Corpus—based Study on comparative usages of Synonym START、BEGIN

【Abstract】Synonym has always been a for English learners. How to grasp the correct meaning and usage of synonym is a continuous concern of English learning. A corpus-based study is conducted on the comparative usages of Synonym START/BEGIN， aiming to offer a new way to study synonyms.

【Key words】Corpus-based； Synonym

1. Introduction

The abundant synonyms in English help English speakers express thoughts and feelings accurately， however， synonym has been considered as a tough issue in learning English， especially for L2 learners. Traditionally， second language learners discriminate synonym by the definitions in dictionaries which merely offer entries and examples， and teachers explanations which are mainly based on experiences. The appearance of corpus linguistics provides a new perspective to study synonym. Through a number of statistical data analysis， L2 learners can realizes the specific differences of synonyms in concrete contexts.

Based on corpus linguistics， the paper plans to analyze a pair of synonym START＼BEGIN through quantitative and qualitative analysis. Through statistical retrieval of FLOB， the author aims to reveal the discriminations of START＼BEGIN in order to help L2 learners understand the different uses of START＼BEGIN and also offer a new perspective to study synonyms.

2. Literature review

In the eyes of ordinary people， it has often been taken for granted that START＼BEGIN can be used interchangeably. However， linguists at home and abroad had made plenty of researches based on corpora and the results showed that the usages of START＼BEGIN still had differences in some aspects. The representative researches had done by Douglas Biber and Christian Mair.

In Corpus Linguistics， Douglas Biber （2000） had compared the usages of START＼BEGIN and found that BEGIN was more inclined to exist with to do while START was more often used with the other three structures. In addition， Christian Mair （2003） had made a comparison of START＼BEGIN in his paper from the perspective of grammar and social linguistics. Domestic linguists also had done amount of researches about START＼BEGIN， such as Lu （2007） etc.

The previous linguists most compare START＼BEGIN in two domains， and the internal differences among the usages of STRAT and BEGIN is rarely mentioned. Thus this paper aims to reveal the differences of START＼BEGIN and the internal differences among the usages of START and BEGIN.

3. Data and Methodology

The data of this paper comes from FLOB （Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English） which consists of 500 texts of British magazines and newspapers in 1991 and 1992.With a vocabulary of 10， 000， 000 words， FLOB is quite representative in studying English linguistic features and usages. Here， the FLOB corpus has already been tagged.

Monoconc are used in the paper to process the frequencies of START＼BEGIN and their four grammatical combinations respectively. Chi-square test is adopted to examine whether significant difference exists in the usages of START， BEGIN and between START＼BGEGIN. Chi-square value which is calculated by software SPSS is the standard for testing if a significant difference is emerged. When sig. 0.05， significant difference exist； when sig. > 0.05， there is no significant difference.

4. Results and Analysis

4.1 Statistical analysis of START＼BEGIN

According to the corpus data， the author finds that START＼BEGIN have four grammatical combinations， namely， START＼BEGIN+ to do； START＼BEGIN +doing； START＼BEGIN+ noun； START＼BEGIN as Vi （intransitive verb）. With Monoconc the frequencies of START and its four grammatical combinations in FLOB are counted （in Table 1）. Although the frequency of START as Vi can not be counted by Monoconc， the data can be obtained by deducting the frequency of other three usage from the whole frequency of START.

According to the statistic result of monoconc， the total frequency of START is 317 with START + to do accounting for 48 times， START + doing 55 times， START+ noun 13 times， and START as Vi 201 times. Meanwhile， BEGIN only appears for 169 times including BEGIN + to do 72 times， BEGIN + doing 2 times， BEGIN+ noun 1 times and BEGIN as Vi 94 times.

For STARTs four usages， the chi-square value is 0.000 < 5%， so there exists significant difference between the four usages of START. Then the result of mononconc shows that in FLOB corpus START is most widely used as Vi and in START+ doing structure， and least used in START+ noun structure.

The Chi-square value of BEGINs four usages indicates that the most popular usages of BEGIN are BEGIN as Vi and BEGIN+ to do. And BEGIN is seldom used in BEGIN+ noun and BEGIN+ doing structure. And the chi-square value is 0.000 < 5%， which indicates that significant difference is emerged among the four usages of BEGIN.

4.2 Comparison of START＼BEGIN

In the Chi-square test of START＼BEGIN， the chi-square value is 0.000 < 5% which also proves that the usages of START＼BEGIN is different significantly. Table 1 and Table 3 reveal that START is most widely used as Vi and in START+ doing structure， while BEGIN is mainly used in BEGIN as Vi and BEGIN+ to do.

When START is used as Vi， it often describes the initiation of action while BEGIN as Vi always describes the initiation of a process.

E.g. Work on the complex， which will include...， will start in September...

And now for the performance to begin.

In addition， BEGIN is rarely used in BEGIN+ noun structure， while START sometimes combines with noun.

E.g They were the first company to start production in North America...

The arena had started life as a vast tubing warehouse...

5. Conclusion

Through statistical analysis， significant difference is found between the usages of START＼BEGIN. The results indicate that BEGIN is more often used in BEGIN + to do structure and used as Vi， while START is more inclined to be used as Vi and used in START+ doing structure.

The lexical study and vocabulary teaching based on corpus has great advantages in that corpus linguistic research base on quantitative analysis of large amount of real language data. Instead of depending on experience and intuition， study based on corpus can reveal the differences of synonyms intuitively， accurately and comprehensively.

References：

[1]Biber.D.Corpus linguistics[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2000.

[2]Christain，M.Gerundial complements after begin and start： grammatical and sociolinguistics factors，and how they work against each other[M].New York：Walt de Gruyter Mouton，2003.

[3]盧晓娟，高盈盈.基于语料库的begin和start用法对比研究[J].华中师范大学学报（人文社会科学版），2011，3，110-113.

作者简介：刘伟（1989-）， 女， 山东潍坊人， 青岛科技大学外语系助教， 硕士， 主要从事为话语分析、英语教学方向的研究。