Linguistic complexity of academic texts
This study presents an innovative algorithm validated mechanism for assessing linguistic complexity of academic texts and is based on the system of linguistic parameters of schoolbook texts. The materials employed for the study are five texts from 6th grade textbooks in biology, recommended for use in secondary schools of the Russian Federation. The study was conducted in three main stages: identification of structural components of academic text; reconstruction of denotation maps; assessment of linguistic complexity of academic text using the parameters of readability (FKGL), narrativity, abstractness, lexical diversity (TTR). Spearman analysis indicated strong correlation between abstractness and lexical diversity, which implies that five linguistic parameters (length of sentences, words, readability index, abstractness/TTR and narrativity) suffice to conduct a full linguistic expertise provided that structural and denonative assessments are also pursued. The results of the study showed significant differences in the complexity of the texts ranging from the 6th to the 9th grades which can be used for different categories of recipients. The findings can also be employed in conducting language assessment of texts suitability for different categories of readers.