CHAPTER II PREVIOUS STUDIES ON NEAR SYNONYMS
2.4 Collocation and Semantic Prosody-based Studies
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剛好 便利 東吳(Beneficiary) ganghao bianli dongwu
accidentally BIANLI Soochow
組隊 參加(Purpose) [constructed example]
zu-dui canjia recruit-team participate
(19) 大專 體總(Agent) 辦 七人制球賽(Means) dazhuan ti-zong ban qi-ren-zhi qiu-sai college athletic-association hold seven-man-rule ball-game 以 便利 東吳(Beneficiary)
yi fangbian dongwu to BIANLI Soochow
組隊 參加(Purpose) [constructed example]
zu-dui canjia recruit-team participate
2.4 Collocation and Semantic Prosody-based Studies
The final approach that adopts collocation and semantic prosody is best benefited by corpora work. With such large quantities of concordance data, the collocation behaviors and semantic prosody can be observed by a statistical method.
Firth (1957) first uses collocation as a technical term and applies the test of
‘collocability’ in his article Modes of Meaning. Other researchers also follow Firth’s step making similar views on collocation including Sinclair (1991), Leech (1974), and Hoey (1991) (cf. Partington 1998). While we look at these collocational patterns,
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some favorable or unfavorable connotations will arise with their habitual collocates.
This phenomenon is referred to as “semantic prosody”. Sinclair (1991) investigates examples of set in and happen to manifest semantic prosody. He points out that set in habitually co-occurs with subjects associated with unpleasant states of affairs and happen tends to occur with unpleasant things such as accident. Stubbs (1995) also
gives several corroborating examples from the LOB corpus (Stubbs 1995: 2-3).
(20) before bad weather sets in; the fact that misery can set in; desperation can set in;
stagnation seemed to have set in; before rigor mortis sets in.
(21) the fantastically dry and sunny spell that set in.
(22) the problem of what will happen; this sort of accident can still happen; need the quarrel with Cuba ever have happened; something very untoward has happened;
calm down and tell me exactly what happened.
From a cross-linguistic perspective, Xiao and McEnery (2006) explore three cases of near-synonyms: the consequence group, the cause group and the price/cost group, drawing upon data from English and their translation equivalents in Mandarin Chinese. Based on their collocational behavior and semantic prosody, the semantic relations of near-synonyms in terms of their collocational behavior and semantic prosody are investigated. Comparing two different languages, the specific characteristic of language also becomes an affective factor. For example, the morphological variations in English would affect its semantic prosody as in the patterns of consequence (consequence, consequences and consequently), as illustrated
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by the following table.
Table 2.3 Distribution of consequence across meaning categories in FLOB/Frown (= Xiao and McEnery 2006: 109, Table 2)
However, Mandarin Chinese lacks such morphological variations. Besides, although English and Mandarin Chinese are two unrelated languages, they both show a similar collocational behavior and semantic prosodies of near-synonyms. For example, in the cause group the English near-synonyms are cause, arouse, lead to, result in/from, give
rise to, and bring about. Most of the verbs show negative semantic prosodies but give
rise to shows high frequency of positive prosody. Moreover, both give rise to and
cause are significant collocates of change(s) but the collocations show different
evaluations. Change(s) collocating with bring about typically shows a favourable evaluation while the collocating with cause shows an unfavourable evaluation (Xiao and McEnery 2006: 115). The following table demonstrates the frequency of semantic prosody across the English near-synonyms of cause:
Pattern Negative Neutral Positive
as a consequence 6 7 4
in consequence (of) 8 3 1
consequence 27 7 6
consequences 85 20 1
consequent(ly) 15 73 5
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Table 2.4 Distribution of cause-words across meaning categories in English (=Xiao and McEnery 2006: 117, Table 3)
The corresponding translations of cause in Mandarin Chinese include changsheng (產 生), xingcheng (形成), zaocheng (造成), yinqi (引起), dailai (帶來), daozhi (導致), cushi (促使), zhishi (致使), yinfa (引發), cucheng (促成), and niangcheng (釀成).
From the corpus data, zhishi, niangcheng, zaocheng, yinqi, and daozhi are
overwhelmingly negative and their collocates also conform with the negative prosody such as shigu (事故), weiji (危機), chongtu (衝突) etc. Due to the strongly negative prosody of zaocheng, even an apparently neutral result may turn to negative, as the following example can inllustrate (Xiao and McEnery 2006: 119).
(23) 臥室的窗戶沒有關，薄薄的窗簾在夜風裡
woshi de chuanghu meiyou guan, bobo de chuanglian zai yefeng li bedroom GEN window not close, thin GEN curtain in night-wind in
漂漂浮浮，造成一種極具浪漫情調的，飛動的
piaopiaofufu, zaocheng yizhong ji ju langman qingdiao de, feidong de flutter-flutter, cause one-CL very have romantic appeal GEN flying GEN 印象，正像女主人喜怒無常，躁動不寧的
yinxiang, zheng xiang nuzhuren xinuwuchang, zaodong bu ning de impression, just like hostess changing-moods, restless not calm GEN
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性格。
xingge disposition
‘The window of the bedroom was open. The thin curtain was fluttering gently in the night wind, giving an impression of romantic appeal and flying, just like the restlessly changing moods of its hostess.’
As for cucheng and cushi with high frequency of positive semantic prosodies, their collocates also show the corresponding evaluation. For example, the collocates of cucheng and cushi are either positive or neutral such as fazhang (發展), zhuanhua (轉化), kaifa (開發), heping (和平) etc. The following table shows the distributional
pattern.
Table 2.5 Distribution of cause-words across meaning categories in Chinese (=Xiao and McEnery 2006: 117, Table 4)
With the thorough examination of the collocational behavior and semantic prosody of near-synonyms, Xiao and McEnery (2006) also provide valuable suggestions for language pedagogy.