33 the collocations of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
. The result of the test shows that lower and higher learners are still confused about the use of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
. In conclusion, the understanding of syntactic and lexical collocations of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
of learners in general is the same. The second study is conducted by
Kayaoğlu 2013. Kayaoğlu 2013 uses COCA to conduct his study. He examines the feasibility of using a corpus to help
students differentiate between close synonyms which have similar meanings but cannot be substituted one for another
Kayaoğlu, 2013. He employs t-test analysis to find the results of the study. He lists
reject
as the close synonym of
refuse
besides
deny
,
decline
, and
rebuff
. Kayaoğlu 2013 gives a vocabularies test
about close synonyms for English learners. His study shows that the use of a corpus for deciding on close synonyms proved to be very effective. It is because
there is a statistically significant different result between the pre-test and the post- test.
In the research er’s batch, there are four other researchers who conduct
corpus study. The first researcher is Samodra 2014. She examines the modal
shall
in two registers. The second researcher is Krismaheryanti 2014. She studies collocation patterns of the words
pupil
and
student
which convey their meanings. The third researcher is Duanaya 2014, in process, who investigates
the syntactic patterns of the synonymous conjunctions,
since
and
because
. The last researcher is Riski 2014, in process, who studies the collocations of the
verbs
suggest
and
advice
. Having same basic idea, the researcher shares the references and knowledge through doing the study.
34
B. Theoretical Framework
In order to conduct the study, the researcher should look for some theories
which settle appropriately with the topic of the study. The theoretical framework summarizes and synthesizes the relevant theories explained above. In this section,
the researcher relates the study matter to the theories. In order to answer the research problems, the researcher implements the
theories which are appropriate with the topic of this study. The theory of frequency is employed to answer the first research question. The frequencies of
refuse
and
reject
will be analyzed to know the use of them. COCA, as the source of the data, shares the frequencies of the occurrences of the synonymous words.
The clear numbers of occurrences given by COCA will facilitate to understand more about the use of the verbs. COCA as a subsequent source has enabled the
automatic measurement
of statistically
significant co-occurrences
“Collocations”. Knowing the frequency of the occurrence of the synonymous words, inform which verb is common used in the daily life context.
The second research question deals with the collocations of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
. The researcher takes theory of word classes which contains verb as the aspect deliberated. The words
refuse
and
reject
themselves have some senses according to word classes. They can be a noun and a verb. In this study,
refuse
and
reject
refer to the word class verb, which indicates actions or something to do by subjects. Each verb has certain meanings which describe the
use of it in the language.
35 According to theory of meanings,
refuse
and
reject
can be examined using collocative meaning and denotative meaning. Collocative meaning underlies the
analysis of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
. To obtain rich interpretation of the use of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
, it is given the definitions of each verb. They will support the discussion in this study. The dictionaries mention that
refuse
and
reject
are counted as synonyms that share similar ideas of the senses. Denotative meaning is used to distinguish the definition of the synonymous words.
O’Grady,
et al
. 2010 say that denotative meaning is one of the parts of semantics study which endeavors to equate the meaning of a word or a phrase with the units to
which it refers. However, the similar words are not able to substitute one to another. Thus, this study takes theory of synonyms which gives a clear description
of the synonym degree of
refuse
and
reject
. The analysis of the verbs is employed by corpus linguistics approach,
especially semantics, which refers to “an approach to studying language in which
observational data from large text collections are used as the main evidence for the uses and the meaning of words and phrases” Stubbs, 2001, p.23. Therefore,
this study needs a corpus which provides the data of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
. The tokens of the verbs
refuse
and
reject
are obtained from COCA that offers some options to the study matter. The tokens will show the occurrences of the
combination of words McEnery Wilson, 2001. Combination of words signifies the collocation of the synonymous verbs. To investigate the senses of
words, it can be looked at their collocates collocation Biber,
et al
., 2002. They add that
“there is a strong tendency for each collocate of a word to be associated
