Synonyms In English Teaching

Synonym, as one of the six semantic lexical relationships (including homonymy, polysemy, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and meronymy), has always been one of the main focuses of English learning and teaching. As English teachers expect, by synonym teaching, they can help to develop the students'comprehensive English skills. This thesis focuses on exploring a practical solution to the rather embarrassing problem, especially on how to improve the students'English by discriminating synonyms.Some theories applicable to the treatment of synonyms were introduced as the foundation of the present study. Those theories include structurism, cognition theory, pragmatics, componential analysis, prototype theory, semantically synonymous field, transfer of mother tongue and social constructivism. At the same time, general knowledge on synonyms, including the semantic definitions of synonyms, sources, classification and functions of synonyms, is provided in order to have a critical view on synonym discrimination by linguistic scholars for the benefit of further study.Two hypotheses were proposed: 1. Semantic and other relevant linguistic theories would help students'in their synonym learning; 2. Transfer of mother tongue should be given priorities in synonym teaching and learning to avoid petrification, which is the biggest problem in synonym learning. As for the two hypotheses, an experiment is carried out to see how semantic theories and other relevant linguistic theories help the students in their synonym learning in writing and translation. The results show that Chinese EFL learners benefit a lot from the linguistic theories in their synonym study, and transfer of mother tongue is really a big problem of most English learners, which can be improved by giving enough attention to it, if it is properly dealt with.Finally in the discussion part, on the basis of linguistic theories and results of the experiment, five suggestions were put forward: 1. It is essential to further study synonyms through pragmatic view, combining structurism and cognition with learner-centered view; 2. Componential analysis should be employed in English classrooms; 3. Students should avoid negative transfer of mother tongue in synonym learning; 4. Collocation contributes to the correct use of synonyms; 5. Consulting dictionaries properly and scientifically is a helpful way in petrification avoidance.