VietTESOL International Convention 2025

The diversity of vocabulary range is one of the most crucial sectors that English learners are seeking to increase their word capacity. There are several ways to extend the vocabulary range like reading or listening to different topics. Nonetheless, synonyms are used to paraphrase words and phrases in disparate ways. Thus, observing these realities, this study is conducted to investigate (1) students’ perceptions of absolute and incomplete synonyms, and (2) students’ absolute and incomplete synonyms application in IELTS Writing Task 2. A mixed-method design is employed in this research. Quantitative data (questionnaires) ask (100) students about their understanding of absolute and incomplete synonyms whereas qualitative data concentrates on collecting students’ essays (56 samples) to figure out the frequency of synonym usage. The population is senior English-majored students in the School of Foreign Languages, Can Tho University. The first research findings reveals that students have defined absolute synonyms as “words or expressions have identical meanings and can replace each other in any context without changing the meaning of the sentence”; otherwise, incomplete synonyms can only be replaced with each other in some specific context, especially in “collocation”. Regarding the second finding, students frequently apply incomplete synonyms to their essays thanks to its variety and accessibility.