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Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 33:1 (2023) ► pp.112–122

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Culture and storytelling in literature

ORCiD logo with link | Cornell University
 | Cornell University
Published online: 25 March 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.21093.wan
Abstract
The present study compared ways of storytelling in Western and Asian literature. Content analysis was performed on Amazon​.com and New York Times best-selling fictions and memoirs (N = 102) by Western and Asian authors. Although authors of the two cultural groups described similar numbers of event episodes per chapter, Western authors depicted the episodes in greater detail than Asian authors in both fictions and memoirs. Asian authors, on the other hand, described more frequently repeated events than Western authors in fictions. These findings highlight the important role of literature in reflecting as well as perpetuating cultural ways of storytelling.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Method
    • Book selection
    • Coding
      • Event episode
      • Event detailedness
      • Repeated event
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
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