earticle

영어

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the differences in use and meaning of the English synonymous adjectives firm and solid through COCA, and to explore Korean high school students’ knowledge of ‘firm/solid+noun’ collocations. The main findings of the study are as follows. First, Some nouns can be used with both firm and solid(firm/solid ground), while others can be used only with one of them(firm/*solid voice). Second, when they are used with nouns, their meaning is more intricate and subtle than we thought. They sometimes are used in the same meaning(firm/solid ground), and sometimes they have a very different meaning even when they are used with the same noun(firm/solid line) Third, the total average score of the ‘firm/solid+noun’ collocations is as low as 48.5%. Fourth, an interesting result of the study is that Korean learners of English make the faulty generalization that solid is only used with nouns which refer to inanimate objects. All these results suggest that EFL learners should study English with a focus combined words, rather than individual words.