Synonymous Verb Pairs

22 different kinds of Simple-V-N miscollocations were found to be in the synonymous verb pair category, with 346 tokens. The erroneous verbs in their ESL-learner-produced collocations might appear semantically similar to their correct verb suggestions at first sight. Yet, evidence from the BNC, COCA, and other large-corpora-based resources all proved that they just do not go with certain nouns (0 token found on the BNC nor the COCA), as shown by Table 4.4.

Table 4.4 Simple-Verb-Noun Miscollocation Types: Synonymous Verb Pairs

No. Incorrect Verb Suggested Verb(s) V-N Miscollocations Frequency

1 accept receive/ enter/ have accept higher education 130

2 keep maintain sports are good ways to keep health 60

3 catch grab/ seize catch that chance immediately 25

4 train enhance/ increase/ develop train our ability through practice 24

5 take get/ have/ earn take good grades on exams 18

6 enlarge broaden/ expand/ widen enlarge our horizons 11

7 relax relieve/ reduce relax our stress 10

8 increase enhance/ cultivate/ foster increase our friendship 7

9 look watch/ see looked this TV advertisement 7

10 talk tell/ crack talked many jokes 7

11 finish fulfill/ satisfy/ meet/ achieve finish their wish 6

12 invent make/ develop/ work on invent an invention 6

13 devote donate devote two million dollars 5

14 forget ignore forget the stress 5

15 say speak/ talk in say good English 4

16 appreciate enjoy appreciate the comfortable wind 3

17 content fulfill/ satisfy content my desire 3

18 gain earn/ win gained five thousand dollars 3

19 promise grant parents promised their wish 3

20 realize understand/ comprehend how much they realize the lessons 3 21 realize understand realize the custom of many countries 3

22 talk tell/ reveal talk their secrets 3

Total 346

In terms of the suggested verbs alongside the wrong verb column, they are the frequently-adopted verb collocates of the key nouns from the data of BNC or COCA.

Drawing on the Sketch -Diff function on the SKE, the author first extracted all the verb collocates of a key noun from the BNC and the Chinese ESL learner corpus.

Then, examining the verb collocates used by native speakers, the author endeavored to find the appropriate verb collocates which would possibly reflect the intended meanings of ESL learners' V-N miscollocations. The online platform of the COCA can generate all the frequent verb collocates of a noun as well. The author, therefore, also checked the suggestions on the COCA for reference so that a reasonable set of advised verbs could be arranged for this study.

In Table 4.4, it is obvious that *accept high education is the most often misused synonymous-verb-pair collocation type, with 130 tokens overall. The verb collocates adopted by native speakers for the noun education, instead, are receive, enter, and have. According to OALD, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (8th Edition), a

definition of accept is "to take willingly something that is offered; to say ‘yes’ to an

offer, invitation, etc." One possible explanation for this misuse could be that education usually entails compulsory duties or decisions already made. As a result, one either decides to or not to receive education. There is no need for one to express his or her will to "accept education," which sounds like an ideological stance about certain issue, not the real classes to be taken at school.

*Keep health, taking up 60 entries, is the second most misused V-N

miscollocation in the synonymous-verb-pair category. In OALD, keep basically refers to "to stay in a particular condition or position; to make somebody/something do this."

Though its denotation seems possible to go with the word health to ESL learners, the actual usages about keep in OALD are "to keep somebody/something + adjective,"

such as "She kept the children amused for hours (OALD)." or "to keep somebody/something (+ adverb/preposition)," as in the example "He kept his coat on (OALD)." On the other hand, maintain, which is the native suggestion in the BNC, means "to make something continue at the same level, standard, etc (OALD)," and its example is "She maintained a dignified silence." Maintain, clearly, already indicates the continuation of certain status, without additional words needed to complete its meaning. For the word health, maintain obviously is a better choice to signify the continuation of one's effort to "keep his or her health at an ideal level."

The third most misused synonymous-verb-pair collocation is *catch that chance,

with grab and seize as the main verbs suggested by native-based corpus data. One entry of definition about grab is "to take advantage of an opportunity to do or have something," and one about seize is "to be quick to make use of a chance, an opportunity, etc." while no such definition is provided about catch in the OALD.

Compared with the relatively early the word catch could be introduced in an EFL/ESL context, no wonder the V-N miscollocation *catch that chance was deemed workable by many Chinese ESL learners.

*Train one's ability was found 24 times in the Chinese ESL learner corpus, the

fourth most misused one. Based on OALD, a definition of train is "to prepare yourself/somebody for a particular activity, especially a sport, by doing a lot of exercise; to prepare a person or an animal in this way." Since ability is a rather abstract and general concept, not a specific sort of skill, the result of native speakers' choices to be increase, enhance, and develop, which generally denote a more abstract progress, would be understandable.

The fifth most misused one is *take (good) grades, and the corresponding suggestions from the BNC and COCA are get and have. This is a seemingly easy but subtle idea. Take, get, and have all share a meaning of touching something by hand.

Yet, the OALD points out that take particularly denotes "to carry or move something from one place to another," which would not be suitable if "grades or scores on a test"

is its noun collocate. Students who did not quite make a distinction among these similar words would simply regard them as interchangeable.

*Enlarge one's horizons is another interesting case, while broaden/ expand/

widen are used by native speakers quite often. Enlarge, shown by OALD, could be

used in a sentence like "Reading will enlarge your vocabulary." Yet, as to one's experiences and horizons, enlarge just is not what comes to native speakers' mind.

In addition to the top five most misused V-N collocations, a general situation for V-N miscollocations in the synonymous verb pair section is that most of the deviant verbs seem acceptable in their V-N collocations at first sight. However, after comparing the results displayed by the Sketch-Diff interface, one could clearly discern that a significant gap still exists between the word choices of native and non-native English speakers.