A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of English Synonyms: Taking Improve, Promote, and Strengthen as an Example

Abstract

As synonyms account for more than 60% of English vocabulary, improving the ability to distinguish synonyms will help speakers produce language in a more precise and efficient manner. This paper adopts a corpus-based approach to explore the usage of synonymous words in terms of language register, collocates and semantic prosody, exploring how these synonyms are used by native speakers and hoping to offer some guidance to English learners and translators.