An Analysis of the Linguistic Features of Popular Chinese Online Fantasy Novels
Jian Jin, Siyun Liu
Abstract
Previous studies found that linguistic features can be used to predict the success of novels. However, which specific linguistic features better contribute to a novel’s popularity is unclear. This study addressed this issue by investigating the linguistic features of 2,008 online Chinese fantasy novels with different popularity (indicated by the Baidu Index). Specifically, word part-of-speech, personal pronouns, word complexity, and local/overall sentence semantic coherence were analyzed using a word segmentation tool (Jieba) and a latent semantic analysis software (Chinese version of Coh-Metrix). Results showed significant differences between popular and non-popular (high and low popularity) novels in the distribution of parts-of-speech, use of the second person pronoun, word complexity, and sentence semantic coherence. Moreover, the presence of the second person pronoun (“you”), local sentence semantic coherence, auxiliary words, word complexity, overall sentence semantic coherence, and adjectives better predicted the popularity of a Chinese online fantasy novel. The theoretical background and the implications of these results are detailed in the study discussion.