A Textbook-based Study On The Stylistic Features Of English Synonyms In Senior High School

The abundance of synonyms is one of the symbols of the developed English.Enormous synonyms enrich the English vocabulary,which is of great benefit to students to have more choices to express themselves and make people's thoughts and expressions more precise,and add artistry to language usage.Therefore,it plays an essential role in language performance.English synonyms can be divided into absolute synonyms and relative synonyms.In fact,there are few absolute synonyms,each group of synonyms has nuance in some aspects,namely,in semantics,in emotional coloring,in stylistics,in collocation and so on.But researchers pay less attention to stylistic features.Many native speakers even have difficulties in discriminating synonyms,let alone Chinese students as the foreign language learners.So they feel more frustrated and confused in learning synonyms.Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted in this study to explore English synonyms in the senior high school textbooks from the perspective of stylistics,aiming to answer the following questions:(1)How are the English synonyms distributed in PEP English textbooks of senior high school?(2)What are the stylistic features of English synonyms in the English textbooks of senior high school?(3)What is the status quo of senior high school students' learning of English synonyms?(4)Which aspects should be given more attention in the process of English synonyms teaching and what strategies should be adopted to improve them?According to the results,this study makes conclusions as follows;(1)The distribution of English synonyms is decentralized in the textbooks but centralized in word classes.Most of the synonyms in senior high school textbooks 1 to 5 are synonymous nouns,synonymous verbs,synonymous adjective and adverbials.(2)Most of English synonyms belong to formal written style,the number of the informal style is placed the second,and the fewest one is the formal colloquial style.(3)It is found that most of senior high school students are short of stylistic awareness,they can not distinguish stylistic features of synonyms accurately.Neither can theyseparate the formal from the informal style,nor the oral style and the written style.(4)The deficiency of stylistics teaching is mainly because of the lack of the study and knowledge of stylistics of the teachers.This study explores the stylistic discrimination of the English synonyms and the senior high school students' current situation in English synonyms learning to make the teachers and students concentrate on the stylistic features of English synonyms,hoping the teachers improve their stylistic competence and teach the stylistic knowledge in class to develop students' comprehensive language competence.