{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,27]],"date-time":"2026-05-27T13:25:29Z","timestamp":1779888329460,"version":"3.53.1"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,22]],"date-time":"2022-12-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1671667200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/pages\/standard-publication-reuse-rights"}],"funder":[{"name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Faculty Professional Development"},{"name":"School of Modern Languages Faculty Professional Development"},{"name":"Vertically Integrated Program"},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100006778","name":"Georgia Tech","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100006778","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,31]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n               <jats:p>This study explores long-range correlations in terms of sentence or segment length variation in Chinese narrative texts and nonfiction prose. (Dro\u017cd\u017c et al. 2016, Quantifying origin and character of long-range correlations in narrative texts. Information Sciences, 331 32\u201344) analyzed Western novels and found fractal patterns, defined as self-similar, wavelet recurrence, and alternation. Inspired by this study, our research tries to determine whether similar patterns commonly exist in Chinese literature and compares the similarities and differences with Western literature. We calculated the Hurst exponent, \u03b2-values, and \u0394\u03b1 values for ninety-five Chinese novels, ranging historically from late Qing to contemporary Internet novels, covering the geopolitical regions from Mainland China to Taiwan and Hong Kong. We also made comparisons with pre-modern vernacular novels, historical texts in classical Chinese, contemporary nonfiction and expository writings, as well as randomly generated texts. We found that Chinese novels exhibit fractal patterns as well. In particular, the texts exhibit a better fractal quality if the sentence lengths are measured by Chinese characters, instead of words. There is no clear correlation between fractality and cultural\u2013political contexts and individual authors, but historically speaking, modern Chinese texts show stronger long-range correlations than pre-modern texts. Moreover, long-range correlations in Chinese literature are weaker than in Western literature, and there is a lower percentage of novels with multifractal structures. Our data also show that the fractality not only exists in literary texts, but also in nonliterary, non-narrative, and expository writings; yet, there is no long-range correlation in randomly generated texts. We further conclude that fractality is a fundamental feature of prose writing and human writing.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/llc\/fqac062","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,22]],"date-time":"2022-12-22T18:23:31Z","timestamp":1671733411000},"page":"604-620","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Fractality in Chinese prose"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"38","author":[{"given":"Jin","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Modern Languages, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Edward","family":"Gunn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fuad","family":"Youssef","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jacob","family":"Tharayil","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wyatt","family":"Lansford","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ying","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Culture and Communication, Shandong University at Weihai , Shandong, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,22]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.1016\/j.chaos.2005.08.214","article-title":"Long-range correlations in Korean literary corpora","volume":"29","author":"Bhan","year":"2006","journal-title":"Chaos, Solitons and Fractals"},{"key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B2","author":"Chen","year":"2018"},{"key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B3","volume-title":"Die Beginnende Schizophrenie. 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xingshi: Dui Liu Yichang xiaoshuo jiutu zhong biaodianfuhao de yanjiu [A study of the punctuation marks as \u2018meaningful forms\u2019 in Liu Yichang\u2019s novel The Drunkard]","volume":"38","author":"Shi","year":"2017","journal-title":"Hubei Wenlixueyuan Xuebao"},{"key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B19","first-page":"26","article-title":"Xiandai hanyu kua biaodianju jufa guanxi de xingzhi yanjiu [Research on properties of syntactic relationship between punctuation clauses in modern Chinese]","volume":"2","author":"Song","year":"2008","journal-title":"Chinese Teaching in the World"},{"issue":"2","key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B20","first-page":"18","article-title":"Mianxiang wenben xinxi chuli de hanyu juzi he xiaoju [Chinese sentence and clause for text information processing]","volume":"31","author":"Song","year":"2017","journal-title":"Zhongwen xinxi xuebao [Journal of Chinese Information Processing]"},{"key":"2023053108321330700_fqac062-B21","volume-title":"Yuyan Lun: 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