A Diachronic Study Of Synonym Discrimination Boxes In Oxford Advanced English Learner's Dictionary

Synonyms account for a large part in English vocabulary.Synonym discrimination is an important part of English learning.As an indispensable tool in English learning,dictionary is of great help to English learners.The Oxford Advanced English Learner's Dictionary has been revised nine editions since its publication in1948.Fewer researches have been systematically conducted on synonym discrimination boxes in different editions of OALD.This thesis will systematically analyze the changes and features of the synonym discrimination boxes from OALD 4^th to OALD 9^th,and summarize merits and demerits of it,and then its advantages will be applied into the compilation of domestic English-Chinese learner's dictionaries;as for its demerits,this thesis attempts to optimize them under the guidance of relevant theories and corpora.Firstly,this thesis selects five editions of OALD to analyze changes of SD boxes in these editions.Secondly,this thesis focuses on three editions of OALD,including OALD 7^th,OALD 8^th and OALD 9^th.The selection of synonyms clusters and discrimination information will be further studied.Finally,based on prototype theory,input hypothesis and corpora,merits and demerits of synonym discrimination boxes are to be summarized,and then tentative suggestions will be provided according to the needs of Chinese English for second language learners.The present study found that 1)Usage Note is not added in until the publication of OALD 4^th,and Which Word is first created in OALD 6^th.Moreover,there are boxes of Which Word and Synonyms from OALD 7^th to OALD 9^th;2)Synonym discrimination boxes from OALD 7^th to OALD 9^th mainly include synonymous nouns,synonymous adjectives and synonymous verbs.The number of synonym clusters in synonym discrimination boxes centralizes among four to seven.In addition,examples of synonyms tend to be sentence examples.Types of synonyms vary from their part of speech;3)The selection of synonyms and discrimination information do not fully take the cognitive characteristics and actual needs of Chinese English learners into consideration.There are circular interpretation and atypical examples and collocations of synonyms in synonym discrimination boxes.By optimizing the discrimination samples in synonym discrimination boxes,we hope that synonym discrimination boxes in OALD can better meet the actual needs of Chinese English learners,so as to help learners discriminate the nuances between synonyms and correctly use synonyms.