Does the word “synonym” have a

synonym?Leo Selivan

British Council

Annual ETAI Conference3-4 July 2012

Outline

• A bit of history

• Latinate and Germanic words

• Lexical density

• Synonyms or near synonyms?

• Multi-part verbs

• Teaching implications & practical suggestions

Latinate words

Latinate affixes-able, -ible-ance-fy, -ify-ment-sion, -tion-ty, -ity

Latinate roots-dict--pel-pend--scrib/script--tract--vert-

Latinate = derived from Latin or Old French

TASK 1

Look at a page from the dictionary.

• Count the number of words on the page.

• How many Latinate words can you find?

Hybrid language

English – Germanic group

but 60% Latinate vocabulary

The Norman Conquesthttp://www.youtube.com/v/1B8TwBrCIEY

French influencedidn’t replace Germanic words

but went to coexist side by side

feeling / sensationbrotherly / fraternalring / (tele)phonefast / rapidjob / occupationhelp / assistbegin / commenceend / finishflood / inundate

TASK 2

Make a list of 10 (near-) synonyms in English

• Most are based on Germanic/French distinction

Synonyms within sets

Latinate / Latinate

• mansion / villa• ascend / mount

Germanic / Germanic

• go / walk• start / begin• home / house

Germanic / Latinate

Synonyms freedom - liberty

sight - vision

learn – study

ask – enquire

buy – purchase

child, kid – infant

begin; start – initiate; commence

kill – assassinate

hide – conceal

before – prior

meet – encounter

Largest vocabulary?

How many words are there in English?

The Global Language Monitor in 2009:

English passed 1 million word mark

Oxford Dictionaries:

250,000 at the very least

Nuances vs economy

invite

book

reserve

order

להזמין

It’s my treat / It’s on me

Lexical abundanceCherokee: 20 verbs for wash (hands, face)

Hebrew: different verbs to describe the harvest of different types of produce

English: One word for know(cf. German: wissen / erkennen

French: savoir / connaitre)

Lexical voids

Lexical density

Synonymy and near-synonymy

TASK 3What’s the difference?

freedom - libertysight - visionlearn – studyask – enquirebuy – purchasechild, kid – infantbegin – commence

kill – assassinatehide – concealbefore – priormeet – encountertable - deskdamp - moisttall - highlift - elevatorprecipitation - rain

What makes synonyms different

• register

• collocation

• semantic prosody

• colligation

Phrasal verbs vs. Latinate

“equivalents”bring about

find out

look into

put out

put up (with)

set up

take in

Phrasal verbs vs. Latinate

“equivalents”bring about cause

find out discover

look into investigate

put out extinguish

put up (with) tolerate, endure

set up found, establish

take in deceive

Collocationlook into / investigate

matter

possibility

problem

possibility

murder

effects

Collocationlook into / investigate

matter

look into possibility

problem

possibility

investigate murder

effects

Collocationset up / establish

relationship

relation(s)

links

business

committee

company

Collocationset up / establish

relationships

establish relation(s)

links

business

set up committee

company

Register, style & domain

Register – formal / informal

Style – written / spoken

Domain – academic / journalistic / jargon

Register, style & domain

investigate 15 21 85 97 58

look into 18 38 12 4 9

Spoken

Fiction

NewsAca

demic

Misc.

Occurrences per million words

Semantic prosody

Cause: controversy, damage, problems, suffering, troubleBring about: change, improvement

Withstand: temperature, storm, hurricane - weatherResist: temptation, urge, pressure, attempt, arrest

ColligationGrammatical context of a word or

grammatical function it prefers

ColligationGrammatical context of a word or

grammatical function it prefers

Don’t be taken in by their promises

It was founded in (year) by (person)

Pedagogical ideas &

suggestions

Collocation forksAlways provide collocations for new words

matter

look into possibility

problem

possibility

investigate murder

effects

Teach “chunks”

reserve a table

book a ticket

invite a friend (round) for dinner

order pizza

 Leave used language alone

Look up twice

Bilingual dictionary - meaning

Monolingual dictionary - increase their depth of meaning

Learner dictionaries: Macmillan CambridgeLongman

(all three available online)

photo by eltpics on Flickr

Present a word(or a pair)

All you know about a word- meaning and connotations- grammar- contexts, collocations- frequency- etymology

From Ur, P. (2012). Vocabulary Activities

Teach affixes & roots

Latinate affixes-able, -ible-ance-fy, -ify-ment-sion, -tion-ty, -ity

Latinate roots-dict--pel-pend--scrib/script--tract--vert-

Use corpus and concordances

British National Corpus (BNC)

Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

http://corpus.byu.edu/

Just the word - a tool for looking up collocations

www.just-the-word.com

Conclusion“As near synonyms usually differ in their collocational behaviour and semantic prosodies, the traditional practice of explaining meanings to learners by offering synonyms should be used with caution”

Xiao & Mcenery (2006)

ReferencesBarber, C. (1993). The English Language. Cambridge: CUPDavies, M. (2004-). BYU-BNC: The British National Corpus. Available at http://

corpus.byu.edu/bncGardner, D. & Davies, M. (2007). Pointing out frequent phrasal verbs: A corpus-based

analysis. In TESOL Quarterly 41(2), pp 339-359Hoey, M. (2000). A World Beyond Collocation: New Perspectives on Vocabulary

Teaching. In Lewis. M (ed.), Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical Approach. (pp. 224-243). Hove: Thomson-Heinle

McCrum, R., Cran, W. & MacNeil, R. (2002). The Story of English. London: Penguin.Schuessler, J. (2009, June 13). Keeping It Real on Dictionary Row. The New York Times.

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/weekinreview/14shuessler.html?_r=2

Ur, P. (2012). Vocabulary activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressWelcome to the World of Global English. (2010, February 24). The Global Language

Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.languagemonitor.com/Xiao, R. & McEnery, T. (2006). Collocation, Semantic Prosody, and Near Synonymy: A

Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 103-129