Very vs really: a corpus-based study of synonymous intensifiers in TED-Talks

The corpus-based study compared and contrasted the similarities and differences between the synonymous intensifiers "very" and "really" in TED Talks on the topic of communication. This investigation employs a corpus-based approach. The data for the DIY TED Talks corpus was extracted from the transcripts of TED Talks on the topic of communication. The analysis revealed that "very" and "really", in general, have the same meaning but differ marginally in terms of frequency, collocations, and grammatical patterns within the DIY TED Talks corpus. Despite the fact that these terms are considered synonymous words, the results indicated that they are not always used interchangeably in terms of their collocations and grammatical patterns. This study demonstrates the utility of corpora for language study focusing on the use of intensifiers, which ultimately students can benefit from using corpus data to identify effective vocabulary through applying corpus data examples. The sample classroom instruction can also benefit educators by identifying intensifiers and providing examples of their use as a framework for designing pedagogical approaches, and pragmatic educational materials.