Readability and Text Simplification

Abstract

A key question in text simplification research is the identification of the complexity of a given text so that a decision can be made on whether or not to simplify it. Identifying the complexity of a text or sentence can help assess whether the output produced by a text simplification system matches the reading ability of the target reader. It can also be used to compare different systems in terms of complexity or simplicity of the produced output. There are a number of very complete surveys on the relevant topic of text readability which can be understood as “what makes some texts easier to read than others” [Benjamin, 2012, Collins-Thompson, 2014, DuBay, 2004]. Text readability, which has been investigated for a long time in academic circles, is very close to the “to simplify or not to simplify” question in automatic text simplification. Text readability research has often attempted to devise mechanical methods to assess the reading difficulty of a text so that it can be objectively measured. Classical mechanical text readability formulas combine a number of proxies to obtain a numerical score indicative of the difficulty of a text. These scores could be used to place the texts in an appropriate grade level or used to sort text by difficulty.