Coh-Metrix: Analysis of text on cohesion and language

Advances in computational linguistics and discourse processing have made it possible to automate many language- and text-processing mechanisms. We have developed a computer tool called Coh-Metrix, which analyzes texts on over 200 measures of cohesion, language, and readability. Its modules use lexicons, part-of-speech classifiers, syntactic parsers, templates, corpora, latent semantic analysis, and other components that are widely used in computational linguistics. After the user enters an English text, Coh-Metrix returns measures requested by the user. In addition, a facility allows the user to store the results of these analyses in data files (such as Text, Excel, and SPSS). Standard text readability formulas scale texts on difficulty by relying on word length and sentence length, whereas Coh-Metrix is sensitive to cohesion relations, world knowledge, and language and discourse characteristics.     

Learning, thinking, and emoting with discourse technologies

This is an unusual moment in the history of psychology because of landmark advances in digital information technologies, computational linguistics, and other fields that use the computer to analyze language, discourse, and behavior. The technologies developed from this interdisciplinary fusion are helping students learn and think in ways that are sensitive to their cognitive and emotional states. Recent projects have developed computer technologies that help us understand the nature of conversational discourse and text comprehension in addition to improving learning. AutoTutor and other systems with conversational agents (i.e., talking heads) help students learn by holding conversations in natural language. One version of AutoTutor is sensitive to the emotions of students in addition to their cognitive states. Coh-Metrix analyzes texts on multiple levels of language and discourse, such as text genre, cohesion, syntax, and word characteristics. Coh-Metrix can assist students, teachers, principals, and policymakers when they make decisions on the right text to assign to the right student at the right time. Computers are not perfect conversation partners and comprehenders of text, but the current systems are undeniably useful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

Using temporal cohesion to predict temporal coherence in narrative and expository texts

We investigated the linguistic features of temporal cohesion that distinguish variations in temporal coherence. In an analysis of 150 texts, experts rated temporal coherence on three continuous scale measures designed to capture unique representations of time. Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that assesses textual cohesion, correctly predicted the human ratings with five features of temporal cohesion. The correlations between predicted and actual scores were all statistically significant. In a complementary study, we explored the importance of temporal cohesion in characterizing genre. A discriminant function analysis, using Coh-Metrix temporal indices, successfully distinguished the genres of science, history, and narrative texts. The results suggested that history texts are more similar to narrative texts than to science texts in terms of temporal cohesion.     

From syntactical to textual strategies of argumentation

The paper focuses on tevelopmental relations between syntactical complexity, cohesion — especially conjuctional connection — and textual coherence in a sample of 150 argumentative texts written by school children (grades 4, 7, 10 and 12) and young adults (university students). In common sense and even in linguistics and psychology written text and especially written argument has been taken to be the prototype of syntactically complex, self-contained and explicit text over a long period of research on the topic. Thus it has been argued that syntactic connectedness and explicit cohesion of propositions were the most valuable indicators for a well-done contextualization and abstraction of content space and rhetorical space in writing. Empirical data show this common-sense position to be questionable. The discussion emphazises the role of argumentative implicitness as a necessary condition for getting the reader involved in the discourse and thus for the emergence of coherence in argumentative texts.     

输入方式对学语前聋生语篇理解的影响：文本和测题类型的调节效应

为了考察信息输入方式、文本类型和测题类型对聋生语篇理解的影响,研究通过录像呈现,以口语、手语、书面语三种输入方式向学语前极重度七、八、九年级聋生呈现叙述性和描述性两种文本类型的语篇信息,并要求其完成理解测试。结果显示：输入方式对聋生语篇理解的效率存在影响,书面语成绩最高且速度最快,依次为手语、口语,文本类型和测题类型对该影响有调节作用。结果表明输入方式是聋生语篇理解的主要影响因素,文本和测题类型是调节因素。     

Simmering in the Soviet pot: language heterogeneity in early Soviet socio-linguistics

At the beginning of the ’30s—the period of lively debates on the relation between language and society—one of the main issues in linguistics was language heterogeneity. On the example of the texts by Boris Larin, Georgij Danilov and Lev Jakubinskij we shall compare two attitudes about unity and division of a language. If the studies by Larin and Danilov in various ways establish divisions in society and language at the end of the ’20s, in the ’30s there is a marked tendency to recognize language unity and the cohesiveness of the proletarian society, as seen in socio-linguistic analyses by Jakubinskij. The conclusion, suggested at the end of this exposition, claims that the idea of one national language grows in importance in the discourse of the Soviet linguistics at the beginning of 1930s. Disappearance of the contemporary language heterogeneity in the discourse of Soviet linguists of the period corroborates how linguistics adapts to the political conceptions of society.

Reader and text variables as determinants of discourse memory in adulthood

Young students, old students, and old nonstudents read and recalled short texts that were in either narrative or expository form. In addition, a set of six verbal ability measures thought to be related to discourse memory was obtained for all of the participants. Older subjects recalled less from the texts than younger subjects, and neither type of text nor student status modified the magnitude of the age differences. The set of verbal ability measures was adequately described by two principal components, one consisting of simple, speed-related skills, and the other consisting of more complex skills. Each set of variables predicted a proportion of discourse memory variance, and accounted for some of the variance that would otherwise be attributed to age. The results suggest that age differences in some basic cognitive skills related to reading effectiveness might underlie age differences in memory for discourse.     

THE READABILITY OF CONTENT TEXTBOOKS USED IN MIDDLE AND JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Current external criticism of American schooling includes an assumption that content textbooks used in upper grades fail to challenge the abilities of pupils. To investigate this assumption, the multiformula readabilities of 111 content textbooks currently employed in grades six through nine in 30 middle or junior high schools were obtained. Five and six formula, same sample readability data were collected and analyzed by 37 teacher researchers. Two or more formulas placed 49% of these texts one or more grade levels above grade of use. The results also were analyzed in light of current concerns about the accuracy and use of readability formulas. Readability placements varied notably and significantly between‐texts and within‐texts for each content area and grade level of use. Significant mean differences occurred in grade placement by formulas differing in comprehension criteria and in word count procedures. Extending sample selection from three to six and nine within‐text samples did not change readability estimates notably or significantly. Teacher researcher procedural error occurred rarely. Teacher participants preferred the formulas combining realistic school estimates with efficiency in estimation.     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

Computer-assisted analysis of conversation

Psychologists and linguists have employed computer programs to analyze written and spoken text. The Computer-Assisted Language Analysis System (CALAS) is a computer program that utilizes three sequential programs to parse the language of two speakers in a conversation into words, phrases, and clauses, and places verbs and nouns into categories derived from theories of case grammar. Rather than using a large “dictionary,” CALAS determines the category of each word on the basis of adjacent function words and placement of the words in the sentence. Output from CALAS lists the frequency of each category and can be used to construct measures of linguistic style and verb usage. Research employing CALAS includes the study of various types of psychotherapy, behavior therapy, classroom discourse, and literary texts.     

The interactive effect of working memory and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy

We investigated how working memory capacity (WMC) and text difficulty affect metacomprehension accuracy. Participants completed the operation-span test to measure WMC and ability to read expository texts. Under the easy-text condition, participants read 4 texts with increasing local cohesion, whereas under the difficult-text condition, participants read 4 original texts. Participants assigned a comprehension rating to each text and then completed a comprehension test. The results revealed a significant interactive effect of WMC and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy in Experiments 1 and 2. Under the easy-text condition, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension less accurately than did lower-WMC readers. In contrast, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension more accurately than did lower-WMC readers under the difficult-text condition. These results suggest that text difficulty may affect allocation of attentional resources.     

Logical relations and comprehension in conversation

This study examines how logical relations (e.g., causality and identity) in spoken discourse affect comprehension. Research on cohesion, which shows that specific unit template structures link discourse and text together, is used to build a model of language comprehension that places template structures at the base of a context comparison operation. Subjects were engaged in ordinary conversation with a confederate trained to produce specific types of logical utterances unobtrusively. The comprehension model predicted that systematically different latencies, topical response, and remedial response of subjects would follow the test items produced by the confederate. The data support the predictions. It is shown that comprehension occurs via one processing path if there is a direct tie between the target item and the immediately prior item in discourse, and a separate processing path if the tie is between the target item and the earlier context. Subject response in conversation is shown to display useful evidence on the nature of comprehension achieved. The findings specify and extend the recent research on the integration of new information into a textual structure.     

‘So you did what you wanted then’: Discourse analysis,personal agency,and psychotherapy

This paper explores issues concerning personal agency in discursive psychology and discourse analysis, with a particular emphasis on agency in terms of motivational accounts of the person. Issues are discussed in relation to the efficacy, acceptability, and accessibility of discourse analytic research for the practising psychotherapist. We suggest that such an approach may raise problems in four areas. First, we argue that without explicit theorization of the subject as language user, discourse analysis may be vulnerable to the charge of determinism. Second, theorization of the subject as language user may be required to account successfully for individual consistency and continuity of identity. Third, although claiming to critique commonsense notions of subjectivity, implicit dualist assumptions facilitate a reading of discursive psychology that is compatible with a motivational model of the person. Finally, we argue that discursive psychology itself implies a particular model of the strategically motivated language user. We conclude that, although these issues require clarification, discursive psychology and discourse analysis have much to offer psychotherapy research.     

La version française du dictionnaire pour le LIWC : modalités de construction et exemples d’utilisation

LIWC is, originally, a text analysis program that counts words of English texts in psychologically meaningful categories. It provides an analysis (in percentage) for 80 dimensions of language (functional words, topics, punctuation). The goal of this methodological note is to present the French LIWC. This version respects the structure of the categories of the English version of the software and gives explanations about the user guide such the preparation of the to be analyzed texts. Then, we explain the decisions for translating the English dictionary into French. We emphasize the constraints imposed by the morphology of written French language and the difficulties encountered (elision of the article, elision of negation and of verbs’ tense). Presenting the translation problems allows understanding the modalities of construction of the dictionary and allows for a LIWC user to build a personalized dictionary in order to analyze contents more suited to the research needs. A qualitative comparison of dimensions obtained with both the French and English versions for 66 bilingual texts of various types and contents provides satisfactory results. A statistical comparison of 119 expressive writings produced by students from three university courses (Humanities, Sciences and Psychology) about a given event (success or failure to an exam) shows the validity of the French version for identifying the expressed contents. Thus, this tool should be efficient for undertaking research in different fields of psychology (health, work and education) concerning oral and written language produced in different contexts.     

Cohesion network analysis of CSCL participation

The broad use of computer-supported collaborative-learning (CSCL) environments (e.g., instant messenger–chats, forums, blogs in online communities, and massive open online courses) calls for automated tools to support tutors in the time-consuming process of analyzing collaborative conversations. In this article, the authors propose and validate the cohesion network analysis (CNA) model, housed within the ReaderBench platform. CNA, grounded in theories of cohesion, dialogism, and polyphony, is similar to social network analysis (SNA), but it also considers text content and discourse structure and, uniquely, uses automated cohesion indices to generate the underlying discourse representation. Thus, CNA enhances the power of SNA by explicitly considering semantic cohesion while modeling interactions between participants. The primary purpose of this article is to describe CNA analysis and to provide a proof of concept, by using ten chat conversations in which multiple participants debated the advantages of CSCL technologies. Each participant’s contributions were human-scored on the basis of their relevance in terms of covering the central concepts of the conversation. SNA metrics, applied to the CNA sociogram, were then used to assess the quality of each member’s degree of participation. The results revealed that the CNA indices were strongly correlated to the human evaluations of the conversations. Furthermore, a stepwise regression analysis indicated that the CNA indices collectively predicted 54% of the variance in the human ratings of participation. The results provide promising support for the use of automated computational assessments of collaborative participation and of individuals’ degrees of active involvement in CSCL environments.     

Comparison of textual analysis applied to two lectures written three years apart by one author: the language satellites

A comparative textual analysis was carried out on two essays "Thanatol" and "Double Talk," by F. Perrier, which were originally lectures given three years apart by the author, a psychoanalyst. This study involved the use of the ALCESTE software program, a computer-assisted method of discourse analysis. It consists of modelling the distribution of the main words occurring in speeches or texts with a view toward identifying the repetitive language patterns most frequently used by a speaker or writer. This method is described in the first part of the paper. Various types of discourse emerged from analysis along with specific topics. There were three types in the case of Thanatol and four in that of Double Talk. Upon comparing the separate results obtained on each corpus, a pool of significant words observed in the corpus Thanatol was also present in Double Talk. These words were organised into groups called "language satellites" which were dispatched in the various types of discourse. Considering the underlying language structure (the enunciation), they formed another discourse running between the lines of two lectures. This supplementary discourse was recurrent and could be said to label the author and his thoughts. The ALCESTE method brings to light in the textual production of an author a recurrent pattern of discourse which might hold some clues for the analysis of texts and speech and even about the author as evident in his own ideas and thoughts.     

Social status and language comprehension

Abstract.— Previous research on differences in language use in relation to social status have dealt almost exclusively with language production. The present study investigated the comprehension of connected discourse by 116 adult Danes from two different socio-economic status groups, high status (HSES) and low status (LSES). On a task at the lexical level of comprehension (choosing between alternatives to two words in each of four texts) there appeared no differences between HSES and LSES subjects. At the structural level a difference ( p <0.05) was found in drawing conclusions from the texts, but the groups nevertheless agreed completely ( p <0.05) in underlining important segments of the texts. Thus the symmetry between production and comprehension hypothesized by Bernstein did not appear. The results are interpreted in accordance with a general model of language processing. It is suggested that in the future more attention should be paid to variables other than the purely sociological variable of social status or social class.