KEY TERM!
SEMANTIC / LEXICAL FIELD

One way of analysing a text is by grouping its important words according to their field of meaning. Words that are linked by meaning are said to share a similar semantic field (sometimes called lexical field). An example is to think of how a football match is described using words such as 'defence', 'attack', 'shoot' and so on - all of these words are taken not from the semantic field of sport, but from the semantic field of war. They are, therefore, metaphors.