphere shared by the node word and its collocates.By exploring the frequencies,significant collocates and corresponding semantic prosodies of the node words,researchers can approach the words in a more comprehensive way,which provides a good method for the discrimination of words,especially near synonyms.In addition,it is of great reference value to the translation of English and Chinese equivalents.Based on this,this study chooses“DESTROY”verbs,including DESTROY and its near synonyms DAMAGE,RUIN,HARM and their Chinese equivalents???????????as the research items.This study adopts a corpus-based contrastive method.Based on the data from COCA(Corpus of Contemporary American English)and BCC(the BLUC Corpus Center),this study makes a comparison between the English and Chinese groups of near synonyms in terms of frequencies,significant collocates and corresponding semantic prosodies.It is found that,first,there are intralingual and interlingual significant differences in terms of frequencies between the English and Chinese near synonyms of“DESTROY”.Generally speaking,DESTROY and??are most frequently used and are far more than the other three words in their respective group.Secondly,there are intralingual and interlingual differences and similarities in terms of significant collocates between the English and Chinese near synonyms of“DESTROY”.Specifically,for the English group,DESTROY has the most significant collocates,the widest range of use and is mostly used on official occasions.Besides,there are both shared semantic preference and their own unique semantic preference amongDESTROY,DAMAGE,RUIN,HARM.In addition,DESTROY and DAMAGE share more consistency;for the Chinese group,??has the most significant collocates,the widest range of use and is habitually used on official occasions.Besides,the four verbs in Chinese share semantic preference and meanwhile,each of them has their own unique semantic preference.In addition,??and??share more consistency.From the perspective of significant collocates,DESTROY corresponds to??,DAMAGE,HARM correspond to??,and the other lexical items have no appropriate correspondence.Thirdly,there are intralingual and interlingual differences and similarities in terms of semantic prosodies between the English and Chinese near synonyms of“DESTROY”.In general,all the near synonyms have neutral semantic prosodies,but differ in intensity of semantic prosodies.Fourthly,from the perspectives of significant collocates and semantic prosodies,the corresponding relationship between the English and the Chinese near synonyms is as follows:DESTROY corresponds to??,DAMAGE and HARM both correspond to??,RUIN,??and??have no appropriate corresponding.The present study provides a new perspective to the teaching and learning of near synonyms and English-Chinese translation.The teaching and learning of near synonyms and lexical items should not be limited to the level of words.Only by grasping the frequency,significant collocates and semantic prosody of a word,can users fully acquire the usage of the word and learn a more idiomatic foreign language.Furthermore,in the process of translating,the translator should also consider the frequency,significant collocates and semantic prosody knowledge of a word.