contrastive analysis of english synonyms---from the perspective of extended unit of meaning

ABSTRACT

In order to describe the nature of unit of meaning, Sinclair employs a maximal approach and puts forward the model of extended unit of meaning, which is composed of node word, colligation, collocation, semantic preference and semantic prosody. These principles of description were a milestone in linguistic description and have proven invaluable, especially in the field of lexicography. This thesis aims to illustrate the difference between a couple of synonyms---provide and offer. The paper will explain how provide and offer differ from each other in terms of colligation, collocation, semantic preference and semantic prosody, and whether Chinese English learners acquire the extended unit meaning of the two words as well as native speakers. We adopt a corpus-based approach and the principal corpora we use in this paper are Brown Corpus, LOB Corpus and CLEC Corpus. Concordances are searched for the study of colligation and collocation. Semantic preference and semantic prosody are analyzed and summarized based on the concordance lines investigated. The result indicates that Chinese English learners demonstrate an incompetence in lexical, grammatic and pragmatic level compared with native English users. Chinese learners create some colligations seldom used by native speakers and are not as familiar with several common colligations as native users, which suggests an imperfect mastery of colligation. As to collocation and semantic preference revealed by collocates, more abstract nouns appear to co-occur with offer than with provide, as the evidence in Brown and LOB corpora demonstrates, which is contrary to what is indicated from CLEC. In CLEC, offer co-occurs with more concrete nouns than provide. In the field of semantic prosody, subtle differences are observed between native users and Chinese English learners as well. Both words reveal a mixed semantic prosody, with offer representing a stronger tendency toward positive words. Yet Chinese students prefer to associate provide with positive collocates. After the differentiation of synonyms, this paper also proposes a few explanations why Chinese learners can not throughly acquire the usage of synonyms and offers some solutions from the point of learners, teachers and lexicographers. Since few previous studies focus on the application of the extended unit of meaning as a whole, the methodology utilized here is applicable to other studies regarding extended unit of meaning. Moreover, this paper has some pedagogic implications.

Keywords: colligation, collocation, semantic preference, semantic prosody, synonyms