A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On Semantic Prosody Of English Near-synonyms Use Of Synonyms Between Chinese English Learners And Native English Speakers

In English vocabulary teaching and research,applying existing knowledge and vocabulary to identify and using its proper ideographic are the English Vocabulary Acquisition targets.Recognizing the meaning of a word is the key to understanding.In comparison,it is not easy to correctly distinguish similar synonyms that will obstruct the learners on the acquisition,grasp,and application.Therefore,in English Vocabulary Acquisition,learners clearly distinguish synonyms that can help comprehend vocabulary.This study takes Sinclair’s research on functional modes of meaning as a theoretical framework and combines corpus linguistics with a quantitative approach,aiming to analyze the similarities and dissimilarities of synonyms’ use characteristics between Chinese English learners and Native English speakers,exploring the use characteristics of Chinese English learners’ language use and the factors influencing the formation of such characteristics,and ease the synonyms teaching systematically,and promote the acquisition,grasp,and application of synonyms for learners.In this study,a group of AUGMENTS synonyms INCREASE,IMPROVE,RAISE and ENHANCE is research subjects,and extracted the data from Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners(TECCL)and Corpus of Contemporary American(COCA)as research data.Besides,the study applies Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis(CIA)as research methods,Log-likelihood Ratio Calculator and Ant Conc3.5.2 are used to perform descriptive statistical analysis,independent-sample T-test,and correlation.By comparing their use in the two corpora,trying to discuss and analyze the following three research questions:(1)What are the characteristics(frequency,collocation behaviors,and semantic prosody)of this group of AUGMENTS synonyms between TECCL and COCA?(2)What are the specific differences in the use of AUGMENTS synonyms between Chinese English learners and native English speakers?(3)If there is a significant difference,what is the reason? What is the inspiration for synonyms teaching?The results show that Chinese English learners and Native English speakers share a certain underlying similarities in the use of AUGMENTS synonyms,but it is more of a difference.The significant collocations of synonyms INCREASE,IMPROVE,RAISE and ENHANCE in the two corpora prefer positive semantic prosody in total.It can be identified that there is a tendency for positive meaning.Respectively,synonyms INCREASE,IMPROVE and ENHANCE show a distinct difference in positive and negative semantic prosody,while the word RAISE keeps a balance of positive and negative semantic prosody due to its other meanings.In particular,IMPROVE’s semantic prosody has an extreme difference between Chinese English Learners and English Native Speakers that means Chinese English Learners are overusing the positive meaning of IMPROVE.Thus,Chinese English Learners use this group synonyms INCREASE,RAISE and ENHANCE in line with the semantic trends used by Native English Speakers.Although Chinese English Learners acquire the semantic trends usage of the three words INCREASE,RAISE and ENHANCE except overused IMPROVE,they do not grasp all the words’ collocation behaviors.Based on the study,there is some helpful advice for English educators in vocabulary knowledge teaching,writing argumentative choice of words,syllabus and textbook compilation,and so forth.For future English lexicon teaching,teachers can try some modern teaching methods and database information resources to improve the teaching mode and promote teaching diversity.The application of corpus in English lexicon teaching can help teachers determine the key content more scientifically,arrange the teaching order reasonably,and correct misuse promptly.For future English lexicon learning,learners can perform multi-level classification and induction through the corpus,gradually unearth the sense of semantic prosody and the regularities of typical frequency and collocation,to stimulate their critical thinking and potential and cultivate and improve the ability of autonomous vocabulary learning.