Cecilia Marchetto Santorun Mster Estudos Ingleses Modelos Recentes de Anlise Lingstica e a sa Aplicacin Lingua Inglesa: Course Assignment

t 1) Taylor, page 142, exercise 4. Investigation on the semantic field of insects. For this research, we have interviewed 5 different Spanish-speaking people. Each had two minutes to write down as many names of insects as they could, and then, other two minutes to mark each word 1 to 5, 1 being the closest to the best example1 of insect and 5 the furthest to it. The following table shows the results. Insects (by frequency) Abeja Mosca Avispa Hormiga Araa Mantis Escarabajo Gusano Mosquito Liblula Mariposa Cucaracha Pulga Garrapata Escorpin Lucirnaga Oruga Ciempis Tbano Bicho palo Cochinilla Inf. 1 GOE rating 5 2 5 2 4 4 3 4 1 5 5 4 3 Order of occurrence

Inf. 2 GOE rating 3 2 2 2 5 4 1 1 4 1 5 Order of occurrence

Inf. 3 GOE rating 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 3 1 4 4 2 3 3 3 2 Order of occurrence

Inf. 4 GOE rating 2 1 1 2 2 4 1 3 3 4 3 5 1 3

Order of ocurrence

Inf. 5 GOE rating 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 3 2 2

Order of occurrence

11 3 13 2 1 16 9 6 4 10 5 15 12 -

8 1 7 2 5 4 11 9 6 10 3 -

2 5 1 3 8 10 11 7 14 4 6 9 13 15 16 13 -

3 2 4 1 12 5 8 6 16 17 7 18 10 14

8 4 14 11 2 13 5 1 10 3 6

1 We agree with Croft and Cruse (2004, pp. 80-81) that the way in which we fashion the questions for the informants are problematic, since many things can be implied by a good example of that diverge from the notion of prototypicality. In this occasion we have chosen to ask the informants to consider the best example that which is closest to the first image the word insect evokes in their minds. We think in this way we make sure that the resulting semantic units are based on the idea of typicality and representativeness and not upon other considerations.

Insects (by frequency) Chinche Termita Moscardn Lombriz Ennago Babosa Polilla Mariquita Grillo Saltamontes Langosta

Inf. 1 GOE rating 2 2 4

Order of occurrence

Inf. 2 GOE rating Order of occurrence

Inf. 3 GOE rating 4 Order of occurrence

Inf. 4 GOE rating 2 1 5 5 Order of occurrence

Inf. 5 GOE rating 2 1 3 3 Order of occurrence

7 8 14

12 -

15 9 19 20 -

7 9 15 12 -

What is shown is that some of the words are more salient than others. There were two of which all the informants mentioned: mosca and abeja. The least (and latest) mentioned were saltamontes and langosta. In terms of GOE rating, the most significant were