A Corpus-based Study on Confusable Words in the “Visiting” and “Calling” Word Category

Abstract

This paper comprehensively explores the similarities and differences between the words “看望” (kànwàng - visiting) and “访问” (fǎngwèn - calling) based on native speaker corpora. The study delves into semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic aspects. The research reveals that these words share semantic features such as [+written], [+respectful], [+meeting], [+conversation], [+inquiry], and [+visiting], positioning them within specific semantic fields. Semantic differences are not absolute; rather, they often involve overlapping nuances, manifesting in aspects such as subject-object, subject-object relationships, behaviors, locations of action, and duration of action. Grammatical differences are evident in parts of speech, collocations when serving as predicates, and functioning as other sentence components. Abundant corpus data indicate that “访问” is frequently used as a noun. These words are commonly employed in scenarios like business transactions, political diplomacy, cultural education, daily communication, legal contexts, holiday greetings, and public welfare, and may appear in the same context, though with differing semantic emphases. Drawing on ontology research, this paper compares and examines the misuses of these words in intermediate language corpora, revealing both one-to-one and one-to-many interword confusion relationships. Errors primarily involve unilateral misuse.