The effect of syntactic simplification on reading EST texts as L1 and L2

Ulijn, JM Jan; Strother, JB Judith

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00321.x

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Examples include: the use of illustrations (Halbert 1944, Vernon 1946, Omaggio 1979Felker et al, 1981), schemas (Rumelhart 1984), structural cues (Spyridakis, 1989(Spyridakis, , 1989a, highlighting (Klare et al 1955b, Felker et al), paragraph length (Markel, et al, 1992), typographic format , syntax simplification (Ulijn and Strother 1990), prior knowledge (Richards 1984), nominalizations, diagrams, parallelism, white space, line graphs, and justified margins (Felker et al,), "whiz deletions" (Huckin et al 1991), writer guidelines (McLean 1985), and coherence and cohesion (Freebody andAnderson 1983, Halliday andHasan 1976).…”

Section: A Community Of Scholarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring translation difficulty

Sun

Shreve

2014

Target

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The Principles of Readability gives a brief introduction to the literacy studies in the U.S. and the research on readability and the readability formulas. Readers' CommentsPlease send all comments and suggestions regarding this document to:William RESEARCH SummaryOver 80 years of research and testing have contributed to the worldwide use in many languages of the readability formulas.They help us improve the text on the level of words and sentences, the first causes of reading difficulty.The principles of readability are in every style manual. Readability formulas are in every word processor. What is missing is the research and theory on which they stand. The Principles of ReadabilityWilliam H. DuBay IntroductionIn 1998, traffic accidents caused 46 percent of all accidental deaths of infants and children aged 1 to 14 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2000). One study (Johnston et al. 1994) showed that the single strongest risk factor for injury in a traffic accident is the improper use of child-safety seats. Another study (Kahane 1986) showed that, when correctly used, child safety seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71 percent and hospitalization by 67 percent.To be effective, however, the seats must be installed correctly. Other studies, showed that 79 to 94 percent of car seats are used improperly (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1996, Decina and Knoebel 1997, Lane et al. 2000.Public-health specialists Dr. Mark Wegner and Deborah Girasek (2003) suspected that poor comprehension of the installation instructions might contribute to this problem. They looked into the readability of the instructions and published their findings in the medical journal Pediatrics. The story was covered widely in the media.The authors referred to the National Adult Literacy Study (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1993), which states the average adult in the U.S. reads at the 7 th grade level. They also cited experts in health literacy who recommend that materials for the public be written at the fifth or sixth-grade reading level (Doak et al., 1996;Weiss and Coyne, 1997).Their study found that the average reading level of the 107 instructions they examined was the 10 th grade, too difficult for 80 percent adult readers in the U.S. When texts exceed the reading ability of readers, they usually stop reading. The authors did not address the design, completeness, or the organization of the instructions. They did not say that the instructions were badly written. Armed with the SMOG readability formula, they found the instructions were written at the wrong grade level. You can be sure the manufacturers of the car safety seats are scrambling to re-write their instructions. Many experts, through much research, have compiled golden rules of documentation writing. These rules apply regardless of medium:• Use short, simple, familiar words• Avoid jargon.• Use culture-and-gender-neutral language.• Use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.• Use simple sentences, active voice, and present tens...

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Section: A Community Of Scholarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring translation difficulty

Sun

Shreve

2014

Target

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“…This was chosen as the main variable of the study because reading materials constitute a very important factor in reading comprehension tests. Background knowledge, for example, is a well-researched area (see for example: Alderson and Urquhart 1983, 1985a, 1985bBernhardt 1991;Carrell and Eisterhold 1983;Clapham 1996;Johnson 1981Johnson , 1982Mohammed and Swales 1984;Salager-Meyer 1991;Steffensen and Joag-Dev 1984;Steffensen, Joag-Dev and Anderson, 1979;Ulijn and Strother 1990). Of the various factors, the choice of texts with a focus on authentic versus inauthentic was chosen for this investigation.…”

Section: Selection Of Texts: the Nature Of Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Text Authenticity on the Performance of Iranian EFL Students in a C-Test

Cheng

BiglarBaygi

Solaymani

2009

RiL

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The Effect of Text Authenticity on the Performance of Iranian EFL Students in a C-Test As part of growing efforts to understand factors affecting c-test this study aims to investigate the effect of text authenticity on the performance of Iranian EFL students in a C-Test. The C-Test is an integrative testing instrument that measures overall language competence, very much like the cloze test. In this study the rule of two has been applied: "the second half of every second word has been deleted, beginning with the second word of the second sentence; the first and last sentences are left intact" (Katona and Dornyei 1993: 35). The research involves 60 college students in their third year, majoring in English Literature at Ershad-Damavand College. This group were randomly selected applying multi-stage sampling. Since the present study intended to investigate the role of two different formats, i.e. authentic and inauthentic texts (text translated from Persian into English), two different tailored C-Tests were made to measure and compare the performances of the participants. Two C-Tests, one with Authentic Text and the other, with Inauthentic Text were administered to this homogenized group comprising 30 subjects. The findings of this study suggest that authenticity has an effect on the performance of learners in c-tests and we should control this variable while devising a c-test.

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“…However, other research has shown that syntactic complexity is not an issue in reading outcomes, particularly for high-proficiency learners (Eslami, 2014;Oh, 2001;Strother & Ulijn, 1987;Ulijin & Strother, 1990). Eslami (2014) in a text modification study found that highproficiency learners were unaffected by modifications in text syntactic complexity while low and mid-proficiency learners were affected, as reflected in higher scores on syntactically simplified texts.…”

Section: The Nature Of the Role Of Textual Features In L2 Reading Outmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…contexts (Strother & Ulijn, 1987;Ulijin & Strother, 1990). However, the experimental groups were classified as advanced L2 level so, the researchers assumed that syntactic simplification or syntactic complexity may have an effect on limited proficiency language users (Ulijin & Strother, 1990).…”

Section: Text Syntactic Complexity and L2 Reading Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the experimental groups were classified as advanced L2 level so, the researchers assumed that syntactic simplification or syntactic complexity may have an effect on limited proficiency language users (Ulijin & Strother, 1990). Oh (2001) also examined the effect of linguistic simplification (of lexical plus syntactic features) and elaboration (adding more information in the texts to be more comprehensible) by 180 Korean high school students finding that, for the high-proficiency group, simplified texts scored the highest reading performance, followed by elaborative texts, and the lowest scores were for authentic texts.…”

Section: Text Syntactic Complexity and L2 Reading Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of reader knowledge and textual features on second-language reading outcomes in an Indonesian EFL context

Sahiruddin¹

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Vocabulary and sentence-level grammar skills are the bedrock on which fluent L2 reading skills rest. The importance of vocabulary knowledge in particular is self-evident-texts consist of words-but the actual contribution that individual differences in vocabulary knowledge make to L2 reading outcomes seems to vary. Greater vocabulary knowledge, as reflected in the basic dimension of size, correlates strongly with better reading outcomes (Laufer, 1992;Qian, 1999Qian, , 2002, but there are also studies that show little, or no, link between the two (Yamashita, 2013). The inconsistency is due to differences in target population, task, setting and other study-specific factors. It may also reflect the difficulty of the text relative to the readers' proficiency level. This study examines the relationship between L2 reading outcomes and reader based vocabulary and grammar knowledge as it is moderated (Hayes, 2013) by the text based features of lexical difficulty and syntactic complexity. By examining the potential interaction between reader knowledge and text demands, the study provides a more refined picture of the factors affecting reading outcomes, with a specific focus on vocabulary size, alone and in combination with sentence-level grammatical knowledge. The latter is also a potential moderating factor on the link between vocabulary knowledge and reading outcomes. Findings for RQ1 showed vocabulary knowledge was a stronger predictor than grammatical knowledge. This replicates previous studies showing the importance of vocabulary knowledge in explaining variation in L2 reading Zhang, 2012;Yamashita, 1999) and is at odds with other studies (Shiotsu & Weir, 2007;Shiotsu, 2010).Findings for RQ2 showed that lexical difficulty, as indexed by lexical frequency, accounted for more variation in reader outcomes than syntactic complexity. This finding supports previous findings (Brown, 2013;Eslami, 2014; Twessi, 1998). For RQ3 there was a mean interaction effect between lexical frequency and reader vocabulary knowledge such that the relationship between vocabulary and L2 reading for high lexical frequency texts was stronger than for low lexical frequency texts, but the effect was not statistically significant.There was no effect for differences in text syntactic complexity. The results also showed that text lexical frequency significantly moderated the relationship between reader grammatical knowledge and L2 reading, such that the relationship between grammatical knowledge and L2 reading for high lexical frequency texts was significantly greater than for low lexical frequency texts. Given the absence of significant interaction between vocabulary knowledge and lexical frequency, the sample was split into high and low vocabulary size groups (30% each) to see if more distinct proficiency differences would yield significant differences for lexical frequency effects. The subgroup analysis did not yield different results, though it did show that the grammatical knowledge-lexical frequency interaction evident in the complete ...

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The effect of syntactic simplification on reading EST texts as L1 and L2

Cited by 39 publications

References 18 publications

Measuring translation difficulty

Measuring translation difficulty

The Effect of Text Authenticity on the Performance of Iranian EFL Students in a C-Test

The effect of reader knowledge and textual features on second-language reading outcomes in an Indonesian EFL context

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