Abstract: In English learning, it has been rather difficult for English learners to differentiate synonyms for lack of real context and inadequate interpretations of the dictionaries. Based on COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), the thesis takes “avoid, escape, duck and evade” as an example, with the aim to identify the differences and similarities between synonyms by analyzing their colligation and collocation, semantic preference and semantic prosody and register.

Keywords: synonyms; corpus; differentiation

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.-Introduction-1

1.1  The Significance of Synonyms Differentiation-1

1.2  The Introduction of COCA (Corpus of Contemporary America)-1

2.-The Selection of Research Objects-2

3.-The Differentiation of Synonyms in terms of Colligation and Collocation-3

3.1  Colligation-4

3.2  Collocation-5

3.2.1  Collocations with Prepositions-6

3.2.2  Collocations with Verbs-9

3.2.3  Collocations with Nouns-11

3.2.4  Collocations with Adverbs-13

4.-The Differentiation of Synonyms in terms of Semantic Perspective-15

4.1  Semantic Preference-16

4.2  Semantic Prosody-19

5.-The Differentiation of Synonyms in terms of Register-20

6.-Conclusion-22

Reference