Diversion of qualitative characteristics of text complexity (a case study of literary and popular science PIRLS texts)

Abstract

The study under consideration highlights the multidimensional comprehensive analysis of eight texts of diverse genre attribution applied in the international PIRLS testing during 2001-2011 (PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is conducted by International Association in assessment of academic achievements IEA. The national coordinator of the research implementation PIRLS in the Russian Federation is FIAQE «Federal Institute of assessment of quality education»). The objective of the study is to substantiate the hypothesis concerning similarities and differences in typological characteristics that aim at evaluating the complexity of popular science and literary texts. The cornerstone of the theory serves the assumption of the text complexity which involves quantitative (the word, sentence, text length) as well as qualitative (narrativity, syntactical simplicity, precision, referential cohesion, semantic cohesion) characteristics of the text [14]. The study determines that literary texts display a wider diversity of syntactical structures and a higher narrative degree than popular science texts under similar length and readability conditions. The precision indicators of popular science and literary texts are manifested in approximately the same range whereas referential and semantic cohesion represent a broad range of fluctuations in both cases.