A corpus-based analysis of English synonymous verbs: say and mention

This research examined the similarities and differences of the two synonyms, say and mention, using the criteria of meanings, collocation items, grammatical forms, and formality of the contexts. The data was derived from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and the British National Corpus (BNC), with 300 concordance lines. The results suggest that the two synonyms, say and mention, shared the same definitions and are loose synonyms (Jackson & Amvela, 2000). The verbs are used in different contexts in terms of collocations, grammatical forms, and formality. Moreover, the BNC gave more information on collocations and formality than the COCA. It was concluded that the two terms, say and mention, cannot be replaceable in all contexts.