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A Corpus-based Analysis of English Near-synonymous Adverbs: Absolutely, Utterly
XIONG Yang-hua1, LIU Deng-feng2
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2022.04.008
1. Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China 2. Central South University, Changsha, China
The analysis of near-synonyms has always been a difficult point in English learning. There have been some relevant studies on the analysis of near-synonyms at home and abroad, but the examples are still insufficient. Based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), this paper takes “absolutely” and “utterly” as an example, and makes a comparative analysis from the five aspects of register, collocation, collocation, semantic preference and semantic prosody, aiming to make full use of the corpus in the analysis of English near-synonyms, providing a useful supplement for second language teaching and English learning. The results show that “absolutely” is more common in spoken language while utterly is more formal; regarding the collocation, both words are more associated with adjectives and verbs; in terms of colligation patterns, “absolutely” have six kinds of grammatical patterns while there are only four grammatical patterns of “utterly”; as for semantic preference, the semantic preference of “utterly” has a wider range than that of “absolutely”; for semantic prosody, “absolutely” have more neutral semantic prosody whereas “utterly” have stronger negative semantic prosody. This case study not only provides enlightenment for English learning and teaching, but also further enriches the corpus linguistics-related research.
corpus, near-synonymous adverbs, register, collocation, colligation, semantic preference, semantic prosody
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, April 2022, Vol. 12, No. 4, 359-365
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