In the following extract an irritated producer is talking to an ambitious young actor:

"Think you can play Romeo? Romeo should smile, not grin, walk, not swagger, speak his lines, not mumble them."

(Ibid.)

Here the second synonym in each pair is quite obvi­ously and intentionally contrasted and opposed to the first: "... smile, not grin." Yet, to grin means more or less the same as to smile, only, perhaps, denoting a broader and a rather foolish smile. In the same way to swagger means "to walk", but to walk in a defiant or insolent manner. Mumbling is also a way of speaking, but of speaking indistinctly or unintelligibly.

Synonyms are one of the language's most important expressive means. The above examples convincingly demonstrate that the principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different as­pects, shades and variations.

And here is an example of how a great writer may use synonyms for stylistic purposes. In this extract from Death of a Hero R. Aldington describes a group of survivors painfully retreating after a defeat in bat­tle:

"... The Frontshires [name of battalion] staggered rather than walked down the bumpy trench ... About fifty men, the flotsam of the wrecked battalion, stumbled past them .... They shambled heavily along, not keeping step or attempting to, bent wearily for­ward under the weight of their equipment, their un­seeing eyes turned to the muddy ground."

In this extract the verb to walk is used with its three synonyms, each of which describes the process of walking in its own way. In contrast to walk the other three words do not merely convey the bare idea of go­ing on foot but connote the manner of walking as well. Stagger means "to sway while walking" and, also, im­plies a considerable, sometimes painful, effort. Stum­ble, means "to walk tripping over uneven ground and nearly falling." Shamble implies dragging one's feet while walking; a physical effort is also connoted by the word.

The use of all these synonyms in the extract creates a vivid picture of exhausted, broken men marching from the battle-field and enhances the general atmo­sphere of defeat and hopelessness.

A carefully chosen word from a group of synonyms is a great asset not only on the printed page but also in a speaker's utterance. It was Mark Twain who said that the difference between the right word and just the right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.

The skill to choose the most suitable word in every context and every situation is an essential part of the language learning process. Students should be taught both to discern the various connotations in the mean­ings of synonyms and to choose the word appropriate to each context.

Criteria of Synonymy

Synonymy is associated with some theoretical prob­lems which at present are still an object of controver­sy. Probably, the most controversial among these is the problem of criteria of synonymy. To put it in sim­pler words, we are still not certain which words should correctly be considered as synonyms, nor are we agreed as to the characteristic features which qualify two or more words as synonyms.

Traditional linguistics solved this problem with the conceptual criterion and defined synonyms as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics.

Some aspects of this definition have been criticized. It has been pointed out that linguistic phenomena should be defined in linguistic terms and that the use of the term concept makes this an extralinguistic definition. The term "shades of meaning" has been condemned for its vagueness and lack of precision.

In contemporary research on synonymy semantic criterion is frequently used. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation, or the sarae denotative component, but differing in connotations, or in connotative com­ponents (see Ch. 7).

Though not beyond criticism, this approach has its advantages and suggests certain new methods of anal­ysing synonyms.

A group of synonyms may be studied with the help of their dictionary definitions (definitional analysis). In this work the data from various dictionaries are analysed comparatively. After that the definitions are subjected to transformational operations (transforma­tional analysis). In this way, the semantic components of each analysed word are singled out.

Here are the results of the definitional and trans­formational analysis of some of the numerous syn­onyms for the verb to look.

Connotations

steadily, lastingly

to stare:

steadily, lastingly

to glare:

steadily, lastingly

to gaze:

briefly,in passing

to glance:

to peer:

steadily, lastingly

steadily, lastingly

to peer:

+

+

+

+