Semantic domain

In linguistics, the term semantic domain refers to an abstract space containing all the 'meanings' of every term in a language. Since multiple words can have the same meaning, the semantic domain can also be thought of as grouping the terms based on meaning. Harriet Ottenheimer (2006), a writer in Linguistic Anthropology, defines a semantic domain as a “specific area of cultural emphasis”.^[1]

In lexicography a semantic domain or semantic field is defined as "an area of meaning and the words used to talk about it ... For instance English has a domain ‘Rain’, which includes words such as rain, drizzle, downpour, raindrop, puddle.".^[2] Semantic domains are the foundational concept for initial stages of vernacular dictionary building projects.^[3] This uses techniques such as SIL International's Dictionary Development Process (DDP),^[4][5] RapidWords, or software such as WeSay^[6] or FLEx. These techniques rely on extensive lists of semantic domains that are relevant to vernacular languages.^[7][8]

In the social sciences, the concept of semantic domains stemmed from the ideas of cognitive anthropology. The quest was originally to see how the words that groups of humans use to describe certain things are relative to the underlying perceptions and meanings that those groups share (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 18). Ethnosemantics became the field that concentrated around the study of these semantic domains, and more specifically the study of how categorization and context of words and groups of words reflected the ways that different cultures categorize words into speech and assign meaning to their language.^[1]