大学英语教材的文本可读性研究 ——以新目标大学英语系列教材《综合教程》(第一版)为例

Analysis of Text Readability of College English Textbooks:Taking New Target English as a Case

教材是课堂教学知识输入的一个主要来源。在选择教材时,文本难度是重要的参考因素之一,而文本可读性又是决定文本难度高低的重要考量。该文采用外教社WE Research提供的篇章易读性检测平台,选用平均词长、平均句长、Flesch Reading Ease指数及可读性指数1和2来分析和研究浙江越秀外国语学院选用的大学英语教材新目标大学英语系列教材《综合教程》(第一版)第一至四册单元课文的文本可读性是否遵循了难度从低到高的发展顺序。结合平均词长、句长和可读性指数数值的对比分析,笔者发现《综合教程》第一、三、四册的文章可读性难度遵循了从低到高的发展规律,但第二册内容比第三册内容的平均词长、平均句长更长,Flesch Reading Ease指数更低,可读性指数1和2数值更大,因此第二册的内容可读性更低,难度更大。文本可读性的高低直接影响着学生对所学内容的理解,所以老师在选择教材时要更多地关注所选文本的可读性,希望本研究能给编者、一线教师提供一些指导性意见。

Textbooks are an important source of knowledge input in classroom teaching.Text difficulty is one of the key factors in choosing textbooks while text readability serves as an important indicator to measure the text difficulty.However,there have been few studies on text readability of college English textbooks in the past.This survey uses the WE Research platform and adopts Flesch Reading Ease and other readability formulas as the detection tools to study the text readability development of the College English textbooks used in Zhejiang Yuexiu University.Combined with the data collected from the average word length,average sentence length,Flesch Reading Ease index,text readability index 1 and 2,the author finds that the text readability of New Target English book 1,3 and 4 complies with the rule of developing from high to low while texts in book 2 have lower readability and are more difficult than those in book 3.Text readability will influence the students’understanding of the text,thus teachers should pay more attention to the choice of the textbooks.Hoping that this study can provide some guiding significance for editors,publishers,as well as teachers.