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1.2. Relative Synonyms
Relative synonyms refer to two or more words or phrases that express the same semantic meaning and can be interchangeable in a certain context. If the context changes, they often cannot be interchangeable. The number of relative synonyms in English is numerous.
Relative synonyms denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of meanings and can be substituted only in some contexts. E.g. ask – beg – implore, like – love – adore, gift – talent – genius, famous – celebrated – eminent
1.3. Total Synonyms
Total synonyms can replace each other in any given context without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations. Examples of this type can be found in special literature among terms belonging to this or that branch of knowledge. It must be noted that it is a very special kind of synonymy: neither ideographic nor stylistic oppositions are possible here. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun and substantive, functional affix, flexion and inflection are identical in meaning.
Total synonyms are those members of a synonymic group which can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative meaning or emotional meaning and connotation. They are rare. Examples can be found mostly in special literature among technical terms and others. E.g. fatherland – motherland; suslik – gopher; noun — substantive; functional affix – inflection; scarlet fever – scarlatina.
The dominant synonym expresses the notion common to all synonyms of the group in the most general way, without contributing any additional information as to the manner, intensity, duration or any attending feature of the referent. So, any dominant synonym is a typical basic-vocabulary word. Its meaning, which is broad and generalized, more or less covers the meanings of the rest of the synonyms, so that it may be substituted for any of them.
Synonym is an important yet a complex concept in the field of lexicography and
lexical semantics. In semantics, a synonym is used to refer to a relationship of similarity and sameness of meanings of different words. Synonyms are classified as strict or absolute and loose synonyms. In strict synonymy, two words can be used interchangeably and the substitution of one word with the other does not change the meanings and style of the message. Strict synonyms are not common in a language. In loose synonyms, there is a significant overlap in meanings of two words and they cannot be used to substitute each other in some contexts. Loose synonyms are used frequently in a language.
English is rich in synonyms enabling its speakers “to convey meanings more precisely and effectively”. Synonymy is a challenging area in English Language teaching and learning because of variations in their meaning and usage. Thesaurus is not enough to study lexicology and synonyms; therefore, using a corpus to identify and extract synonyms has its implications for English language teaching.
Dialect and the formality of synonymous word context, connotation and grammatical patterns are used as a criterion to distinguish between synonyms in the English language. Speakers of different dialects of English use different words to refer to the same person, thing, or concept e.g. football and soccer, aerial and antenna, aero-plane and airplane are some of the pairs of British-American synonyms. The style or formality of the context in which synonyms occur also helps to distinguish synonymous words. Similarly, a grammatical pattern is also important for using a synonym. Usually, words having same meanings do not have same syntactic pattern for instance able and capable both have same meaning but able requires infinitival phrase and capable needs prepositional phrase.
Synonyms are analyzed by investigating their collocation and colligation patterns. Collocation is an important and challenging concept in second language teaching and learning. Collocation, a term coined by Palmer, can be defined as “lexically and pragmatically constrained recurrent co-occurrences of at least two lexical items which are in direct syntactic relation with each other”. The collocation properties of lexical items help to determine their meanings. The words that co-occur are in proximity but not necessarily adjacent to each other and do not occur in any fixed order. According to Hoey, collocations should not be confused with lexical co-occurrence as collocations are “psychological association(s) between words up to four words apart and are evidenced by their occurrence together in corpora more often than is explicable in terms of random distribution”.
Firth used the term collocation in theoretical linguistics but he relied on intuition for his research on the use of collocation. Corpus linguists are of the view that studying the co-occurrence in a corpus is an authentic way to identify and analyze collocates of a given word. According to Sinclair, to investigate the two lexical items as collocates, it is important to know the total size of the text, frequency of occurrence of both the lexical items and the number of times they co-occur in the text. Firth also introduced the term colligation to refer to grammatical categories and grammatical relations distinguishing it from collocation which emphasizes lexical inter-relations. A word’s colligations help to study its grammatical functions.
It is challenging and time consuming for lexicographers to differentiate between synonyms by using traditional methods. However, vocabulary studies have been revolutionized with the advent of computer technology and corpus-based evidence which facilitate “an empirical basis for determining vocabulary behavior, instead of relying on appeals to intuition or tradition” (Schmitt, 2010, p. 12). English Language Learners have confusions regarding synonyms. Only dictionaries are used to assist ELLs in learning synonyms. Therefore, the current study aims to use empirical evidence to investigate the patterns of language relating to synonyms arrive and reach to teach synonyms effectively.
learning.
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