LINGUISTIC_INVESTIGATION_OF_ABSOLUTE_SYN

International Conference, English language, British and American studies, International Balkan University in Skoplje, 29 May 2015, coauthors: Samina Dazdarevic, Admir Gorcevic, Fahreta Fijuljanin

Conclusion

According to the results, tables and figures represented above through both dictionaries and corpora, synonymy still remains one of the most disputable and questionable linguistic problem, a linguistic field where many difficulties and dilemmas arises.

As for research, the basic lexical and stylistic information were examined, as well as comparing and contrasting of dictionaries and COCA and BNC corpora.

As mentioned in the introduction, the role of learner of languages can be imagined as a person standing in the intersection, between dictionary path and real and natural language path. It seems that the result of our research is double-edged. The first part shows dictionary definitions of pair synonyms which can be defined as absolute synonyms based on all criteria of eminent linguists mentioned in the work. Unlike the first part, the core part of the study shows quite

different results based on corpora investigation. The real English, one derived from natural and authentic situations, confirms Leitner’s (Leitner 50) claim where he doubts ‘‘that dictionaries come close to represent ‘real English’.’’ Thus, corpora negates the existence of absolute

synonymy in English language.

However, this can’t be a final conclusion related to the synonymy in English language. Young learners have to find another path, beside two mentioned, and connect two existing sources of information, dictionaries and corpora in order to offer a unique start and root for learning foreign language.

References

Cruse, A. (1986). Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Divjak, D. (2006). Ways of intending: delineating and structuring near-synonyms. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 19-56.

Edmonds, P. and Hirst, G. (2002). Near-synonymy and lexical choice. Computational Linguistics. 28(2), 105-144.

Gries, S. (2006). Introduction. Trends in linguistics. Corpora in cognitive linguistics. Corpus-

based approaches to syntax and lexis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1-18.

Kjellmer, G. (1991). ‘A Mint of Phrases’. In English Corpus Linguistics, ed. K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg, 111-27. London: Longman.

Leech, G. (1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Leitner, G. (1993). Where to begin or start? Aspectual verbs in dictionaries. Data, description, discourse. Papers on the English language in honour of John Mch Sinclair on his sixtieth birthday. London: HarperCollins, 50-63.

Lyons, J. (1995). Linguistic Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics: Volume 1. Cambridge: CUP.

McCarthy, M., O’Keeffe A. and Walsh, S. (2010). Vocabulary matrix. Understanding, learning, teaching. Croatia: Heinle.

Palmer, F. R. (1986). Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

International Conference, English language, British and American studies, International Balkan University in Skoplje, 29 May 2015, coauthors: Samina Dazdarevic, Admir Gorcevic, Fahreta Fijuljanin

Corpus

-Cambridge Dictionaries Online ( CDO 2015) http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary ( MWD 2015) http://www.merriam-webster.com/

-Oxford Learner’s Dictionary ( OLD 2015) http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

-Dictionary (2015) http://dictionary.reference.com/

-The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

-British National Corpus (BNC) http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/