The Structure of Cross-Linguistic Differences: Meaning and Context of ‘Readability’ and its Russian Equivalent ‘Chitabelnost’

Marina I Solnyshkina,Maria B Kazachkova,Elena V Harkova

doi:10.17323/jle.2020.7176

Abstract

The article presents the results of an original study aimed at finding (1) frequency fluctuations of the term ‘readability’ in American discourse and its Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ in Russian discourse over the period from 1920s to the present; and (2) semantic similarities and differences between the English term ‘readability’ and its Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ over the same period of time. A contrastive analysis of the words testified to inconsiderable differences in the semantic structures of the terms in the period under study: the term ‘readability’ has been used with the following meanings: (1) ‘the quality of being legible or decipherable’ and (2) ‘the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read’. The Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ has two contemporary meanings similar to the aforementioned English meanings as well as the obsolete ‘library book checkouts’. With the help of the Google NgramViewer, we identified the 1980s frequency peak of both terms when the modern notion of the concepts was formed. The research into the topical context of readability as ‘the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read’ demonstrated empiricist tendencies in American studies focused on two types of parameters, i.e. the ‘objective’ parameters of texts, i.e. sentence length, word counts, number of high/low frequency words, ratio of high/low frequency words to total words, sentence complexity, etc. and ‘individual’ variables affecting a potential reader, such as ‘word familiarity’, cognitive and linguistic abilities, cultural and topic knowledge, etc. The Russian school’s view, until the 1970s, had traditionally been more holistic and ‘biased’ towards an individuals’ factors. The results of the study have the potential to contribute to cross-linguistic research in the area of text readability assessment, semantics, and scientific literature searches.

Highlights

Communication as ‘the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium’ (Online Oxford English Dictionary, 1996)1 implies either generating or comprehending a text, which may be handwritten, printed, electronic, or oral
The American word ‘readability’ has had two meanings verified in the contexts of the studied period: ‘the quality of being legible or decipherable’ and ‘the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read’
Russian dictionaries published between the 1920s and the 2000s register only one meaning of the noun ‘chitabelnost’, defining it as a derivative of the adjective ‘chitabelnyi’ (Russian ‘readable’). Another difference between the word ‘chitabelnost’ and ‘readability’ is that it is marked in the dictionaries as colloquial, but its active functioning in Russian academic and scientific discourse over the period from the 1920s to the 2000s testifies to its belonging to the high register of communication

Summary

Introduction

Communication as ‘the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium’ (Online Oxford English Dictionary, 1996) implies either generating or comprehending a text, which may be handwritten, printed, electronic, or oral. Successful communication in its turn largely depends on whether the amount, content, and structure of the quanta of the information sent by its generator in the text and received by the addressee are similar or, in an ideal situation, the same. In the modern world, matching a text (both oral or written/electronic) to the target audience is a problem relevant in a number of spheres: education, PR, the military, government, law, advertising, business, publishing, medicine, and social relations, as these are areas where communication is the foundation of success. If a text is beyond its target audience’s reading level, it needs to be altered or leveled to match the reader. Modern text leveling procedures imply measuring two parameters: (1) the level of cognitive and linguistic abilities of the target audience and (2) text readability (Reading A-Z, 2018). Rubakin’s ideas were soon forgotten in Russia, but text ‘readability’ studies have since been actively conducted in the USA, UK, and Germany

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Conclusion