Do we Find Absolute Synonymy in the English Language? - An Analysis of Internet-Texts Dealing with the 11th September 2001

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2+ (B), Martin Luther University (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), course: Proseminar, language: English, abstract: This term paper on synonymy has the aim to answer one certain question: Do we

find absolute or strict synonymy in the English language? Unfortunately, there is

not enough working time to have a look at the whole language or at least a large

part of it. Therefore, I decided to choose several texts dealing with the same topic,

which precisely is the 11th September 2001 (the terror attacks against the United

States of America). This seems to be a good basis for finding a lot of synonyms or

synonymous expressions.

The working process is structured as follows: First, it is necessary to define the

term ¿synonymy¿ because there are two different opinions about it. On the one

hand, some linguists are convinced that there is no total synonymy at all and on

the other hand, another group of linguists states that such a kind of synonymy

exists but it occurs only rarely. A further look on those definitions will provide a

clearer distinction.

Then the main work has to be done. There are many texts available, which will

serve to find a satisfying answer to the stated question. These texts, which I found

in the Internet, are from daily American and British newspapers, speeches of

politicians, eyewitness reports, TV reports, political magazines and private

Internet discussions. Certainly, these texts and articles contain a lot of material to

work with.

Finally, the last part of the termpaper will represent the results of this process ¿

the justification of total synonymy or its rejection. [...]