INDEPENDENT STUDY PAPER TITLE:

DISTINGUISHING THE ENGLISH VERB SYNONYMS

IMPROVE AND ENHANCE: A CORPUS BASED STUDY

Natthaphon Chivinpipat
6221042184
Research Questions

• What are similarities and differences between the synonymous verbs improve and enhance in terms of
senses of meaning, collocations, and degrees of formality?

• How can the dictionary information and corpus data be used to distinguish between the synonymous
verbs improve and enhance?

Research Objectives

• To investigate the similarities and differences between the synonymous verbs improve and enhance in
terms of senses of meaning, collocations, and degrees of formality.

• To compare and contrast the information provided by the learner's dictionaries and information from the
concordance lines from the corpus.
 Chapter 3 Methodology
Data Collection

• Sense of Meaning from dictionaries and COCA

• Noun Collocates with MI Score >3, and authentic texts from COCO
• Degrees of Formality provided by COCA

Chapter 4 Results and Discussions

• Senses of Meaning
• Noun Collocates
• Degrees of Formality
 List of Previous Studies from Literature Review
RELEVANT RESEARCH STUDIES
• Five synonymous verbs reduce, decrease, diminish, dwindle, decline by Thamratana (2013)
• Three synonymous verbs ruin, demolish, and destroy by Ruengrong (2014)
• Three synonymous verbs achieve, accomplish, and attain by Kiatthanakul (2015)
• Three synonymous verbs advise, recommend, and suggest, by Phitayakorn (2016)
• Two synonyms to be sorry and apologize, by Srithanyarat (2016)
• Two synonymous verbs fight and battle by Wongwanitkajon (2018)
• Two synonymous verbs cure and heal by Sumintana (2018)
• Three synonymous verbs reveal, disclose and divulge by Jariyanupong (2018)
• Two synonymous verbs predict and forecast by Wongrat (2018)
   4.1 Senses of Meanings

The Corpus of Contemporary American English

Synonyms Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online
(COCA)

To make something better, or To become better To make better

Examples from Longman Corpus Examples from COCA

- A course for students wishing to improve their English - Plants can improve well-being at work
Improve
- The temporary company will help train employees to - The quality of thought can improve the quality of
improve their skills. life

To improve something (1) To make better (2) To increase

Examples Examples from COCA

from Longman Corpus
- People buy new cars to enhance their prestige.
Enhance - The publicity has enhanced his reputation.
- Salts enhance flavor, salts preserve foods from
- You can enhance the flavour of most dishes with the decay
careful use of herbs.
 Improve Top Enhance
4342 5.52 quality 1 973 4.90 performance
2884 3.62 health 2 772 4.61 ability

4.2 Noun Collocates

2667 4.74 performance 3 688 3.50 experience
1813 3.99 condition 4 670 5.31 learning
1690 4.23 skill 5 595 4.27 quality
1283 3.57 economy 6 511 4.11 skill
1151 6.01 efficiency 7 487 4.68 understanding
1109 3.51 ability 8 256 3.11 knowledge
1030 4.45 outcome 9 238 4.35 capacity
776 3.55 safety 10 230 5.71 effectiveness
45 Noun collocates were categorized into 8 642 3.29 score 11 227 3.38 safety
584 3.33 communication 12 218 5.24 efficiency
543 3.25 understanding 13 202 3.42 communication
different themes. 492
473
3.24
5.17
learning
accuracy
14
15
201
188
4.58
4.96
reputation
capability
462 5.33 productivity 16 167 4.87 flavor
• (1) Attributes and Qualities 377
361
3.71
4.73
achievement
effectiveness
17
18
167
156
5.49
3.00
productivity
status
351 3.19 teaching 19 148 3.39 instruction
• (2) Production and Result 342
335
3.00
3.72
instruction
mood
20
21
147
142
3.56
4.26
teaching
awareness
325 4.98 well-being 22 136 5.13 credibility

• (3) Ability 267

243
4.24
3.62
fitness
infrastructure
23
24
132
131
5.66
4.38
self-esteem
motivation
232 3.63 capability 25 119 3.52 potential
224 3.32 survival 26 118 5.10 well-being
• (4) Education 202 4.32 reliability 27 101 3.43 achievement
188 3.47 standing 28 93 3.57 curriculum
174 6.56 america 29 91 3.13 perception
• (5) Health and Well-being 161
159
3.63
4.43
literacy
comprehension
30
31
91
88
3.62
4.88
survival
logo
150 4.64 china 32 88 6.02 prestige
• (6) Senses of Feeling 146
127
4.32
4.35
circulation
posture
33
34
86
75
4.35
4.03
literacy
fitness
123 4.36 morale 35 72 4.91 comprehension

• (7) Image 105

98
5.08
3.15
competitiveness
nutrition
36
37
71
69
4.06
4.21
accuracy
creativity
98 3.63 self-esteem 38 68 4.36 appreciation
96 3.26 sensitivity 39 64 6.00 competitiveness
• (8) Economic and Political Issues 96 3.36 yield 40 52 3.19 satisfaction
94 3.67 governance 41 52 4.51 competence
93 5.37 profitability 42 51 5.04 enjoyment
91 3.11 ranking 43 46 3.81 reliability
81 4.71 fluency 44 45 3.00 standing
78 4.42 endurance 45 43 5.35 stature
Table 4.2.1 Attributes and Qualities

  Attributes and Qualities

  Improve Enhance
Shared quality
Collocates efficiency
 
effectiveness
 
Different Collocates accuracy credibility

• The category of attributes and qualities is concerned with a quality of feature that is considered to be good
or useful.

• The findings of improve and enhance in the context of attributes and quality are compared with the previous
study of synonymous verbs ruin, demolish, and destroy.
 Table 4.2.2 Production and Result

  Production and Result

  Improve Enhance
productivity
performance
Shared Collocates
communication
achievement
effort -
outcome -
Different Collocates
score -
infrastructure -
‘Performance’ can be referred to as an action of carrying out a task or function (production).

‘Achievement’ can be referred to as (result) gained by effort or hard work (production).

‘Infrastructure’ can refer to physical objects (results) produced by efforts of human (production).

• A discussion is made with the previous study of other synonyms cure and heal.
Table 4.2.3 Ability

  Ability

  Improve Enhance

ability

skill

Shared Collocates understanding

capability

literacy

Different Collocates - capacity

• This finding can be discussed with a study of synonymous verbs achieve, accomplish, and attain whereby
there are numbers of shared collocates and different collocates .

• A discussion suggests that improve and enhance can have different noun collocates despite the fact that
each noun collocate implies a sense of ability.
 Table 4.2.4 Education

  Education

  Improve Enhance

learning

Shared Collocates teaching

instruction

Different Collocates -

(learning) “Reasons online courses fail to improve student learning include lack of face-to-face
interactions with instructors and classmates”.

“Students often need both verbal and written feedback from instructors to enhance
learning”.
 Table 4.2.5 Health and Well-being

  Health and Well-being

  Improve Enhance

safety
Shared Collocates
well-being

health security

condition -
Different Collocates
situation -

fitness -

• This finding is in line with the previous study of fight and battle whereby there are shared noun collocates such as
infections, bacteria, virus, obesity, disease, cancer, and nausea.

• However, there are noun collocates that co-occur only with battle such as depression, diabetes, disorder, fatigue,
illness, injury, and weight.
Table 4.2.6 Senses and Feeling
  Senses and Feelings
  Improve Enhance
Shared Collocates -
mood experience
- flavor
- awareness
Different Collocates
- self-esteem
- motivation
- perception

• Enhance tends to co-occurs with noun collocates sharing a sense of happiness and pleassure.

• Enhance is also used with noun collocates with a sense of impression, and conveying thoughts

• Improve is more associated with emotions in the organization such as improve company morale.

• Whilst enhance denotes a sense of ‘increase’, improve doesn’t.

Table 4.2.7 Image
  Image

  Improve Enhance

Shared Collocates -

- reputation

- status
Different Collocates
- logo

- prestige

• This finding is discussed with a previous study of predict and forecast.

• Top noun collocates that co-occur with forecast are (1) storm, (2) temperature(s), (3) day(s), (4) earthquake, (5)
snow, (6) weather, (7) hurricane, (8) rain, and (9) growth.

• Whilst forecast is used more frequently than predict in the context of weather and disaster, enhance is more
preferred than improve in the category of image.
 Table 4.2.8 Economic and Political Issues
  Economic and political issues
  Improve Enhance
Shared Collocates -
economy -
relation -
Different Collocates
U.S. -
America  -

• This result is discussed with the previous study of fight and battle whereby fight tends to collocate with country
such as America and China.

• The finding is also compared with the previous study of ruin, demolish, and destroy in which destroy co-occurs
with noun colloates such as weapons, country, government, and Iraq.

• A certain synonym is particularly used in the context economic and political factors that deal with certain
country and government.
4.3 Degrees of Formality

Table 4.4 Overall frequency and distribution of improve and enhance across eight genres.

Im pro ve Enha nc e
G e n re Fre q u e n c y Pe r Millio n G e n re Fre q u e n c y Pe r Millio n
Ac a d e m ic te xts 15,835 132.19 Ac a d e m ic te xts 7,513 62.72
Ma g a zin e s 9,640 76.45 Ma g a zin e s 2,679 21.25
Blo g 9,340 72.62 We b 2,012 16.19
We b 9,027 72.65 Blo g 1,700 13.22
Ne w s 8,630 70.89 Ne w s 1,391 11.43
Sp o ke n 3,808 30.19 Sp o ke n 604 4.79
Fic tio n 1093 9.24 TV a n d Mo vie s 351 2.74
TV a n d Mo vie s 1,013 7.91 Fic tio n 219 1.85
All 58,386 All 16,469
4.3 Degrees of Formality (Discussions)

• The finding is similar with the previous study of consequene, result, and outcome whereby two findings are
found similar in terms of high degrees of formality.

• The finding of Improve and Enhance is inconsistent with the previous study of reduce, decrease, diminish,
dwindle and decline whereby each of five synonymous verbs has different degrees of formality.

• The finding is also discussed based on the framework of noun collocates with a previous study of ruin,
demolish, and destroy, and also with a previous study of fight and battle.

• A discussion can also be made with the framework of shared contexts and different contexts of the synonyms.
 Chapter 5 Conclusions
This chapter presents (5.1) Summary of the study, (5.2) Summary of findings, (5.3) conclusions (5.4)
recommendations for further research.

5.3.1 Although improve and enhance share the same core meanings in a sense of ‘making something better’,
enhance also denotes sense of ‘increasing’. Different meanings lead the synonyms to co-occur with different
noun collocates.

5.3.2 Improve and enhance co-occur with common noun collocates and different noun collocates. However, each
synonymous verb shows preference for particular noun collocates.

5.3.3 Improve and enhance can be used in many shared contexts. However, there is a certain context where improve
is preferred, and a particular context where enhance shows preference.

5.3.4 Improve and enhance have high degrees of formality. However, enhance tends to be used frequently
especially in more formal contexts.