Levels of Synonymy and TESOL

Theoretical literature on semantics has identified several levels or degrees of synonymy. Terminology differs, but following Cruse (1986) one can speak of absolute synonyms (identical in every type of meaning), cognitive synonyms (identical only in denotation, but not in e.g. connotation or social meaning), and plesionyms (close, but not identical, in denotation). Absolute synonyms are very rare or non-existent; an example of cognitive synonyms is couch and sofa, and an example of plesionyms is misty and foggy (Cruse 1986:285). It may be difficult to make judgements about identity or closeness in meaning, but Cruse (1986) provides a linguistic test to distinguish plesionyms from cognitive synonyms and non-synonyms.The issue to be addressed here is whether such fine distinctions in synonymy are relevant to TESOL teachers and their students, and if so, how are they to be taught, a part of the more general question of the extent to which theoretical semantics is useful to applied linguistics. Of course, non-native speakers of a language need to be able to distinguish which synonymous terms are appropriate for which situations (e.g. mate vs. friend), but do they (especially if they are beginning learners) need to know when two terms are plesionyms rather than (cognitive) synonyms (e.g. boat vs. ship)? If so, how are such facts to be taught? I will argue that such distinctions are useful, and that they can be taught using sentence frames similar to those in Cruse’s test.

Reference

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

This paper looks at whether the fine distinctions among types of (near-)synonymy drawn in theoretical semantics (absolute synonymy, cognitive synonymy, plesionymy) are useful for TESOL teachers and their students. It will be argued that they are, and that they can be taught using tests from the literature on semantics.