Linguistic for ELT 2 (SEMANTICS)

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.

Reference

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