The Understanding of Synonymy in Students’ Reading
Comprehension
By:
Meiva Mutia
Rahmi
Abstract
Semantic
relation and the lexicon explore many paradigmatic semantic relations between
words such as synonym, antonym and hyponym. The understanding of semantic as
the study of how languages organize and express meaning is useful in reading
activity, in comprehending the text that being read deals with how the reader
can relate each line that they read to get clear understanding and it begins
with the understanding of words. One of lexical relation that mostly appears in
the text is the synonym which understood as the word identical in meaning that
can help the reader in comprehend the text, especially students. This paper
deals with the brief overview about the importance of synonym on students’
reading comprehension. With clear understanding about the synonym that may
appear in the text, consequently the students are able to comprehend the text
more clearly.
Key Words: Synonym,
reading, reading comprehension, model of reading comprehension, EFL students.
1.
Introduction
Linguistic
theories which include the study of meaning or known as semantic has progressed
in modeling human language ability (Lynne, 2003:3). The knowledge of the word
and knowing the relation between them is important in order to ensure about the
message that we hear or read. One of lexical relation that needed to understand
in order to know the relation of the words is the similarity of meaning, which
is also known as synonym. According to Lyons in Dangli, Leonard and Abazaj,
Griselda (2009:25) the expression with the same meaning are synonymous.
Furthermore Cruse (1986:88) defined synonym as the lexical relation that
parallels identity in the membership of two classes. That is to say, two words
or expressions are synonyms if they have the same or nearly the same meaning. The place of synonym of the words in helping
the students to comprehend the text can be seen in the text order, where the writer
usually uses different word to deliver their idea, but actually it has same
meaning, it is aimed to avoid their writing become boring and makes it more
interesting. As we know that message can be gotten through listening and
reading, reading especially for EFL learners plays an essential role for
students’ academic or even their personal life. As explained by Sadeghi, Kasim,
Tan and Abdullah (2012:119) reading comprehension is defined as the process of
unlocking meaning from connected text and it becomes a great source of
knowledge has been one of the important parts in second/foreign language tests
and examinations; it plays a basic role in the educational and professional
life of many students. Thus, the knowledge of words relation is important in comprehending
the text that being read, in this case is the importance of synonym in helping
students to comprehend the text.
This paper
explores an overview of the importance of synonym as one of lexical relation on
developing students’ reading comprehension. It focuses on four points, first it
discuss what the synonym is and its place in building meaning, second it
reviews the kinds of synonym, third definition of reading comprehension and
different models of reading comprehension are reviewed and the last about the
relation of synonym in building students comprehension while reading.
2.
Synonym
and Kinds of Synonym
Generally,
synonymy can be understood as word identical in their meaning, as stated by
Lyons in Danglli, Leonard & Abazaj, Griselda (2009) that expression with
the same meaning are synonymous. it is also known as the type of paradigmatic
relations and seen as sameness of meaning. Thus, synonym is an instance of
mutual entailment and synonym are instance of mutual hyponym. Synonym can be
noun, adverb, adjective or verbs. There are several sub topics that relate to
the term synonymy, they are propositional synonymy, cognitive synonymy,
absolute synonymy, near synonymy and plesynonymy.
3.1 Propositional Synonymy
Cruse (2000:158)
defines propositional synonymy as in terms of entailment, if two lexical items
are propositional synonymous, they can be substituted in any expression with
truth-conditional properties without effect on those properties.
3.2 Cognitive Synonymy
Cognitive
synonymy is the identity of cognitive (descriptive) meaning and it is also
known as descriptive synonymy, propositional synonymy or referential synonymy.
Cognitive synonymy is sometimes described as incomplete synonymy or non
absolute or partial synonymy (Lyons in Maja, 2009). Furthermore, he explained
that there are two definitions of cognitive synonymy and both of them should be
equally taken into account, (1) Cognitive synonyms imply sentences with
equivalent truth-conditions and propositions which are mutually entailing. This
is a semantic or logical definition of synonymy and (2) Cognitive synonyms are
described as words with the same cognitive meaning and as words with the same
sense. Therefore, cognitive synonymy is
regarded as a sense relation. Moreover, this type of synonymy is concerned with
sameness or identity, not similarity of meaning.
3.3 Absolute Synonym
Absolute synonymy is set as the complete identity of all
meanings of two or more lexemes in all contexts. Ullman in Danglli, Leonard & Abazaj,
Griselda (2009:65) claims that absolute synonyms are those words which totally
substitute each other in every context without any alteration in the notional
and emotional meaning, furthermore he explains that absolute synonyms, although
rare, are present under the conditions; (1) when they are interchangeable in all
contexts, (2) when their cognitive and affective value is preserved.
According to
Lyons in Danglli, Leonard & Abazaj, Griselda (2009:65) two (or more)
synonymous expressions are absolute synonyms if they fulfill the three
conditions; (1) all their meanings are identical, (2) they are synonymous in
all context and (3) they are semantically equivalent (i.e. their meaning or
meanings are identical) in all the dimensions of meaning, both the descriptive
and the non-descriptive one.
3.4 Near Synonymy
Near-synonyms are lexemes whose meaning is relatively close or
more or less similar (Maja, 2009:195) for instance mist/fog, stream/brook, dive/plunge.
However, the given definition of
near-synonymy is vague, because there isn't a precise correlation between
synonymy and semantic similarity. Near-synonymy is associated with overlapping
of meaning and senses. The senses of near synonyms overlap to a great degree,
but not completely. Moreover, unlike cognitive synonyms, near-synonyms can
contrast in certain contexts: He
was killed, but I can assure you he was NOT murdered, madam. (Cruse, 2000, 159)
3.5 Plesynonymy
Cruse (1986:285)
explains that plesynonyms are distinguished from cognitive synonymy by the fact
that they yield sentence with different truth-conditions; two sentence with
differ only in respect of plesynonym in parallel syntactic position are not
mutually entailing, although if the lexical items are in a hyponymous relation
there may well be unilateral.
3.
Reading
Comprehension and Models of Reading Comprehension
Reading
comprehension refers to the ability of readers to understand the surface and
the hidden meanings of the text. Reading comprehension is a complex process
involving a combination of text and readers. According to Ahmadi, Hairul, and
Pourhossein in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah (2013:238) state that there are
three key types of reading which are, accuracy (involves phonological and orthographic
processing), fluency (includes time), and comprehension. Furthermore they
explain that the purpose of reading comprehension is
to construct meaning from the contexts .Reading comprehension is a complex
cognitive ability providing the ability to integrate text information with the
background knowledge of the reader and resulting in the explanation of a mental
representation. So, reading comprehension is an interactive activity between
students and contexts; in the period of this interaction between students and
contexts, students utilize different experiences and knowledge which involve
language skills, cognitive information and world knowledge.
In reading
process, there are two categories involve (Smith & Dechant in Hamra and
Satriana, 2012:2): (1) reading as a process of decoding where students are
trained to pronounce the printed words, and (2) reading to find meaning where
the focus of reading is for comprehension (reading for comprehension).
Actually, there are different definitions of reading, most teachers agree that
the reading process involves; (1) letters and word recognition, (2)
comprehension of the texts, and (3) the comprehension integration from the new
texts to the readers own knowledge or comprehension to create other new information
(Hamra & Syatriana, 2012:2)). The purpose of reading is students interact
with the printed materials to get appropriate meaning. In this case, the
readers have to observe, interpret, and evaluate the printed pages. The process
of getting meaning may be different among readers because of the previous
knowledge and the purpose of reading the texts. Proses of reading involving
observation, prediction, interpretation, and evaluation happen quickly in the
readers’ mind to get meaning. The reading duration is not very important, but
the most important aspect is the active participation of the readers in getting
meaning from the text. To participate actively in the reading process (Lapp
& Flood in Hamra and Satriana, 2012:2) gave some suggestions, among others:
(1) knowledge and the implementation of the reading strategies, (2) purposes of
reading, (3) reading activities that can increase reading motivation and
interest of the students.
Furthermore
Hamra and Sayatriana (2012:2) elaborate that reading for comprehension involves
the relationship between meaning and word symbol, the choice of appropriate
meaning based on the context, the organization of meaning, and the ability to
give arguments and catch ideas. Reading which means comprehension is actually a
process of thinking to get appropriate meaning. The comprehension depends on
the basic cognitive knowledge, previous knowledge, vocabulary command,
knowledge of concepts, and language knowledge. There are three levels of comprehension;
they are (1) literal comprehension (reading on the lines), (2) inferential
comprehension (reading between the lines) and (3) critical comprehension
(reading beyond the lines). In literal comprehension the readers are expected
to express the core message of the text; some skills that are necessary for
this level include following directions, remembering facts, recognizing the
main ideas, and knowing the organization of the texts. In the inferential
level, readers are expected to integrate information and draw conclusion or
inference, and they need to know not only what the writers write but also what
they mean and in the critical comprehension the readers are expected to use the
current information to create new information or ideas (Hamra and Syatriana,
2012:2)
As reading
comprehension deals with understanding to what being read, the process of
reading falls into three main categories, they are; bottom up process, top-down
process and the last interactive models (Alsamadani, 2011: 184). Furthermore Ahmadi,
Ismail and Abdullah (2013:238) explain that three important models that should
be emphasized in the reading comprehension process. These models facilitate
reading comprehension and help readers to figure out texts and solve their
problems while reading. These three models are discussed in detail as follow;
4.1 The
Bottom-Up Model
The bottom-up
model focuses on the text, teachers, readers begin reading by understanding the
words, the letters and gradually improve toward larger linguistic chunks to
sentences, and actually ending in meaning Gough in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah (2013:239).
In this model, the whole reading process is based on the words and learners
construct meaning from context by recognizing each word. Individual words are
emphasized in this model in isolation and rapid word understanding is important
in the bottom-up model (vanDuzer in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah, 2013:239).
This model believes that readers who utilize this process quickly become
skilled readers. Moreover, readers who are successful at recognizing the words
become proficient readers whose proficiency is improved by their ability to
decode (Pressley in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah, 2013:239). Proficient decoders
are able to understand frequent letter chunks, prefixes, suffixes, and the
original words quickly. So, this ability can release more memory ability in the
brain for reading comprehension. On the other word, poor readers put more
attempt into recognizing text which leaves less processing ability in the brain
for reading comprehension (Ahmadi & pourhossein in Ahmadi, Ismail and
Abdullah, 2013:239).
4.2 The Top-Down
Model
The top-down
model refers to a “notion” driven model where the students’ prior information
and expectations help them to construct meaning from a reading text, Eskey in Ahmadi,
Ismail and Abdullah (2013:239) explains that the top-down model is based “from
brain to text” and focuses on the whole reading process. In this model a
learner begins with certain expectations about the reading context derived from
his/her prior information and then utilizes his/her word information they
possess in decoding vocabulary to confirm and modify previous expectations
(Aebersold and Field in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah, 2013:239). On the other
hand, contexts themselves have no meaning in the top-down reading model but
they are readers who construct the meaning of the texts by fitting them into
his/her background knowledge. However, the top-down reading model has been
criticized for its problem of over reliance on a reader’s background linguistic
and conceptual information and ignores the importance of the text. Moreover,
the top-down model overlooks the possible difficulties that a reader may have
or face with predicting the topic of text if the material is unfamiliar to
him/her. This is particularly true for second or foreign language learners. Up to
this point, both the bottom-up and the top-down models have been considered
inadequate in terms of explaining a sound reading process. For the bottom-up
model, it was criticized for its failure to consider the reader’s function in
the reading process, while the top-down model relies too much on the reader’s
background linguistic and conceptual knowledge and ignores the importance of
the text Thus, the inadequacy of both the bottom-up and top-down models in
interpreting the reading process has led to the emergence of the interactive reading
model (Ahmadi, Hairul, and Pourhossein, in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah,
2013:239)
4.3 The
Interactive Model
The interactive
model is defined as a combination of the both bottom-up and top-down models and
emphasizes the interrelationship between a reader and the text. Furthermore,
the interactive model suggests that there is an interaction between the
bottom-up and top-down processes and this model indicates that neither
bottom-up or top-down models can by themselves describe the whole reading
process. The interactive reading model refers to the reader that “takes into
account the critical contributions of both lower-level processing skill (word
identification) and higher-level comprehension and reasoning skills (text interpretation).”
So, reading comprehension is the result of meaning construction between the
reader and the text, rather than simple transmission of the graphic information
to the readers’ mind (Grabe in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah, 2013:240). The
purpose of this model stresses that a proficient reader simultaneously
synthesizes the information available to him or her from several knowledge
sources of either bottom-up or top-down in the period of reading process.
Additionally, Stanovich in Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah (2013:240) pointed out
that the view of “compensation” into the interactive model by proposing that bottom-up
and top-down processes compensate for each other in the reading process. On the
other hand, when a learner lacks the appropriate content schemata for a certain
text, he or she will rely on the bottom-up processes to compensate for the
necessary background information. The opposite could be true when a learner
lacks the bottom-up skills necessary to comprehend a text, he or she will
resort to high level processes. This phenomena explain for the process that
poor readers tend to resort to high level processes more often than skilled
readers given that the use of top-down processes seems to compensate for the
poor readers’ limited ability of bottom-up processes (Eskey and Stanovich in Ahmadi,
Ismail and Abdullah, 2013:240). However, the interactive model appears to be
the most promising in explaining the reading process. The model encompasses
different types of first-language and second-language reading, incorporates
both bottoms-up and top-down processes, and recognizes the contribution of both
the reader and the text (Grabe in Alsamadani, 2011:185). The interactive model
also recognizes reader variables such as background knowledge, prediction, and
other global reading processes, which are unaccounted for in bottom-up models
but accounted for in all aspects of in top-down reading models.
4.
Relation
of Synonym and Students’ Reading Comprehension
A commonly neglected skill in reading
is the identification of cohesive ties in texts (Garcia, 2008:69). Cohesion
that holds a text together is created through semantic connections between
words. These were classified by Halliday and Hasan in Gracia (2008: 69) as
reiteration and collocation. The first includes either the actual repetition of
the vocabulary item or the link with another word through lexical relations, which
comprise the concepts of synonymy.
As defined by Cruise (1986:88),
synonymy is “the lexical relation that parallels identity in the membership of
two classes.” That is to say, two words or expressions are synonyms if they
have the same or nearly the same meaning. An example from the
“environmentalists” text is the pair brutal and cruel, terms which describe the
killing. In the text, we can also find
expressions whose similarity in meaning is limited to that particular context.
For instance, in the extract the excitement of the crowd turns the kill into a
carnival, the underlined terms are equivalent in meaning. However, when asked
for a synonym of kill, no speaker would produce the term carnival. This
semantic bond not only illustrates the instantial relation of equivalence, but
also indicates the strong disagreement of the environmentalists with the grind,
since it is culturally unacceptable to associate death with celebration.
Considering
the idea of the writer in their writing should be cohesive, coherence and also
the choice of word sometimes use different form but still it the identical
meaning, the knowledge about the lexical relation such as synonym is need to be
put in account. It is very useful for the EFL learner in reading process, especially
through bottom-up process where the learner begins their reading activity with
their knowledge about the word. In understanding a text, basically begin with
word, after that come to sentence, paragraph and then the whole text. The
comprehending about the whole text can be separated with the way of the reader
in relate each line in meaning. So that’s they can understand the content of
the text clearly.
5.
Conclusion
Reading
comprehension can be one of the most important parts for a language learner to
master and one of the least favorite topics for teachers to address in the
classroom. But most of the students have difficulty with constructing meaning
from the written texts. By considering the role of semantic in building
meaning, synonym as one of lexical relation is needed in understanding the word
meaning. The knowledge about words in really important for EFL learner in
reading activity, whereas it will ease them to relate the context and the
meaning as well, the use of synonym in comprehension a text that being read
needs to be considered because, reading the printed page mean the reader has to
understand what the writer means by their word, she/he will construct the
coherence, cohesion idea through their writing by considering the choice of
word to make it more interesting and avoid it in becoming boring for the reader,
sometimes they use the synonym to deliver identical idea in their line but
using two different word which has same meaning. So, in conclusion, semantic as
the study of meaning which has part, synonym, has certain role in developing
students; reading comprehension, especially English for Foreign Language
Learner.
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