A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On The Use Of Synonyms Between Chinese English Learners And English Native Speakers

The importance of vocabulary in English learning cannot be underestimated.English borrows large number of words from other foreign languages, so English synonyms take up a large proportion in English vocabulary. How to use synonyms properly is a great challenge for Chinese English learners, since Chinese English learners must choose appropriate words to express their communicative intentions with various synonyms. Hence for Chinese English learners, it cannot be avoided that they misuse,overuse and underuse some English synonyms, which finally leads to great confusion about the correct use of English synonyms among Chinese English learners.Corpus-based contrastive study on synonyms provides a new perspective for English synonyms differentiation. Based on the authentic data, the present study adopts corpus-based Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis to explore and compare two pairs of synonyms(great/large, cause/lead to) in terms of frequency distribution, collocation, and semantic prosody, aiming to find out the characteristics of English synonyms uses for both English native speakers and Chinese English learners respectively and then find out the similarities and differences. Then based on those similarities and differences, this paper will investigate whether Chinese English learners overuse, misuse and underuse English synonyms. Meanwhile, this thesis will explore typical features of English synonyms uses by Chinese English learners in every learning stage in order to find out whether the higher their grades are, the more idiomatic their English is.The study result shows that there exist not only similarities but also differences about the usages of English synonyms between English native speakers and Chinese English learners from the aspects of frequency distribution, collocation and semantic prosody.Meanwhile, Chinese English learners overuse, underuse and misuse English synonyms as a result of language transfer. What’s more, this essay also finds the fact that the higher Chinese English students’ grades are, the more idiomatic their English is only appropriate for certain research perspective.The author hopes to offer some pedagogical implications for Chinese English teachers and Chinese English students to discriminate English synonyms. At the same time, the author intends to arouse students’ interest in studying English vocabulary, especially English synonyms, in order to lay a solid foundation for their further study.