Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners
Learners usually deal with words that have multiple meanings, and similar pronunciation and spelling when they acquire English vocabulary. These words are homonyms that often confuse learners due to their ambiguous nature, similarity in orthography and pronunciation. Most learners faced difficulties...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis |
| Published: |
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/ http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/1/fyp_EL_2022_LHQ.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848886246057705472 |
|---|---|
| author | Law, Hui Qin |
| author_facet | Law, Hui Qin |
| author_sort | Law, Hui Qin |
| building | UTAR Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Learners usually deal with words that have multiple meanings, and similar pronunciation and spelling when they acquire English vocabulary. These words are homonyms that often confuse learners due to their ambiguous nature, similarity in orthography and pronunciation. Most learners faced difficulties distinguishing several types of homonyms and knowing the usage of homonyms in different contexts. This study analyses the types and usage patterns of the homonyms used by Malaysian undergraduates in their essay writing. The study adopted a corpus-based method to conduct the research, and a total of 145 essays were collected and digitised to generate a learner corpus. In the learner corpus, there are 8098 homonyms found and classified into homophones, homographs, lexical homonyms, and lexico-grammatical homonyms. The usage patterns of homonyms are examined through common usage, misuse pattern, and collocational pattern based on different homonym categories. The result showed that the word classes of most homonyms determined the word sense used in a particular context, except for lexical homonyms. Apart from grammatical class, context also played a significant role in disambiguating multiple senses of homonyms. Based on the usage patterns, learners experienced biases, confusion, L1 interference, and misunderstand senses of homonyms while building sentences. The corpus highlighted grammatical class, meanings, and context are the key elements used to address these issues. This paper concluded that corpus could be a practical tool to learn several homonym categories and their usage in different contexts. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T19:35:26Z |
| format | Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis |
| id | utar-4798 |
| institution | Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T19:35:26Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | utar-47982022-12-23T12:36:34Z Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners Law, Hui Qin L Education (General) PE English PR English literature Learners usually deal with words that have multiple meanings, and similar pronunciation and spelling when they acquire English vocabulary. These words are homonyms that often confuse learners due to their ambiguous nature, similarity in orthography and pronunciation. Most learners faced difficulties distinguishing several types of homonyms and knowing the usage of homonyms in different contexts. This study analyses the types and usage patterns of the homonyms used by Malaysian undergraduates in their essay writing. The study adopted a corpus-based method to conduct the research, and a total of 145 essays were collected and digitised to generate a learner corpus. In the learner corpus, there are 8098 homonyms found and classified into homophones, homographs, lexical homonyms, and lexico-grammatical homonyms. The usage patterns of homonyms are examined through common usage, misuse pattern, and collocational pattern based on different homonym categories. The result showed that the word classes of most homonyms determined the word sense used in a particular context, except for lexical homonyms. Apart from grammatical class, context also played a significant role in disambiguating multiple senses of homonyms. Based on the usage patterns, learners experienced biases, confusion, L1 interference, and misunderstand senses of homonyms while building sentences. The corpus highlighted grammatical class, meanings, and context are the key elements used to address these issues. This paper concluded that corpus could be a practical tool to learn several homonym categories and their usage in different contexts. 2022-05 Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis NonPeerReviewed application/pdf http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/1/fyp_EL_2022_LHQ.pdf Law, Hui Qin (2022) Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners. Final Year Project, UTAR. http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/ |
| spellingShingle | L Education (General) PE English PR English literature Law, Hui Qin Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title | Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title_full | Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title_fullStr | Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title_full_unstemmed | Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title_short | Corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian ESL learners |
| title_sort | corpus-based analysis of the usage pattern of homonymys among malaysian esl learners |
| topic | L Education (General) PE English PR English literature |
| url | http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/ http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4798/1/fyp_EL_2022_LHQ.pdf |