“A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination

This study investigated three synonymous adjectives, ‘whole’, ‘entire’, and ‘total’, in terms of their collocations and strict sense of meaning. Data were drawn from three English dictionaries: 1) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (online version), 2) Merriam-Webster's Learner's...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pariwat Imsa-Ard, Supakorn Phoocharoensil
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2022
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/1/47958-187247-1-PB.pdf
_version_ 1848815012934582272
author Pariwat Imsa-Ard,
Supakorn Phoocharoensil,
author_facet Pariwat Imsa-Ard,
Supakorn Phoocharoensil,
author_sort Pariwat Imsa-Ard,
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This study investigated three synonymous adjectives, ‘whole’, ‘entire’, and ‘total’, in terms of their collocations and strict sense of meaning. Data were drawn from three English dictionaries: 1) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (online version), 2) Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary (online version), and 3) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2014), and from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings from this investigation revealed that the three adjectives share some common meanings, and they can thus be considered near synonyms. They may also be somehow interchangeable with each other in certain contexts, however, in terms of formality, the word ‘total’ is likely to be used the most in formal contexts. Concerning their common collocations, ‘whole’ and ‘entire’ share some noun collocates, some of which are associated with geographic vocabulary; namely America, Europe, and California. However, ‘entire’ and ‘total’ share only one strong noun collocate, which is population, while ‘whole’ and ‘total’ do not share any typical noun collocates. Significantly, corpus data can provide additional data which does not exist in dictionaries. The findings of this study may serve as supplementary materials for English language teachers to enhance students’ English vocabulary learning, especially when it comes to academic writing.
first_indexed 2025-11-15T00:43:13Z
format Article
id oai:generic.eprints.org:20091
institution Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-15T00:43:13Z
publishDate 2022
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:200912022-10-12T03:54:45Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/ “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination Pariwat Imsa-Ard, Supakorn Phoocharoensil, This study investigated three synonymous adjectives, ‘whole’, ‘entire’, and ‘total’, in terms of their collocations and strict sense of meaning. Data were drawn from three English dictionaries: 1) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (online version), 2) Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary (online version), and 3) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2014), and from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings from this investigation revealed that the three adjectives share some common meanings, and they can thus be considered near synonyms. They may also be somehow interchangeable with each other in certain contexts, however, in terms of formality, the word ‘total’ is likely to be used the most in formal contexts. Concerning their common collocations, ‘whole’ and ‘entire’ share some noun collocates, some of which are associated with geographic vocabulary; namely America, Europe, and California. However, ‘entire’ and ‘total’ share only one strong noun collocate, which is population, while ‘whole’ and ‘total’ do not share any typical noun collocates. Significantly, corpus data can provide additional data which does not exist in dictionaries. The findings of this study may serve as supplementary materials for English language teachers to enhance students’ English vocabulary learning, especially when it comes to academic writing. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2022 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/1/47958-187247-1-PB.pdf Pariwat Imsa-Ard, and Supakorn Phoocharoensil, (2022) “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 28 (2). pp. 67-82. ISSN 0128-5157 https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1526
spellingShingle Pariwat Imsa-Ard,
Supakorn Phoocharoensil,
“A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title_full “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title_fullStr “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title_full_unstemmed “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title_short “A whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three English synonym discrimination
title_sort “a whole new world… wait, is it a whole, entire, or total world?” : the extraction of collocations for the three english synonym discrimination
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20091/1/47958-187247-1-PB.pdf