Disambiguating close synonyms
Sometimes it can be hard for students to understand the difference between words which are very close in
meaning. Using a corpus is one of the best ways of helping them with this.
What is the difference between build and construct?
Students can be asked to find out what the difference between two close synonyms are themselves, by looking
them up on the corpus and working it out from the concordance lines (or teachers can provide students with
printouts of concordance lines for them to use)
What kinds of things do we build, and what do we construct?
What sort of words go with each word?
houses
bridges
plans
nests
build
home
building
argument
model
construct
theory
sentences
Students can explore and discuss the differences in the meaning of close synonyms using concordance results and making meaning maps.
Once they have a general feel for the words, they could construct sentences using them, matching build and construct to different nouns from a list.
Other words to try: what exactly is the difference between :
•
•
•
amazing, incredible, astounding, and astonishing?
Say and tell, or listen and hear?
Guess, estimate and suppose?