The Analysis of Synonyms Based on COCA Corpus

Sun+Fan

【Abstract】Synonymy has always been an emphasis and difficulty for linguists research. Taking the two synonyms “speak” and “talk” as an example， this paper tries to figure out the usage of the two words from the points of collocation and colligation based on COCA corpus. It finds that this two words have something in common， but still be different fundamentally.

【Key words】synonymy； collocation； colligation； semantic prosody； COCA

1. Introduction

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. So， “say something” is really an important way to interchange information among human beings. In English， verb like “speak” or “talk” often plays a crucial role which acts as a core when people construct a whole sentence. Synonyms is a common relationship which means two lexical units sharing one meaning of different sense relations. But in daily use， we take it for grant that synonyms like “speak” and “talk” are totally the same， especially in some English-Chinese dictionaries， they are classified into the same type. Thus， Corpuss data provides support for us to have further quantitative and qualitative analysis of synonyms.

We use The Corpus of Contemporary American English （COCA） for this research. The corpus contains more than 520 million words of text （20 million words each year from1990 to 2015）， and it is divided into spoken， fiction， popular magazines， newspapers， and academic texts. Corpus is a powerful tool for us to collect the index of “speak” and “talk”. Thus， there is no doubt that we can choose it for our quantitative and qualitative analysis in authentic use.

2. Data distribution and analysis based on COCA

In language activities， synonyms are likely to show different distribution characteristics according to different registers. So， using COCA， we can know the frequency of “speak” and “talk” in authoritative texts explicitly.

2.1 Collocation

In linguistics， a collocation is a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than by chance. In phraseology， collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a phraseological collocation is the expression “dark ink”. While the same meaning could be conveyed by the roughly equivalent “heavy ink”， this expression is considered strange by native speakers.

There are about six main types of collocations：adjective+noun， noun+noun（such as collective noun）， verb+noun， adverb+adjective， verbs+prepositional phrase（phrase verb）， and verb+adverb.

In this paper， 12 typical sentences have been selected for collocation analysis， so we can observe the different use of “speak” and “tell” clearly.

Figure 1. Index of “speak”

1. Why is you speak forcefully and eloquently about black-on-black crime and black-on-white crime？Why are you not as forceful and proactive about talking about white-on-black crime？

Fox _ HC， Are African-American Leaders in Cincinnati Turning a Blind Eye to Black-on-Black Violence？20010515.

2. People are more open in an online environment. Theyre going to be more willing to express their opinions. Theyre going to be more willing to speak up， to raise their hand， to critique somebody elses work.

CNN _ Live Daybreak， Going Back to School Without

Ever Leaving Your House？20030801.

3. Thats kind of how this whole rebellion started， actually， in the city of Gonaives was a popular organization known as the Cannibal Army turned against Aristide when the members decided that he was no longer in their interests， so to speak.

NPR _ Saturday， Violence continues in Haiti， 20040228.

4. Lydia tried not to speak sharply. Knowing， as an administrator， that a sudden break in civility， a breach in decorum， can never really be amended.

The Virginia Quarterly Review， SMOTHER， 2005 （Fall）.

5. The members of this crew stop talking when one of us approach. Their stares are like knives. They speak softly， but not so softly that our ears can not hear， that we are the cause of their discomfort， of the poor food and foul air.

Analog Science Fiction & Fact， Endeavor， 2005 （Jul/Aug）.

6. These students speak over 400 languages and most of them have difficulties in speaking， reading， writing， or understanding English that interfere with their ability to successfully participate in school.

Reading Improvement， IMPACTS OF ONLINE TECHNOLOGY USE

IN SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING：A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE，

Fall2014， Vol. 51 Issue 3， p303-312. 10p.

Figure 2. Index of “talk”

1. I mean， the American people arent that stupid to listen to that kind of ridiculous talk. Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat， John Kennedy was a Democrat， Harry Truman was a Democrat.

CNN _ King， CNN _ King / 19910321， 19910321.

2. President Bush， notably， has not engaged in cheap talk of appeasement and lack of patriotism.

New York Times， IN THE NATION；Thinking About 1992， 19910309.

3. Real-life judge shows like Judge Mills Lane and Judge Judy are jackpots. Talk shows like Montel Williams are effective， too.

Forbes， New Techniques in Ambulance Chasing， 11/12/2001.

4. All of us are very careful to talk out differences， make sure we know where the points of disagreement are and what can be done to resolve problems.

Fantasy & Science Fiction， Pictures from an Expedition， Sep. 2003.

5. Passing through empty streets， Ms. Rice saw little of the damage inflicted on Beirut， which was not bombed by Israel while she was there. Ms. Rice arrived in Israel on Monday evening and held talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

New York Times， International Force Is Favored，

But No Nation Commits Troops， 20060607.

6. A reporter from Pittsburgh wants to talk to Johnny about the final-round 63.

Golf Magazine， The Critic， 2007 （Jun）.

In COCA， 55614 lines of concordances about “speak” and 172339 lines of concordances about “talk” have been extracted respectively. So， we can draw the conclusion that in American English， “talk” is more often to use than “speak”. Compared with “speak”， “talk” has more part-of-speech patterns， i.e. verb and noun. In general， “talk” often be used in formal situation. Whats more， the collocations of “speak” in COCA mainly are prep， such as “about”， “for”， “with” etc.， and the collocations of “talk” in COCA mostly are “to infinitive”， these collocation words show us no obvious favorable or unfavorable preferences.

2.2 Colligation

Colligation was first used in its linguistic sense by British linguist John Rupert Firth， who defined it as ?the interrelation of grammatical categories in syntactical structure.?

Nowadays colligation not only refer to the co-occurrence of a word with grammatical classes or categories （Hoey 1997， 2000；Stubbs 2001c：112） but also indicate the co-occurrence of a word with grammatical words （Krishnamurthy 2000）. The patterning with grammatical words can be observed and computed even using a raw corpus.

According to the feature of the two words colligation， we can observe that these concordances of “speak” display the most frequently used into 5 types：①v.+adv.；②adv.+v；③v.+prep.；④v.+to infinitive. Meanwhile， the colligation of “talk” are shown as follows：①n.+ n.；②v.+prep.；③v.+n.；④prep.+n.；⑤to infinitive+v.；⑥adj.+n. Comparing these two words， we can find that they both have the same colligation：“v+prep.”， however， it is apparently proved that “talk” has more variety of colligations than “speak”s.

3. Conclusion

From the study it is found that there are both similarities and differences concerning collocation and colligation between “speak” and “talk” based on COCA. “Speak” suggests a more formal level of communication than “talk”. You speak to somebody about something to try to achieve a particular goal or to tell them to do something. This paper takes the synonyms “speak” and “talk” as an example， explicitly analyzes the subtle differences between this pair. It is helpful for us to use corpus as a proper way for second language acquisition and semantic problem-solving， i.e. finding and using the appropriate words in different contexts. Most English-Chinese dictionaries in china have not attached adequately to collocation， colligation and semantic prosody in particular.

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