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ERIC Number: EJ1381012
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2630-0672
EISSN: EISSN-2672-9431
A Comparison of 'Little' and 'Small' in English and Thai: A Corpus-Based Study
Aroonmanakun, Vilaivan; Aroonmanakun, Wirote
LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, v16 n1 p296-319 Jan-Jun 2023
This paper studies the two English synonymous words "little" and "small," and their Thai equivalents n??j4 and lek4. In addition to monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, British National Corpus, Thai National Corpus and an English-Thai parallel corpus were used in this study. It is found that "little" and "small" and their Thai equivalents are not precisely identical in meaning. In addition, there are some meanings that can apply to all these four English-Thai synonymous words. Therefore, a Thai learner of English may not be able to simply equate the use of "little" and "small" with n??j4 and lek4, and vice versa. Moreover, it is also found that "little" and "small" can be translated into Thai with some other words rather than n??j4 and lek4. This indicates the complexity of meaning in which "little" and "small" can connect to other related meanings and be translated into Thai with other words. This study suggests that information provided in dictionaries alone is not sufficient. Learners should learn how to use corpora as a resource to enhance their lexical knowledge in both languages.
Language Institute of Thammasat University. The Prachan Campus, 2 Prachan Road, Bangkok 10200 Thailand. e-mail: learnjournal@gmail.com; Web site: https://www.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/learn
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom; Thailand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A