基于任务需求的高校专门用途英语教材Flesch-Kincaid指数分析

本文采用Flesch-Kincaid等级评测公式,通过READABILITY—FORMULAS在线评测国外麦克米伦Campaign和国内南京大学《英语教程》内容的各Flesch-Kincaid相关指数,对比分析这两套基于任务需求的高校专门用途英语教材的章节选材及其难易程度关系。Flesch-Kincaid等级评测公式是美国专业部门为自己量身打造的、美国DOD规定使用的文本测量工具。研究发现,国外Campaign教材内容的难度系数高于大学英语六级考试阅读题;国内对应的《英语教程》内容则介于四、六级之间。Campaign教材的语言能力等级为雅思6.5;国内《英语教程》则对应雅思6.0。Campaign教材侧重于任务行动的“如何开展”,而国内教材则侧重于任务的“情况介绍”。在开展基于任务需求的专门用途英语学习之前,新生需要大学英语的过渡期;而且,为便于推广与使用,这类教材内容的难度系数还需要再降低。

金融危机下上市公司年度报告可读性特征研究

公司年报语言设计行为集中在年报可读性和年报自立性归因倾向两大部分。选取年报可读性进行研究,按照每股收益排名各选取100家上市公司,提出可读性数值的计算模型,通过Eviews统计软件,对我国上市公司中的非财务信息可读性进行了实证研究,并对研究结果进行分析讨论,揭示出金融危机下2008年年报可读性水平以及与之相关的各影响因素的作用程度,提出金融危机下上市公司年度报告可读性水平对于各影响因素的弹性较低,不呈现任何显著相关性。

Non-Native English Speaker Readability Metric: Reading Speed and Comprehension

This paper presents an investigation to evaluate the reading speed and reading comprehension of non-native English speaking students by presenting a simple analytical model. For this purpose, various readability softwares were used to estimate the average grade level of the given texts. The relationship between the score obtained by the students and their reading speed under average grade level 9 and 14 using font size 12 and 14 is presented. The experimental results show that the reading speed and the score versus the students may be explained by a linear regression. Reading speed decreases as the score decreases. The students with a higher magnitude of reading speed scored better marks. More importantly, we find that the reading speed of our students is lower than the native English speakers. This approach of modeling the readability in linear form significantly simplifies the readability analysis.