A corpus-based analysis of English synonyms: benefit and advantage

This corpus-based analysis aims to investigate the differences and similarities of the synonyms ‘benefit’ and ‘advantage’ in terms of meanings, genres, collocations, and their semantic preferences. The data for this study was taken from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results showed that they can have the same sense and different senses of meanings and can be differentiated in terms of their usages across various genres. The results showed the synonym ‘benefit’ is used in academic contexts, while the synonym ‘advantage’ is preferable to be used in general contexts. Both synonyms are used differently in terms of collocation. The findings showed that the collocates with two target synonyms occur in similar semantic preferences and sometimes differ in their use in specific situations. The knowledge about genre and collocations can lead to opportunities to improve the use of synonyms and the teaching of synonyms is recommended.