The document summarizes a presentation about synonyms and near-synonyms in the English language. It discusses the influence of Latin and Germanic roots on the vocabulary, the abundance of synonyms and nuances between near-synonym pairs. It also addresses implications for language teaching such as teaching collocations and semantic prosodies when introducing synonyms.

1. Does the word
“synonym” have a
synonym?
Leo Selivan
British Council
Annual ETAI Conference
3-4 July 2012

2. Outline
• A bit of history
• Latinate and Germanic words
• Lexical density
• Synonyms or near synonyms?
• Multi-part verbs
• Teaching implications & practical suggestions

3. Latinate words
Latinate = derived from Latin or Old French
Latinate affixes Latinate roots
-able, -ible -dict-
-ance -pel
-fy, -ify -pend-
-ment -scrib/script-
-sion, -tion -tract-
-ty, -ity -vert-

4. TASK 1
Look at a page from the dictionary.
• Count the number of words on the page.
• How many Latinate words can you find?

6. Hybrid language
English – Germanic group
but 60% Latinate vocabulary

8. The Norman
Conquest
http://www.youtube.com/v/1B8TwBrCIEY

9. French influence
didn’t replace Germanic words
but went to coexist side by side
feeling / sensation
brotherly / fraternal
ring / (tele)phone
fast / rapid
job / occupation
help / assist
begin / commence
end / finish
flood / inundate

10. TASK 2
Make a list of 10 (near-) synonyms in English
• Most are based on Germanic/French
distinction

11. Synonyms within
sets
Germanic / Germanic Latinate / Latinate
• go / walk • mansion / villa
• start / begin • ascend / mount
• home / house

12. Germanic / Latinate
Synonyms
freedom - liberty kill – assassinate
sight - vision hide – conceal
learn – study before – prior
ask – enquire meet – encounter
buy – purchase
child, kid – infant
begin; start – initiate; commence

13. 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

14. Nuances vs economy
invite
book
‫להזמין‬
reserve
order
It’s my treat / It’s on me

15. Lexical abundance
Cherokee: 20 verbs for wash (hands, face)
Hebrew: different verbs to describe
the harvest of different types of produce
Lexical voids
English: One word for know
(cf. German: wissen / erkennen
French: savoir / connaitre)

16. Lexical density

17. Synonymy
and near-
synonymy

18. TASK 3
What’s the difference?
kill – assassinate
hide – conceal
freedom - liberty before – prior
sight - vision meet – encounter
learn – study table - desk
ask – enquire damp - moist
buy – purchase tall - high
child, kid – infant lift - elevator
begin – commence precipitation - rain

19. What makes
synonyms different
• register
• collocation
• semantic prosody
• colligation

20. Phrasal verbs vs.
Latinate
“equivalents”
bring about
find out
look into
put out
put up (with)
set up
take in

21. 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

26. Collocation
look into / investigate
matter possibility
possibility murder
problem effects

27. Collocation
look into / investigate
matter possibility
look into possibility investigate murder
problem effects

28. Collocation
set up / establish
relationship business
relation(s) committee
links company

29. Collocation
set up / establish
relationships business
establish relation(s) set up committee
links company

30. Register, style &
domain
Register – formal / informal
Style – written / spoken
Domain – academic / journalistic / jargon

31. Register, style &
domain
ic
en n de
m .
po
k
ic tio ws a isc
S F Ne Ac M
investigate 15 21 85 97 58
look into 18 38 12 4 9
Occurrences per million words

32. Semantic prosody
Cause:
controversy, damage, problems, suffering, trouble
Bring about:
change, improvement
Withstand: temperature, storm, hurricane - weather
Resist: temptation, urge, pressure, attempt, arrest

33. Colligation
Grammatical context of a word or
grammatical function it prefers

36. Colligation
Grammatical context of a word or
grammatical function it prefers
Don’t be taken in by their promises
It was founded in (year) by (person)

37. Pedagogical ideas &
suggestions

38. Collocation forks
Always provide collocations for new words
matter possibility
look into possibility investigate murder
problem effects

39. Teach “chunks”
reserve a table
book a ticket
invite a friend (round) for dinner
order pizza

40. Leave used
language alone

41. Look up Bilingual dictionary -
meaning
twice
Monolingual dictionary -
increase their depth of
meaning
Learner dictionaries:
Macmillan
Cambridge
photo by eltpics on Flickr
Longman
(all three available online)

42. 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

43. Teach affixes & roots
Latinate affixes Latinate roots
-able, -ible -dict-
-ance -pel
-fy, -ify -pend-
-ment -scrib/script-
-sion, -tion -tract-
-ty, -ity -vert-

44. 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

46. 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)

47. References
Barber, C. (1993). The English Language. Cambridge: CUP
Davies, M. (2004-). BYU-BNC: The British National Corpus. Available at http://
corpus.byu.edu/bnc
Gardner, D. & Davies, M. (2007). Pointing out frequent phrasal verbs: A corpus-based
analysis. In TESOL Quarterly 41(2), pp 339-359
Hoey, 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 Press
Welcome 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