| The present doctoral thesis analyses the structural functioning of the lexical field of 'aesthetic valuation' in 20th century standard Spanish. The analysis is based on a corpus of literary and lexicographic works (around 8.000 contexts).; The first chapter is devoted to the methodological principles that sustain the so called theory of lexical fields. The researcher further enhances the orthodox functionalist focus and methodology by adding a cognitive approach to the analysis, and considering the different conceptions of meaning, componential analysis and polysemia . The first chapter also expounds the criteria used to select the lexicographic and literary corpus.; Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the study of the basic lexical units that form the field of 'aesthetic valuation' in Spanish. The purpose of the study is to explain the underlying lexicogenetic procedures that shape the above mentioned field. The selection of positive lexicon is narrowed down to simple adjective-based structures, while the selected negative lexicon includes both adjective and noun based structures as well as other productive linguistic resources.; Chapter 4 is devoted to the definition of lexical contents and the inferring of the procedures that form them. The functional analysis is enhanced by a cognitive focus which integrates grammatical, semantic and cultural aspects. This perspective allows the researcher to propose data for a future cultural interpretation.; In chapter 5 the contrastive methodology of field-analysis is used to design the configuration of basic units of the concept in Basque as compared to Spanish. The analysis only considers the lexical units at the core of the lexical field.; In the final chapter the author draws conclusions from the qualitative analysis carried out in previous chapters, and suggests future study and research areas: studies on intercultural semantics based on contrastive analysis of lexical fields, and the validation of qualitative conclusions through quantitative methods based on computerised data corpuses. |
