International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities

This research looks at how lexico-semantic interactions in Shirley Jackson's 1948 short tale "The Lottery" produce irony, suspense, and show how people fall prey to traditions and norms. The research uses a descriptive-analytical methodology to examine Cruse's seven lexical relations,synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, polysemy, homonymy, and collocation as well as Geoffrey Leech's seven categories of meaning using a descriptive-analytical approach.Thirty excerpts from the story's dialogue, descriptive sections, and ceremonial scenes make up the data. The results demonstrate: First, Jackson reveals how rituals become acts of violence against people by using a semantic difference between words related to celebration and violence. Second, collocative meaning gives seemingly benign terms like "stones" and "the black box" terrible connotations. Third, the reality that the victim is a part of the custom is hidden by the semantic ambiguity of terms like "lottery" and "winner."According to the study's conclusions, lexico-semantic connections are crucial instruments for creating meaning. Jackson examines social reality and the victims of tradition in short stories by using indirect language to help the reader uncover the underlying message?as well as it emphasizes how important lexical analysis is to comprehending how writers control reader reaction without providing clear explanations.