Semantic Fields and Polysemy: A Correspondence Analysis Approach Semantic Fields Studying semantic fields or literary themes in texts quickly confronts the researcher with a paradox. A computer string search will produce a list of the frequencies of words potentially related to the semantic field. But polysemy--the fact that many words have multiple significations--means that there is an un-measured difference between the potential and the real allusions. The semantic field of "solitude" or "loneliness" is a …showed first 75 words of 1201 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1201 total…ve speaker informants. The results reported here illustrate the usefulness of correspondence analysis for interpreting complex data. They also suggest that a person with native-speaker ability in a language, even an originally English-speaking graduate student in French, will produce about the same results as a professor of French literature. It would seem then that the use of informants for studying semantic fields, or literary themes, is a justifiable enterprise from the statistical perspective.