A Lexical Pragmatic Study of Persecution in Horace Walpole’s the Castle of Otranto Novel

The current research explores how the analysis of persecution can be tackled in literary work within the framework of lexical pragmatics. Persecution was first attested in Middle Ages English in 1400–50; back construction from persectour "persecutor," subsequently from Late Latin persector "prosecutor," comparable to persec-, variant stem of persequ "to prosecute, pursue closely" + -tor. In the mid-14th century, persecucioun, "oppression for the holding of a belief or opinion," from Old French persecucion "persecution, damage, affliction, suffering. Persecution has been given little attention from previous researchers especially from lexical pragmatic, therefore, this paper attempts to fill this gap by answering the following questions: (1) what are the persecutory acts that are used by the characters in the novel “The Castle of Otranto”? (2) What are the mechanisms of lexical pragmatics that employed by some characters in the novel?. It is hypothesized that: (1) Act-focused and victim-focused persecutory are used in the novel in order to show the role of the persecutor and the victim. (2) Lexical narrowing and lexical broadening are used in the novel with its categories.