A Corpus-based Study On The Chinese EFL Learners' Synonym Use

Synonyms constitute a big proportion of English vocabulary. The learning and teaching of synonyms is a difficult point in English pedagogy. It is hard to get clear explanations of synonymous words depending on traditional ways of intuition and introspection, or from authoritative dictionaries, which result in semantic confusion and misuse. The present study adopts a corpus-based approach and combines quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis in order to explore the Chinese EFL learners' synonym use.Through a comparison between the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (WECCL), the use of the synonyms completely, entirely, fully, totally and absolutely is studied in terms of word frequency, collocation and semantic prosody to find out similarities as well as differences between the Chinese EFL learners and the native speakers on the synonym use, and then the possible causes underlying the learners' deviant use are explored.The findings of the research indicate that there are great differences between the Chinese EFL learners' use and the native speakers' use of the synonymous group. Specifically, (1) With regard to word frequency, the Chinese EFL learners overuse completely, fully, totally and absolutely, whereas underuse entirely; (2) In respect of collocation, the Chinese EFL learners tend to use atypical collocates and misuse some collocates of the synonymous group; (3) In terms of semantic prosody, the Chinese EFL learners tend to use completely with a positive semantic prosody, which is opposite to the native speakers who use the word completely with a negative semantic prosody. As to entirely, no conclusion can be drawn about the Chinese EFL learners' use of the word regarding semantic prosody because the learners underuse entirely to a large extent and the evidence is not enough. As for fully, totally and absolutely, though the Chinese EFL learners have the same tendency as the native speakers in the use of these three words concerning semantic prosody, there are still many differences between their use under detailed analysis. The main reasons for the learners' deviant use of the synonyms are interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer, besides, the communication strategies employed by the learners such as substitution and avoidance, the insufficient knowledge about the culture of target language can also lead to the learners'deviant use.Based on the major findings of the study, tentative suggestions are presented on enhancing the quality of synonym learning and teaching. It is hoped that the present study may supplement the previous researches on synonyms and contribute to the advancement of synonym learning and teaching.