Bridging Disciplines for Deeper Insight: A Semantico-Stylistic Analysis of Authorial Style in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

The stylistic analysis of authorial technique often struggles to reconcile subjective literary interpretation with objective, empirical evidence. This research addressed this void by demonstrating the effectiveness of an integrated semantico-stylistic approach for characterizing authorial style in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913). Employing a mixed-methods design, the study utilized Geoffrey Leech’s (1981) componential analysis model to systematically deconstruct and quantify the ‘logical compatibility’ between lexical items describing characters’ internal states and their surrounding habitats. Through an examination of representative passages across the novel’s five main plot stages, the study generated quantitative compatibility scores to chart how Lawrence’s stylistic strategies modulate across the narrative arc. The findings indicated that Lawrence’s authorial style is characterized by a deliberate manipulation of semantic resonance, with compatibility scores intensifying at points of high emotional conflict. The analysis provided concrete, feature-based linguistic evidence that grounds established psychological and thematic interpretations of the novel in verifiable textual patterns. This study concluded that a formal semantic framework like CA serves as a valuable tool for enhancing the objectivity of stylistics, offering an evidence-based methodology to move beyond impressionistic criticism and enabling a firmer, evidence-based grasp of how literary meaning is constructed at the lexical level.