Lire Journal (Journal of Linguistics and Literature)
Vol. 10 No. 1 (2026): In Progress

DECODING SUBTLE DIFFERENCES: THE SEMANTIC AND COLLOCATIONAL PATTERNS OF CLEVER AND INTELLIGENT

Larasanti, Fadhilah (Unknown)
Nuriah, Zahroh (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
26 Feb 2026

Abstract

This study investigates collocational patterns of the words clever and intelligent in English. This study was explored through a qualitative approach. Data from the British National Corpus (BNC) was analyzed using the UCREL Semantic Analysis System (USAS) to identify semantic categories and collocations relationships. The results revealed that clever and intelligent share a high degree of semantic preference similarity, with 16 out of 20 semantic categories overlapping, representing an 80% similarity in meaning domains. However, the remaining four categories were used by only one of the words, which shows that each word also has its own specific areas of use. In addition, from 311 total collocates found in the corpus, only 30 were used by both clever and intelligent. These findings suggest that while clever and intelligent are close synonyms sharing broad semantic preferences, the two are not completely interchangeable.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

elit

Publisher

Subject

Arts Humanities Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

Lire Journal (Journal of Linguistics and Literature) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published biannually by the English Department, Universitas Bangka Belitung, Indonesia. The journal aims to provide a platform for high-quality research in linguistics, literature, and cultural studies, ...