Chapter 4. Collocation Network Analysis of Near-synonyms
4.1 Meaning Differences
Vessel usually refers to a container with a cavity. The main task of vessel is usually carrying goods or people. It can be preceded by a noun to indicate its function, as in merchant vessel, passenger vessel, or whaling vessel. In modern English, it can also refer to spacecraft or seaplane. People usually use the feminine words like she or her to refer to the ship. In literature, ship is poetic and full of emotions, while vessel does not entail this colorization. In the poem O Captain, My Captain written by Walt Whitman, the first two lines are “O Captain! My Captain!
Our fearful trip is done. This ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won...” Obviously, the poet took the United States as the ship, with President Lincoln as the captain to lead the USA through fierce currents and horrible waves.
Of course, there are also other types of water transportation carriers such as boat, canoe, yacht, cruiser, raft, freighter, liner, tanker, container, etc. They can usually be distinguished by their functions; therefore, I do not consider these terms as near- synonyms in this thesis.
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In the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (Hornby, 2002, p.
1389, 1687), although originating from different words, ship and vessel are used exchangeably to define each other. Ship is defined as “a large vessel for carrying people or goods by sea”, originating in the 1300s, from Old English scipian.
Whereas originating in the 1300s, from Modern French vaisseau and from Late Latin vascellum, vessel is defined as “a ship or boat, esp. a large one”. Therefore, it is very hard for language learners to understand the differences of the two words from the dictionary.
4.1.2 Maritime vs. Marine
The near-synonyms maritime and marine were selected because these words are ambiguous in terms of pedagogical aspects for English learners of L2 to study their appropriate usages. Marine is usually used to talk about something that is directly connected to the sea and sea transport or is encountered at sea. For example, marine plants, marine animals, marine life, marine traffic, marine engineer, marine product, marine pollution, etc. Maritime is chosen when we talk about human activity at sea, such as maritime insurance (for ships and cargo transported by sea), maritime town (built on the coast of a sea), maritime museum (contains exhibits connected with the sea), etc.
In addition, most dictionaries define maritime and marine almost in the similar words. In the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (Hornby,
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2002, p. 906), although originating from different words, maritime and marine are used exchangeably to define each other. Maritime is defined as “of the sea, sailing or shipping”, originating in the mid-16th Century from Latin maritimus. Whereas originating in the mid-1660s, from Old French marin / marine, and from Latin marinus, marine is defined as “of, near, found in or produced by the sea.”
Therefore, it is very hard for language learners to understand the differences of the two words from the dictionary.
4.1.3 Sea vs. Ocean
In the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (Hornby, 2002, p.
1013, 1351), sea is used to define the ocean. Sea is defined as “the salt water that covers most of the earth’s surface and encloses its continents and islands”, originating in the early 1440, from Proto-Germanic saiwaz. Whereas originating in the late 13th Century, from Old French occean, ocean is defined as “mass of salt water that covers most of the earth’s surface” Generally speaking, ocean is bigger while sea is smaller. There are four oceans in the world, namely, the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Arctic Ocean. But those areas close to the coast are usually called sea such as Yellow Sea, Sea of Japan, etc. However, when it comes to the collocates of these two near-synonyms — whether it is the sea culture or ocean culture or whether it is sea exploration or ocean exploration — people are not clear about it. Therefore, it is very important to see how these two near-
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4.1.4 Safety vs. Security
From the linguistic aspect, safety and security are not clearly distinguished internationally. Some languages have one single word for both safety and security.
This is the case in German (sicherheit), Norwegian (sikkerhet) Spanish (seguridad), Portuguese (segu-rança), Swedish (säkerhet) and Danish (sikkerhed).
Some other languages, however, have corresponding different words for safety and security. Such cases are English (safety vs. security), French (sûreté vs. sécurité), Chinese (安全 vs. 安保/保安) and Korean (안전 vs.안보/보안).
In the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (Hornby, 2002, p.
1324, 1357), although originating from different words, safety and security are used exchangeably to define each other. Safety is defined as “being safe, not being dangerous or in danger”, originating in the early 14th Century, from Old French sauvete, and from Medieval Latin salvitatem (nominative salvitas). To the contrary, originating in the mid-15th Century, from Latin securitas, security is defined as
“freedom or protection from danger or worry”. Therefore, it is very hard for language learners to understand the differences of the two words from the dictionary.
Because of the importance of the safety and security issue, many researchers have developed theories and methods to distinguish them, mainly in industry and
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the information field. Burns, McDermid, and Dobson (1992) considered the distinction in terms of the differences in causal structure and in the degree of harm caused. According to them, a safety-critical system is one whose failure could be sufficient to cause absolute harm, while a security-critical system is one whose failure could not be sufficient to cause harm, but could increase the number of possibilities, or likelihood of existing possibilities, for others to intentionally cause relative harm. Dutertre and Stavridou (1998) suggested promising lines of research in the intersection of safety and security, in the application of security concepts and models to different classes of safety or fault-tolerance properties, and in the theory and practice of fault tolerant system applied to intrusion tolerance. Albrechtsen (2002) compared the differences between industrial safety and information security, concluding that the basic ideas of industrial safety and security are the same, both of which are protecting assets from danger, creating safe / secure conditions with only some nuances from the aspects of traditions, causes, threats / hazards, loss, surroundings and uncertainty. Piètre-Cambacédès and Chaudet (2010) proposed a SEMA referential framework that makes the latent differences underlying the use of the terms security and safety explicit. They argued that on one hand, security is concerned with the risks originating from the environment and potentially impacting the system, whereas safety deals with the risks arising from the system and potentially impacting the environment (i.e., a system vs.
environment distinction). On the other hand, security typically addresses malicious risks while safety addresses purely accidental risks (a malicious vs. accidental
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distinction). Boholm, Möller, & Hansson (2015) analyzed the concepts of risk, safety, and security, as well as their relation, based on empirical observation of their actual everyday use. However, these analyses are based on the information and industry field and whether these theories are applicable to the maritime field is worth further discussion.
4.1.5 Port vs. Harbor
Many words are used to designate the meaning of the place where ships or vessels rest when they are close to the coast. In the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (Hornby, 2002, p. 677, 1142), port originates from Latin portus, and is defined as “(i) a town or city with a harbor, (ii) a harbor.” In the premises of a modern port you will usually find a lot of stacked shipping containers as well as lined up cranes. Originating in the Early 12th Century, from Middle English herberwe, harbor (harbour in BrE) is defined as “a place of shelter for ships.” Some harbors are considered natural because the “structures” that protect the coast are parts of their natural topography.