A Picture Comparison Interactive Medium SMA Negeri 7 Yogyakarta

10 can be intersubstituted. According to Lyons 1995, p. 61, two or more expressions can be called as absolute-synonyms if all of their meanings are identical. Further, they should be synonymous in all contexts and semantically equivalent on all dimension of meaning. Seeing those conditions, it can be inferred that the existence of absolute synonyms is extremely rare. Another kind of synonyms is near-synonyms. Lyons 1995, p. 60 defines near-synony ms as “the expressions that are more or less similar, but not identical in meaning”. This definition is same as what Inkpen 2007, p. 2 explains, “near- synonyms have the senses that are very close each other, they may occur in similar contexts; therefore, we should capture the subtle differences of each near- synonym”. In other words, even the near-synonyms have similar meanings; they cannot be intersubstituted as they have their own certain context to be used. The examples of the words that can be considered to be near-synonyms are soft and smooth. The two words would be generally regarded as synonymous. However, the two words are not synonymous in meaning. There are subtle differences between those two words in which they have their own context to use. For example, some people may be confused to decide which sentence is correct between My aunt has very long smooth hair and My aunt has very long soft hair. They may think that both the sentences are correct grammatically and semantically. In fact, as what is explained in the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2008, the second sentence is incorrect since the use of the word soft is less appropriate in the sentence. The adjective word soft refers to things which are not hard or rough and feel pleasant to touch. Different from the word soft, the 11 word smooth can be used for the noun hair because this adjective refers to the things which have a surface that is perfectly regular without any holes or lumps. Thus, choosing a wrong word in a sentence may bring any problem in conveying any certain meaning of the sentence. In conclusion, understanding how to differentiate and apply near-synonyms in the right context should be taken into account in order to successfully deliver the meaning of any sentences.

2.1.3 A Picture Comparison Interactive Medium

It is needed to know the explanation of the medium which is proposed by the researcher. This section will discuss the medium, namely a picture comparison interactive medium. The explanation consists of what a picture comparison interactive medium is and why a picture comparison interactive medium is used. 2.1.3.1 What is a Picture Comparison Interactive Medium? In mastering English vocabularies, there are many difficulties that may be faced by students. Seeing that problem, the researcher proposes a learning aid which is named a picture comparison interactive medium to assist students’ vocabulary learning. The researcher expects that the implementation of the learning aid can help students to tackle their problems related to vocabulary learning especially in near-synonyms and improve their vocabulary mastery. As explained before, the medium provides explanations of near-synonyms in two modes which are verbal and nonverbal information. As the verbal explanation, there are captions explaining the lexical category of the words, context when the words should be applied, and examples of the sentences using the words, whereas the nonverbal information is presented through illustrations of