이분법적 대립과 ‘오염’관련 어휘의 구분: CONTAMINATION vs. POLLUTION

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to distinguish a pair of near-synonyms such as CONTAMINATION and POLLUTION using the “Binary Opposition Approach” proposed by Kim (2014). Near-synonyms seem very confusing to non-native speakers of English choosing an appropriate word in a given context. This study shows that these two synonyms can be distinguished by BO features like [process vs. result], [harm vs. no harm], [natural vs. artificial], [controllable vs. uncontrollable], [interior vs. exterior] and [victim vs. attacker]. The first two features play a major role in distinguishing the usage of the two synonyms and the rest features have a minor role in using an appropriate word of the two words depending on the context they are used in. The near-synonyms can be distinguished by one feature in some contexts but by more than one feature in other contexts.