語義場理論與框架語義理論在近義詞辨析中的比較研究

張 潔

（伊犁師范學院 外語系，新疆 伊寧 835000）

0 Introduction

The most difficult decision to make in English study may be to choose an appropriate word from two or more words of similar meanings,which are called,in technical terms,synonyms.Synonyms are very common in English study.One can find them in reading,writing,speaking,listening,and translating.Nobody can avoid them if he or she wants to improve their English,but most learners find them very difficult to grasp no matter how hard they have tried.Sometimes,they can tell a little of the differences,but never could they distinguish them very clearly.

Synonym discrimination is never an easy job to do.A lot of theories has been introduced to solve this problem,for instance,Seven Types of Meaning (STM),Semantic Prosody (SP),Semantic Field （SF），frame Semantics(FS),Prominence Principle(PP),and User's Perspective(UP),etc.This paper tries to distinguish the synonyms mainly from the perspective of Field theory and Frame Semantics with the hope that help English learners to study synonyms much easier.

1 literature review of Synonyms

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings.In a word synonyms are words that share meanings.Synonymy refers to the relationship of similarity or identity in meaning.

There are lots of synonyms in English vocabulary.A.C.Baugh in A History of the English Language said the abundance of synonym because“As a result,English also shares a great number of words with those languages of Europe that are derived from Latin,notably French,Italian,Spanish,and Portuguese”.It has a word that play the dominant role in the whole synonym groups and it reflect the common characteristics to the other synonyms,we called it synonymic dominant.Such as to leave means “to go away”,as a synonymic dominant,its synonyms can be“depart”,“quit”,“retire”,“withdraw”.

Sources of synonyms:1)dialects and regional English,2)borrowing,3)figurative and euphemistic use of words.Discrimination of synonyms:1)difference in denotation,2)difference in the degree of a given quality,3)differences in associative meanings,4)differences in use.The word of this relationship can be divided into two categories:1)Absolute Synonymy 2)Relative Synonymy.

2 Semantic Field Theory and distinction of synonyms

2.1 Semantic Field Theory

European structuralism linguists made a significant contribution in semantic research.Pioneer of the Swiss linguist structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure figures that the study of word’s meaning should be found through the synchronic comparison,and he shows words abstract relations.German scholar Trier provides the famous theory of the Semantic fields.

The theory is opposed to the main factors for the isolation of language study,emphasizing the unity of the language system to express the meaning and context of the impact.Trier was first proposed in 1930:“...took the view that the vocabulary of a given language is not simply a listing of independent items,but is organized into areas or fields,within which words interrelate and define each other in various ways.”

2.2 Semantic Field Theory and distinction of synonyms

Semantic Field Theory can be applied into the distinction of synonyms effectively. According to Semantic Field Theory,the meaning of a word is decided by its relationships with other words in the same semantic field.It makes a holistic and systematic approach to the language study.A word does not exist in isolation,but forms a structured set together with other related words.Therefore,the meaning of a word depends on the rest of the words in the same lexical or conceptual field.In other words,the definition of one word is up to that of another or others.

Therefore,the Semantic Field Theory provides the theoretical basis for the distinction of synonyms.Since the words are interdependent and interrelated within each field,synonyms can be distinguished by this relationship in the field.In the word groups of synonymous,the word called"synonymic dominant"plays a dominant role,reflecting the collective features of other words.The slight differences between synonyms mainly display in four circumstances:(1)Conceptual meaning is basically the same,but has slight difference. “Look”, “glance”,“stare”,“gaze”, “eye”,“peep” are synonyms,and all refer to the action of “to see something”. “Look” refers to “the act of directing the eyes toward something and perceiving it visually”;“glance”,refers to “take a brief look at”;“stare” refers to “l(fā)ook at with fixed eyes”;“gaze” refers to“take a long fixed look”;“eye” refers to “l(fā)ook at”.(2)Emotional coloring is different.The example is “statesman” and “politician”.“Statesman” is a commendatory term referring to “a man is a respected leader in national or international affairs”. “Politician” is a derogatory term implying “a leader engaged in civil administration or active in party politics”.(3)Stylistic coloring is different.People should be more careful when communicating with each other in different occasions.(4)Collocation meaning is different.Take the words “rancid”, “rotten”,“sour” for example.These three words are in the same semantic field,meaning “changing bad”. “Rancid” refers to“(of fatty foods)tasting or smelling bad because of staleness”,such as “rancid bacon” or “rancid butter”: “rotten” refers to “decayed;having gone bad”,such as “rotten butter” or “rotten eggs”. “Sour” refers to “tasting or smelling sharp and unpleasant from fermentation;not fresh”,such as “sour milk”.

3 Frame Semantics and Distinction of synonyms

3.1 Frame Semantics

Frame Semantics,as one of the most important Cognitive Linguistic issues was originally set up by Margin Minsky,a computer scientist.Then,American linguist Charles Fillmore gradually introduced the frame concept into linguistic study in the middle of the 1970s and eventually established the Frame Semantics in 1982.The publication of the article named An Alternative to Checklist Theories of Meaning that was written by Fillmore marked the origin of Frame Semantics(Fillmore,1975).From then on,a large number of linguists all over the world have committed themselves to enrich its theoretical research (Talmy,1991;Talmy,2000;Petruck,1996;Ungerer&Schmid,1996;Taylor,2001,etc)

Lexical unit(LU)and frame element(FE)are the main constituents of semantic frames.To understand the meaning of a certain word or phrase within a sentence requires us to recall the semantic frame stored in our memory that is relevant to the given context.The words that can directly evoke the occurrence of the semantic frame in our mind are lexical units.FEs are the syntactic dependents of LUs.That means all the components in a frame that include LUs and FEs are connected with each other tightly.Any one of the components introduced will evoke the entire semantic frame as well as the whole bundle of other components within the same frame.

3.2 Frame Semantics and Distinction of synonyms

Frame semantics has been regarded as an efficacious tool to explain the semantic difference of synonyms.Frame Semantics figures out that to understand the meaning of any concept within the conceptual system,we should be explicit about its frame.The interpretation of language is a process in which we match the frame stored in our mind to the information conveyed by the language expression.Some concepts seem to denote the same thing,but there are semantic differences because they belong to various frames.This is the very reason to distinguish them from each other.For instance:in English-Chinese translation,both “l(fā)and” and“ground” can be translated as “陸地”literally.Nevertheless,they pertain to different semantic frames.Land belongs to the frame [tract],which is opposite to sea while ground is part of the frame [space],which is opposite to air.Consequently,when we say that a bird spends its life on the land,we tend to emphasize that it does not live in the water.When we use the sentence that a bird spends its life on the ground,we want to convey that it can not fly (Fillmore,1982).Another example comes from Chinese.In some dialects,“單車”and“自行車”may refer to the same vehicle,but there is nuance between them. “單車”is involved in the frame [quantity],which accentuates the fact that only an individual can ride on it whereas“自行車”pertains to the frame[machine]that includes other elements like electric train and automobile.

4 Comparison of Semantic Field Theory and Frame Semantics on the distinction of synonyms

4.1 Similarities

Both Semantic Field Theory and Frame Semantics apply a holistic and systematic approach instead of isolated and separated way to the distinction of synonyms.

According to Semantic Field Theory,the meaning of words should be discussed in term of words relations.When the different relations are taken into consideration,the exact meaning and implication of a word can be better interpreted.The most effective way to do is to take contrary field into the consideration.Example is here,when distinguish the differences between the meaning of “small” and “l(fā)ittle”,it will be much easier if we think about their contrary fields: “small” is contrary to“big”;“l(fā)ittle” is contrary to “much”.

According to Frame Semantics,a frame is any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one concept it is necessary to understand the entire system.For instance,For example,to understand the meaning of “cost” and “pay” requires us to recall the frame[commercial event]and its four core frame elements,which cover a buyer,a seller,goods and money.Accordingly,we can describe the meaning of buy as the action through which the buyer obtains the goods from the seller while paying some money.When people tend to describe the same commercial event,we should be aware of the fact that different perspectives within the same frame will lead to diverse language expressions,and vice versa.

4.2 Differences

Despite the similarities the two theories shares,there are still huge differences between two theories.The most prominent one is that the different mechanisms of distinction of the synonyms.One is to distinguish the differences through the inner relation of semantic field,such as hyponym or antonym.Take “understand” and “comprehension” as example,since “understand” is the superordinate of the“comprehension”,the word “understand” can be used more widely while“comprehension” can express more precious meanings.

While frame semantics aims to analyze the lexical units within the semantic frame.To understand the meaning of a certain word or phrase within a sentence requires us to recall the semantic frame stored in our memory that is relevant to the given context.When the semantic frame is evoked by the language expression in use,the fixed categories within it will provide us the essential background information and knowledge about the scene to understand the meaning of the specific expression or the sentence.In addition,frames are bound to have close relations with culture,which can be interpreted as something shared by a given community.the emergence of frame semantics has thoroughly changed our recognition about the semantic study.Compared with traditional study on language meaning,frame semantics is not merely the complement of traditional semantic study;it provides the reasonable explanation about various semantic phenomenons and breaks a new path to the understanding of language meaning.

5 Conclusions

Semantic Field Theory and Frame Semantics are the two effective ways frequently used to the distinction of synonyms.Through the comparative study of them,this paper finds out the two approaches maintains certain similarities between them and effectively distinguish the synonyms through different ways.And comparatively speaking,the Frame Semantics may provide more reasonable explanation about various semantic phenomenons and the understanding of language meaning.

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