Structural Approaches to the Analysis of Text Complexity

• In Event: Text Complexity: What Is It, How Is It Measured, and, After All, Why Is It Important?

Abstract

Purpose
The goal of this presentation is to argue for the inclusion of structural concepts and procedures in the analysis of text complexity, as a way to incorporate discipline-based complexity in the evaluation of text comprehensibility.
Perspective
Academic and professional texts vary widely in complexity and comprehensibility, both dimensions depending on purpose and audience. For a given message, the reach and readability of the text depend on skill and persistence in crafting a work. Readability has long been assessed by vocabulary familiarity and sentence length. A passage is easier to digest when the author uses familiar words and short sentences. Authors of informational and argumentative texts face constraints in both of these domains. In Latent Semantic Analysis, a second approach to text complexity, a composition is compared to a canonical nucleus obtained by multi-dimensional analysis of key words and relations in the target text.
An approach to text complexity proposed by Chambliss and Calfee (1998) employs structural building blocks springing from rhetorical principles, which act as Lego pieces to fashion an edifice incorporating key elements in the message. Early studies relied on an overall characterization of a brief text to determine the effects of structural coherence on comprehension). C&C expanded this concept in several ways. They explored a hierarchical strategy for handling larger texts, including entire textbooks. This extension builds on the notion of hierarchical constructions. An extended work on the water cycle begins with a procedural sequence laying out the major elements in the cycle, expanding these elements into a matrix describing how water is taken up into the atmosphere from various sources. These elements then lead into a conclusion offering the pros and cons of different human activities affecting the process.
Modes of Inquiry
Previous work by C&C has proceeded in two directions: deconstruction and reconstruction. In deconstruction, an existing text is reviewed for structural elements available for “comprehending” the material. This work has focused on discipline-based academic materials. Reconstruction springs from two sources. The first relies on the target discipline for canonical ideas about core concepts and relations to be expressed in the passage. The second employs standard revision techniques for enhancing clarity and coherences.

Data Sources and Findings
The presentation will provide analyses of complex informational texts that appear to be poorly structured, and show how these texts can be restructures to enhance clarity and coherence. The dimension of text complexity turns out to be largely orthogonal to readability indicators, and to entail limited increases in length. The preliminary examples in Chambliss and Calfee provide a starting point to other strategies for handling textual complexity in a manner appropriate to structural complexity.
Scholarly Significance
Efforts to fashion comprehensible texts have become increasingly important in the internet age, ranging from type font to word choice. Largely overlooked in this endeavor has been the challenge of representing complex conceptual domains. Structural analysis tools offer considerable potential for approaching this task.

Author

• Robert Calfee, Stanford University