A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of the Verbs suggest, recommend and propose in the Corpus of COCA

Abstract

Synonym discrimination is one of the most challenging yet essential aspects of English language learning. Effective pedagogy enables learners to understand and appropriately use relevant synonym vocabulary. This study investigates the verbs of the English synonyms suggest, recommend, and propose through a corpus-based analysis of The Corpus of the Contemporary American English (COCA), analysed with AntConc version 3.2.4, a concordance software developed by Anthony (2014). It also explores their frequency of occurrence, distributions across registers, and common collocations of these verbs to highlight their semantic and pragmatic differences. The findings indicate that, across several registers, suggest is the most widely used verb, particularly in academic contexts. In contrast, "Recommend" occurs more commonly in evaluative and consultative discourse, especially in magazines and conversation. Propose is the most frequent in formal and scientific discourse, reflecting its role in presenting formal ideas or plans. The findings benefit students and teachers by clarifying subtle usage distinctions and supporting accurate synonym use in academic contexts. The analysis underscores the pedagogical value of corpus-based methods for exploring subtle distinctions in English vocabulary's subtle meanings and improving English language teaching.