A Cross-linguistic Study On Semantic Prosodies Of Near-synonyms

Distinguishing near-synonyms is still a challenge for language learning. Grasping the distinctions of near-synonyms is crucial for the selection of words in translation as well. However, traditional method for distinguishing near-synonyms lacks details about collocational or pragmatic information of a word. The concept of "semantic prosody" appears with the rise of corpus linguistics, and it is used for the research of lexicology. Many scholars propose that studying the semantic prosodies of words can be helpful for distinguishing synonyms. When a word frequently collocates with other words, it will be influenced or imbued with some semantic features by those collocates, forming a certain sematic environment which is termed semantic prosody. Since semantic prosody has the pragmatic function of expressing attidude and evaluating events, it incorporates the form, meaning and function of a language. Therefore, it is helpful and important to study about semantic prosodies of near-synonyms for better grasping the usages and distinctions of near-synonyms as well as the selection of translation equivalents. This thesis takes quantitative and qualitative approaches to study the differences and similarities of the two groups of verbs. One group of verbs are ENLARGE and its synonyms AUGMENT, BROADEN, ENLARGE, EXPAND, EXTEND, and WIDEN in English; the other group includes the translation equivalent of ENLARGE--’‘扩大”,and its near-synonyms“扩展”,“扩充”,and’“扩张”in Chinese.By taking the corpus-based approach and retrieving the data from the comparable corpora BNC and MCC, this thesis contrasts the frequency, collocation, semantic preference, and semantic prosody of each near-synonym in either language or both languages. The way used for retrieving data in this thesis is through online corpus, and the software Antconc is used to collect data from Chinese corpus. Finally, the corresponding relation between the two languages and the factors which influence two words to form a pair of translation equivalents are explored in this thesis.This research attempts to address four questions:(1) What are the intralingual and interlingual differences and similarities of the frequencies in terms of the two groups of verbs in Chinese and Enligsh?(2) What are the intralingual and interlingual differences and similarities of the collocation and semantic preference in terms of the two groups of verbs in Chinese and Enligsh?(3) What are the intralingual and interlingual differences and similarities of the semantic prosodies in terms of the two groups of verbs in Chinese and Enligsh?(4) How do the near-synonyms in English and Chinese correspond to each other in collocation behavior and semantic prosody?The results of this research are as follows:Firstly, near-synonyms in English and Chinese have different frequencies, among which the usages of EXTEND and“扩大”are the broadest in English and Chinese respectively. Besides, English near-synonyms studied in this thesis tend to distribute differently in different kinds of registers. Secondly, in terms of collocation, near-synonyms in either language or both languages have some similarities, but differ in semantic preference. Moreover, the collocability of Chinese near-synonyms is stronger than that of English near-synonyms. Thirdly, in terms of semantic prosody, most words under investigation have mixed semantic prosodies, except for“扩张”which has the obvious tendency of designating negative semantic prosody. But there are still some subtle differences in the distributions of semantic prosodies of other near-synonyms. Fourthly, the study on the corresponding relation between two languages also reveals semantic prosody may be a factor that influences the choice of equivalents in translation.Based on the above results, this thesis has some conclusions. First, there is a principle of preference for different registers in terms of the uses of English near-synonyms; Secondly, near-synonyms can not substitute each other for the subtle differences in the collocation, semantic preference and semantic prosody. Third, there are some semantic overlaps between Chinese and English, which is the basis to constitute equivalents for translation. But the differences of smantic prosody will influence the selection of equivalents in concrete translation.This thesis puts forward some implications for language learning and teaching as well as translating, which can be concluded as the awareness of semantic prosody is vital for language learners and translators to distinguish near-synonyms and select the equivalents in translation.There are some limitations in this thesis. The first limitation is the selection of words is not comprehensive enough and objective. The words selected for research are all verbs that are chosen according to dictionaries or thesauri, and their nominal collocates are studied only. In addition, the Chinese corpus chosen here can not show the register of each word, and the E-C parallel corpus chosen here is also limited in size. These two aspects are constraints for the research. According to the limitations of this research, this thesis puts forward some suggestions for relevant researches in the future, hoping to improve this kind of researches.