| English near-synonyms or synonyms have the same or similar meanings,and it is difficult for second language learners to distinguish the subtle differences in their meanings.With the development of corpus linguistics,a large number of corpus-based studies on distinguishing English near-synonyms have been conducted at home and abroad.This study mainly uses a corpus-based behavioral profile approach to analyze the usage of a set of adjectives indicating fear.First,a questionnaire was conducted to investigate the current situation of Chinese EFL learners’ use of a set of near-synonymous adjectives(terrible,awful,horrible,horrific,fearful and dreadful).It has been found that in general second language learners have difficulties in using this set of adjectives and they often confuse horrible and horrific,but they have a comparatively better understanding of conventional usage of terrible,awful and fearful.Based on the results of the questionnaire survey,this study,based on the COCA corpus,adopts the behavioral profile approach to explore the similarities and differences in the internal semantic structures and usage patterns of six near-synonymous adjectives.The findings of the study are as follows :First,this set of near-synonymous adjectives tends to collocate with negative nouns and neutral nouns.When modifying negative nouns,the semantic meanings of six adjectives are quite different and they have their own unique preferences.When modifying neutral nouns,the semantic differences between six adjectives are not as obvious as their differences when they modify negative nouns,they share more semantic overlaps.Second,this set of near-synonymous adjectives modifies singular nouns in most cases,but also modifies plural nouns.Their tendency to modify plural nouns from high to low is: horrific>fearful>dreadful>horrible>awful>terrible.Third,this set of near-synonymous adjectives can be used as attributive and predicative in sentences,but there are differences in the subjectivity when the six adjectives are used as predicative.Among them,the semantic meanings of terrible,awful,horrible and dreadful are more subjective,while the semantic meanings expressed by fearful and horrific are relatively objective.Fourth,by examining the degree adverbs that modify this set of near-synonymous adjectives,it is found that the emotional tendency of the six adjectives from strong to weak is: awful>horrible>terrible>horrific>fearful>dreadful.Fifth,by investigating the different register distribution patterns of this set of near-synonymous adjectives,it is found that the formal degree of six words from high to low is: fearful>dreadful>horrific>awful>terrible>horrible.Based on the authentic corpus data,this study uses behavioral profile method to analyze the usage features of this set of near-synonymous adjectives.At the same time,this study takes into account the degree adverbs that modify adjectives and the linking verbs when adjectives are used as predicative,which offers more perspectives for the research on distinguishing near-synonymous adjectives.Moreover,this study provides further support for the effectiveness of behavioral profile analysis for the study of near-synonymous adjectives.In addition,this study can provide some guidance for dictionary compilation,second language teaching and near-synonyms discrimination research. |
