Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Dusseldorf "Heinrich Heine" (Department for English Language and Linguistics), course: Contrastive Grammar, language: English, abstract: While it has often been criticized, the notion of the lexical field can constitute a powerful tool in both intralingual and interlingual analysis. This paper provides a broad overview of topics which are relevant in the discussion of lexical field analysis. Afterwards, these topics will be brought into context by presenting a selection of outstanding approaches to field theory. Finally, the German word field tradition will briefly be compared to the parallel development in the USA.