A LEXICO-SEMANTIC AND CONTEXTUAL STUDY OF LANGUAGE PATTERNS IN DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE

Abstract

This study applies a mixed-methods digital humanities approach to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, combining computational text analysis (using Voyant Tools) with traditional literary criticism. We analyzed the novel’s entire text (sourced from Project Gutenberg) to examine word frequencies, collocations, and semantic patterns. Crusoe’s narrative has long been studied for its themes of colonialism, economic individualism, and spiritual redemption, and this study introduces a quantitative lens to these issues. Our computational findings provide empirical support for enduring literary interpretations. Using frequency counts and collocation patterns, we systematically traced how Crusoe’s narrative perspective on ownership and hierarchy is linguistically encoded. Most strikingly, the possessive pronoun “my” appears over 1,800 times, empirically highlighting Crusoe’s colonial mindset of ownership and personal control. The lexico-semantic analysis identified two overlapping semantic domains: one of pragmatic labor (with frequent words like “make,” “get,” and “work”) and one of spiritual providence (with terms such as “God,” “pray,” and “deliver”). This intersection maps Crusoe’s dual focus on material survival and spiritual reliance throughout his ordeal. Contextual collocation analysis further reveals that the term “savages” often co-occurs with language of fear and threat reflecting Crusoe’s portrayal of Indigenous people as dangerous while the frequency of “master” rises over time, marking the development of hierarchical relationships (for example, between Crusoe and Friday). These patterns quantitatively confirm that Crusoe’s language encodes hierarchical and colonial power dynamics as critics have long argued. Overall, these computational insights show that Robinson Crusoe’s central themes are structurally embedded in its linguistic texture. By making Crusoe’s hidden linguistic architecture visible, computational tools transform subjective interpretation into evidence based insight, bridging distant and close reading. This reproducible methodology not only enriches our understanding of Defoe’s ideological framework but also serves as a model for digital literary inquiry in other canonical works, demonstrating a replicable approach.