This post talks about the text, the second element in the interaction in the reading process, focusing on the features of it that cause difficulty to readers.
Several articles have discovered that if a text is found not to be readable, attempts may be made to alter it in order to make it more readable or simpler. However, that simplification may be a more complex process than has been traditionally assumed and may actually have the effect of distorting the “message” or, indeed, increasing difficulties in other aspects of the text.
The typical readability study takes a range of passages, determines their “difficulty” for a range of readers by means either of multiple choice questions or, more recently, cloze tests. The passages are usually analysed in terms of their linguistic units: structures, words, clause and sentence relationships, or whatever. Word difficulty may relate to infrequency of occurrence, and has been indexed either by reference to frequency lists, or by reference to word length, usually measured in number of syllables, since, on the whole, longer word tend to be less frequent and therefore might be expected to cause processing problems. Sentence complexity can be measured by a variety of devices but, on the whole, the longer the sentence, the more complex it is likely to be, with embedded and subordinate clauses, and the like.
One typical readability formula is Urquhart´s Fog Index:
No. words / No. sentences + no. 3-syllable words/ no. words x 100/1 x .4
The result is interpreted as:
---> 12 – = easy
---> 13 – 16 = undergraduated
---> 16 + = postgraduate.
It should be emphasized that readability studies result in “indices” of difficulty and do not claim to be indicative of clauses of difficulty: that is, if one applies a readability formula to a text, finds it too difficult for a given audience, and the manipulates the text to shorten sentence length and remove long words, it will not necessarily follow that the cause of difficulty has been removed: the text might actually have been made more difficult, although the readability index would be lower.
Other studies have shown how the global organization of a narrative text can influence how a reader recalls the text. Berman suggests the importance of transparency – the opposite of her term opacity – of the kernel sentence: the basic subject – verb – object ordering of sentences. If decomposing a sentence into it’s basic svo constituents is delayed by, for example, deletion of relative pronouns, wh + be deletion in post-noun modifiers, or ‘one’ or ‘do’ substitution for repeated lexical material, and the like, then the sentence will be more difficult to process.
Cooper, comparing what he called practiced and unpractised readers found little difference between them in terms of the processing of syntactic features (tense, aspect, modality), but he did find differences in the problems caused by some cohesive devices and particularly in the relationships between sentences.
When researching with foreign language readers, Alderson found out that vocabulary problems were the most important contributors to text difficulty, but they also found that there were many foreign language readers who did not have “language problems”, including difficulty with vocabulary, but who still found text difficult to process. In fact , a linguistic description of a text is a necessary but not sufficient guide to the problems that readers might have with that text.
- Embedded: A thing is embedded in something when it is fixed or set in it firmly and deeply.
- And the like: You use “and the like” to mean “and other things of the same sort”.
Several articles have discovered that if a text is found not to be readable, attempts may be made to alter it in order to make it more readable or simpler. However, that simplification may be a more complex process than has been traditionally assumed and may actually have the effect of distorting the “message” or, indeed, increasing difficulties in other aspects of the text.
The typical readability study takes a range of passages, determines their “difficulty” for a range of readers by means either of multiple choice questions or, more recently, cloze tests. The passages are usually analysed in terms of their linguistic units: structures, words, clause and sentence relationships, or whatever. Word difficulty may relate to infrequency of occurrence, and has been indexed either by reference to frequency lists, or by reference to word length, usually measured in number of syllables, since, on the whole, longer word tend to be less frequent and therefore might be expected to cause processing problems. Sentence complexity can be measured by a variety of devices but, on the whole, the longer the sentence, the more complex it is likely to be, with embedded and subordinate clauses, and the like.
One typical readability formula is Urquhart´s Fog Index:
No. words / No. sentences + no. 3-syllable words/ no. words x 100/1 x .4
The result is interpreted as:
---> 12 – = easy
---> 13 – 16 = undergraduated
---> 16 + = postgraduate.
It should be emphasized that readability studies result in “indices” of difficulty and do not claim to be indicative of clauses of difficulty: that is, if one applies a readability formula to a text, finds it too difficult for a given audience, and the manipulates the text to shorten sentence length and remove long words, it will not necessarily follow that the cause of difficulty has been removed: the text might actually have been made more difficult, although the readability index would be lower.
Other studies have shown how the global organization of a narrative text can influence how a reader recalls the text. Berman suggests the importance of transparency – the opposite of her term opacity – of the kernel sentence: the basic subject – verb – object ordering of sentences. If decomposing a sentence into it’s basic svo constituents is delayed by, for example, deletion of relative pronouns, wh + be deletion in post-noun modifiers, or ‘one’ or ‘do’ substitution for repeated lexical material, and the like, then the sentence will be more difficult to process.
Cooper, comparing what he called practiced and unpractised readers found little difference between them in terms of the processing of syntactic features (tense, aspect, modality), but he did find differences in the problems caused by some cohesive devices and particularly in the relationships between sentences.
When researching with foreign language readers, Alderson found out that vocabulary problems were the most important contributors to text difficulty, but they also found that there were many foreign language readers who did not have “language problems”, including difficulty with vocabulary, but who still found text difficult to process. In fact , a linguistic description of a text is a necessary but not sufficient guide to the problems that readers might have with that text.
- Embedded: A thing is embedded in something when it is fixed or set in it firmly and deeply.
- And the like: You use “and the like” to mean “and other things of the same sort”.
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