Clichésin

Clichésin is a term used in literary and media studies to describe the systematic presence of clichés within a text, discourse, or corpus. It denotes the density and distribution of conventional phrases, plot devices, and character types that recur beyond what would occur by chance, signaling genre conventions, cultural familiarity, or stylistic choice.

The term is a neologism formed from the word cliché and a suffix that signals a phenomenon. While not tied to a single school, clichésin is used descriptively to discuss patterns across literature, film, advertising, and online content, and it is related to but distinct from concepts such as trope, stereotype, or stock character.

Researchers assess clichésin through a range of methods, including manual annotation, lexicon-based inventories of common clichés, and automated text analysis using data mining and machine learning to estimate density and distribution across genres, authors, periods, or media formats.

Applications of clichésin span screenwriting, narrative theory, and media criticism. A high level of clichésin in early acts may reflect conventional structure, while in political or promotional texts it can reveal recurring messaging strategies. In digital media, elevated clichésin can influence perceptions of originality or authenticity.

Critics caution that clichésin can be subjective and risks conflating quality with novelty, since context matters and distinctions among cliché, trope, and formula can be nuanced. Proponents argue that clichésin provides a quantitative lens on convention, aiding stylistic analysis and comparative studies.

See also: cliché, trope, stock character, stylometry, natural language processing.