Text intelligibility

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Text intelligibility describes the intelligibility of a text . It can be defined as the adaptation of a coherent, linguistic (in the broader sense also spoken) utterance to the respective reader or listener or recipient . The comprehensibility of the text is influenced not only by features of the text (e.g. vocabulary , sentence complexity, text content, structure , typography ), but also by features of the recipient (e.g. language skills , relevant prior knowledge, thematic interest ). In addition, there are characteristics of the communicator (e.g. writing or speaking style) and the transmission channel (e.g. background noise), as well as situational factors (e.g. concentration and motivation of the reader or listener).

research

Text understandability research has been concerned with the relationship between text features and word processing since the 1920s. In terms of content, she has so far concentrated on v. a. in the areas of didactic communication, media communication, legal and administrative communication, medical communication, science journalism and communication in industry and business. These are areas in which the problem of expert-lay communication repeatedly leads to barriers to understanding. The methodical development of text comprehensibility research can be described using four lines of development:

  1. Development of approaches that take into account the formal properties of the text surface towards approaches that take semantics and text content into account;
  2. Development of empirical-inductive methods up to theoretical-deductive methods;
  3. Development of approaches that view intelligibility as an inherent property of the text, towards approaches that see intelligibility as the result of an interaction between text and recipient characteristics;
  4. Development of approaches with application-related objectives to approaches in which the theory development is in the foreground.

On this basis, four central comprehensibility concepts can be distinguished in American and German text comprehensibility research:

  1. the readability research approach;
  2. the Hamburg comprehensibility concept by Langer u. a .;
  3. the interactional approach Groeben ;
  4. the procedural approach of Kintsch et al. a.

Readability research

In the 1920s, legibility research developed in the USA, the oldest branch of research in text comprehensibility. The reason was, in particular, the efforts to be able to objectively and economically assess school reading books with regard to their readability in order to be able to assign them to the appropriate grade levels. For this purpose, the relationship between numerous text characteristics and reading comprehension of texts was examined. On the basis of these studies, so-called readability formulas or readability indices were developed from the end of the 1920s . By calculating selected text features (e.g. average sentence length, proportion of rare words), these predict the degree of difficulty or legibility of a text. According to the results of numerous readability studies, word difficulty is of the greatest importance in predicting reading comprehension. The measurement of sentence difficulty also proved to be very predictive. When calculating legibility, almost all formulas therefore rely on at least one word difficulty variable (especially word frequency, word familiarity, word length) and at least one variable on sentence difficulty (especially sentence length, sentence complexity).

Another important result of the legibility research is that adding further factors beyond an explanatory word and sentence factor often did not result in a significant increase in the explanation of the formula. According to Chall and Dale, this can be explained by the fact that most of the variables of word and sentence difficulty have a high correlation with one another. A variable usually measures the other possible variables indirectly. According to Zipf's law, for example, the overwhelming majority of frequently used words are also short words. This fact can be explained by the principle of least effort: Long words or expressions are simply shortened if used frequently (e.g. car instead of automobile). This fact has the consequence that the word length also measures the word frequency to a large extent. "Because of the many interactions between linguistic entities, readability formulas that are based on sentence and word length indirectly measure significantly more than is directly contained in the formulas. This is probably the real secret to the success of the readability formulas."

Well-known examples of readability formulas for English-language texts are the Flesch-Reading-Ease , the Flesch-Kincaid-Grade-Level and the Gunning-Fog-Index . From the late 1960s to the 1980s, formulas specially designed for the German language were increasingly developed (e.g. the Viennese factual text formulas ) , which, however, are often based on the formulas of American research. The best known example of a current German readability formula is the Hohenheim Comprehensibility Index (HIX), which was developed at the University of Hohenheim in cooperation with H + H CommunicationLab GmbH. He will u. a. used by Stiftung Warentest to assess the comprehensibility of insurance conditions. So far, the University of Hohenheim has published the index. a. Used to check the comprehensibility of election programs, press releases and homepage news of the Bundestag parties, interviews with politicians, bank documents and speeches by the CEOs of all DAX 30 companies.

Hamburg comprehensibility concept

It was not until the 1970s that more complex approaches were developed in both Germany and the USA. Their aim was to develop a more comprehensive model of intelligibility. Not only word and sentence features, but also features of the text structure and organization as well as the content redundancy of the texts should also be recorded. In Germany, the so-called Hamburg comprehensibility concept in particular became very important for theory and practice. On the basis of studies in which numerous test persons had to judge different texts on the basis of a series of pairs of opposites (e.g. interesting / boring, strongly structured / poorly structured, prolonged / limited to the essentials), the researchers arrived at four central characteristic dimensions of intelligibility: Simplicity (syntactic-semantic simplicity), structure / order (internal consistency and external clarity), brevity / conciseness (content restricted to the essentials) and additional stimulation (triggering personal concern and stimulation).

Interactive approach by Groeben

Almost simultaneously with the development of the Hamburg comprehensibility concept, German comprehensibility research produced a further comprehensibility concept. The model of the psychologist Norbert Groeben is also referred to as the "interactional approach" of text comprehensibility research. Text intelligibility is now understood as an interaction between text and reader and no longer, as in legibility research and the Hamburg concept of intelligibility, as a pure text property. In his concept, however, Groeben also arrives at four dimensions of text comprehensibility that largely coincide with the dimensions of the Hamburg concept of intelligibility: linguistic simplicity, semantic brevity / redundancy, cognitive structure / order and stimulating cognitive conflict. Groeben interprets this correspondence as evidence that "the four dimensions mentioned are the most relevant and relatively comprehensive feature areas of the text structure".

Procedural approach by Kintsch et al. a.

The first concept of text intelligibility based on cognitive science comes from an American research group led by Walter Kintsch. It is also known as the “procedural approach” to text comprehensibility research. In this model, text comprehension - similar to Groeben - is viewed as a process of actively constructing a coherent structure of meaning based on the interaction of two parallel processing directions: text-based and knowledge-based processing. Accordingly, the reader constructs mental representations, so-called propositions, from the sentences or parts of sentences in a text . This propositional representation of a text includes the ideas or meaning of a message that lies beneath the surface of the text (letters, words, punctuation marks), the so-called deep structure of the text or text base. Text comprehension now consists of representing the content of the text in a coherent and text-adequate structure. Whether this succeeds depends not only on text characteristics (e.g. coherence of the text base, density of ideas or propositions, sentence or phrase length), but also on reader characteristics (processing strategy, capacity of working and short-term memory ).

Karlsruhe intelligibility concept

The Karlsruhe comprehensibility concept was developed by the translation scholar Susanne Göpferich . She also describes it as a "communication-oriented, integrative approach to assessing the comprehensibility of texts". According to Göpferich, the concept represents a further development of the Hamburg intelligibility concept. Göpferich's central point of criticism of the Hamburg intelligibility concept is its text-centered perspective. In contrast, in the Karlsruhe concept of comprehensibility, the communication situation and the communicative function of the text are in the foreground. The latter arises from the combination of purpose, addressee and sender of a text. When developing the concept, Göpferich drew on findings from cognitive science, communication theory , instructional psychology , linguistics and semiotics . It can thus - like the approaches of Groeben and Kintsch - be called a theoretical-deductive approach.

An important innovation in the Karlsruhe concept of comprehensibility is the introduction of mental models into text comprehensibility research. A mental model is the representation of an object or a process in the consciousness of a living being. According to Göpferich, two types of mental models are relevant for text intelligibility. The mental denotation model consists of the objects and facts in the communicator's memory, which he wants to convey to his recipients on the basis of the text. Possibly - e.g. For example, if there are large differences in knowledge between communicator and recipient - the denotation model of the communicator must first be simplified (e.g. omission of details). The mental convention model is represented by the text-type-specific standard formulations and structural specifications (e.g. introduction, main part, conclusion). If these conventions are violated, the intelligibility of the text is impaired.

The Karlsruhe concept of intelligibility also distinguishes between different dimensions of intelligibility. In doing so, Göpferich adopts the four comprehensibility dimensions of the Hamburg comprehensibility concept and describes them as structure (corresponds to structure / order), simplicity (simplicity), motivation (additional stimulus) and conciseness (brevity / conciseness). These four dimensions are supplemented by the two dimensions correctness and perceptibility. According to Göpferich, it is very likely that errors will occur in the communication of a text. The correctness of a text is impaired, for example, if the communicator overestimates the recipient's previous knowledge and tries to convey an overly complex denotation model. Another example would be a violation of the mental convention model. With the dimension of perceptibility, Göpferich introduces the aspect of legibility into her concept of comprehensibility. However, the concept of perceivability goes beyond classic aspects of legibility such as font, font size and sentence width and also includes the support of the text through lists and illustrations.

Similarities and differences between the approaches

The Hamburg comprehensibility concept, like legibility research, can be assigned to the group of empirical-inductive concepts of text comprehensibility research. In both approaches, the central comprehensibility factors are obtained from an originally relatively large, plausibility-based selection of the most varied of variables through empirical surveys and subsequent statistical selection or compression processes ( inductive ).

In contrast, the theoretical-deductive approaches of Groeben, Kintsch and others lead the way. a. as well as Göpferich the intelligibility variables from existing theories of understanding ( deduction ). Then they check this theory-based selection of variables empirically in order to arrive at the central comprehensibility factors. This approach also leads to an additional inclusion of reader and situation characteristics, while the two empirical-inductive approaches can be characterized by their concentration on text characteristics. The procedural approach of Kintsch et al. a. and Göpferich's communication-oriented, integrative approach ultimately differ from the other, highly application-oriented approaches in that they focus on theory development. The central aim here is the development of theoretically as precise models of text understanding as possible and the conceptions of (person- or situation-specific) text comprehensibility based on them. The other approaches, on the other hand, are concerned with developing generally applicable and practicable rules for text optimization.

Dilemmas of text comprehensibility research

The comparison of the comprehensibility concepts listed here reveals some dilemmas within the research area. According to Christmann, a central dilemma is the contradiction between practicality and precision: “In cases in which descriptions of text features are relatively precise, differentiated and potentially explanatory, they are uneconomical; in those cases in which they are economically, technologically feasible and application-relevant, they are imprecise. "

According to Tauber, the reader-text interaction results in the second important dilemma of comprehensibility research: “Does the reader-text-interaction postulate lead to an impossibility of prediction because each reader has a different concept of comprehensibility?” In other words: In view of the Numerous factors that have a potential influence on word processing, the same text can assume any number of “understandings”. Depending on which communication participants it is exchanged between, via which channel and in which situation this happens.

A third dilemma is the inclusion of the topic influence. This aspect is not considered by any of the comprehensibility models listed here. In an investigation, Mrazek came to the conclusion that as soon as the semantics of texts are taken into account and linked to the prior knowledge and interest of the recipient, the formal text factors lose a lot of their influence.

Further difficulties arise due to the contradictions between the different intelligibility dimensions. So make z. B. Bayer and Seidel state, "that - assuming a minimum of content-related complexity - the demand for simplicity and stimulation is incompatible with the demand for clarity and brevity." Closely related to this contradiction is the question of the possible negative consequences of maximizing comprehensibility: " The texts, which have been optimized for the greatest possible understandability, which Langer, Schulz v. Presenting Thun and Bausch in your book have a penetratingly instructive effect on experienced readers, especially in their simplicity cumbersome and to a certain extent artificial. "

Finally, it should not go unmentioned that optimizing text understandability in certain contexts can easily conflict with other, equally worthwhile goals of text optimization. In his style guide German for professionals , Wolf Schneider refers to the fact that understandable and “good German” can only be reconciled to a certain extent. Because certain features of an interesting, varied and unmistakable language undoubtedly reduce its intelligibility. This includes, for example, a large vocabulary with many different words, unused terms, language images and metaphors, as well as a certain degree of irony.

Hohenheim model of text comprehensibility

Hohenheim model of text comprehensibility

On the basis of the approaches to text comprehensibility research described above, a comprehensive model of text comprehensibility was developed at the University of Hohenheim. The starting point for model development is the distinction between the predictor, construct and indicator level. On the predictor level there are those factors or complexes of factors that make the text understandable. These include communicator and text characteristics, channel characteristics, recipient characteristics and situational factors. The text intelligibility itself is described in this model as a latent, i.e. H. not directly measurable construct viewed (construct level), which is influenced by the predictors. This intelligibility of the text in turn leads to certain processing reactions in the text recipients, which can also be referred to as indicators for the intelligibility of the text (indicator level). These include text comprehension, processing efficiency and comprehensibility evaluation. As with Groeben, the intelligibility of the text is understood as a mediating construct that can only be measured indirectly. In contrast to Groeben, the text comprehensibility in the Hohenheim text comprehensibility model mediates not only between text and reader, but between all comprehensibility factors and recipient reactions.

Intelligibility predictors

Among the text features are u the Hohenheim understanding of the text model. a. The difficulty of words and sentences, the internal coherence, the support of the internal structure through the external structure, the density of ideas, the redundancy of content and the influence of the topic counted. In terms of recipient characteristics relevant to understanding , a distinction is made between cognitive characteristics (e.g. ability to think logically and abstractly, language competence, relevant prior knowledge) and affective recipient characteristics (e.g. pre-setting for the respective communicator and topic of the text). With regard to the communicator features relevant to comprehensibility, the communicator's idea of ​​the recipient (s) should be mentioned in particular (so-called recipient model). In addition, there is the individual speaking or writing style of each communicator, as well as, depending on the communication channel, the prosody , the dialect and any speech defects of the communicator. Important situational factors include concentration, processing goals, perspectives and strategies as well as processing motivation. The intelligibility-relevant features of the communication channel are ultimately the volatility of the language (written vs. spoken text), the processing rate (specified vs. self-determined), the signal constancy (clear letter and word segmentation vs. ambiguous sound segmentation), the signal density (combination of auditory and visual signals vs. purely auditory or textual signals), the signal consistency (clear signals for auditory and textual reception vs. possibly contradicting signals or text-image scissors for audiovisual reception) as well as the structural and pragmatic explicity (visual structuring notes in printed texts, prosodic and mimic-gestural references to non-verbal information in spoken language).

There are numerous interactions between the different intelligibility predictors . A simple example of this is the (individual) word difficulty. This is undoubtedly strongly dependent on the recipient's previous knowledge of the respective subject area. Technical terms do not lead to any comprehension difficulties for the experts in a subject area, while they sometimes represent insurmountable barriers to comprehension for laypeople. There are also interactions between the recipient factors and the situational factors: For example, the general interest in the subject area of ​​a text mostly influences the concentration and the processing goals and strategies during reception. At the same time, however, these situational factors are also influenced by the characteristics of the communicator, the text and the transmission channel. The group membership of the communicator and the topic of the text affect the situational concentration and processing motivation of the recipient. In addition, there is also an interaction between communicator factors and recipient factors that is relevant to comprehensibility: The shared knowledge or “ common ground ” of both communication partners results from the correspondence of the expertise of the communicator with the relevant prior knowledge of the recipient , which determines the possible degree of understanding.

Comprehensibility indicators

In the Hohenheim Text Understanding Model, text intelligibility is described as latent, i.e. H. not directly measurable construct considered. In order to make this at least indirectly detectable, three central comprehensibility indicators can be distinguished: text comprehension, processing efficiency and comprehensibility rating. These three dimensions were repeatedly examined in comprehensibility research as indicators of text comprehensibility in order to be able to draw conclusions about the relevant or most effective predictors of comprehensibility. The understanding of the text can be described as a product of cognitive word processor. The aim of each recipient is the adequate and coherent mental representation of the meaning of the processed text. For the comprehensibility indicator of processing efficiency. the respective cognitive effort (e.g. reading time) is also included, which is necessary to produce a certain meaning representation. If two recipients reach the same level of understanding, their processing efficiency can therefore differ depending on how much cognitive effort was required to achieve the text understanding. While text comprehension and processing efficiency should represent as objective indicators of the reception process and result as possible, the purpose of recording the comprehensibility evaluations of the recipients is precisely to depict the subjective perception of comprehensibility. In general, it can be assumed that these understandability ratings are strongly influenced by text comprehension and processing efficiency. In his study, however, Mrazek comes to the conclusion that "the comprehensibility rating is influenced by significantly different factors than objective measures of comprehension". Therefore, an analytical and methodical separation of these indicators makes sense.

Explicitly not included as an indicator (and therefore only shown in dashed lines in the figure) is another, frequently used indicator, the text retained . According to Kercher, retention is to be assigned to the related, but by no means congruent, process of learning textual content, which must be analytically differentiated from understanding a text. "You can (...) keep sentences that you didn't understand, and you can understand sentences but forget them anyway." Retaining is therefore not dependent on understanding: a mere repetition of incomprehensible text content can be sufficient for retention. Understanding text content cannot be described as a necessary, but certainly as a conducive or facilitating condition for keeping this text content. Because the better a text is understood, the more likely it is that text understanding leads to text learning and text learning to retention.

Practical application of the model

The aim of the Hohenheim text comprehensibility model is the most comprehensive possible representation of possible influencing factors and measurement options for text comprehensibility. On this basis, it must then be decided before the respective object of investigation or the respective research question which intelligibility predictors and indicators are included in the investigation (i.e. varied) and which are excluded or only controlled or kept constant. In his own study of the intelligibility of politician language, Kercher restricts himself to the three predictor complexes text factors (readability formulas and parameters), channel factors (presentation modality: textual / auditory / audio-visual) and recipient factors (e.g. education, language competence, political knowledge) . At the indicator level, on the other hand, all three developed indicators are included in the investigation - with the following justification: "As long as there is no one indicator for text comprehensibility (and there will certainly never be such an indicator), the phenomenon is as good as possible using different and proven indicators. "

Rules for good text intelligibility

General rules

There are numerous style guides and rules that also contain rules for comprehensibility (see also Training Text Understanding ). Particularly well-known and still up-to-date, for example, is the style guide by Ludwig Reiners from 1951, which is now in its 35th edition. The various style guides from Wolf Schneider are also very successful, e. B. German for professionals or German for experts . Such style guides do not only refer to the comprehensibility of texts. They are almost always general guides for good writing, in which comprehensibility is only one aspect among many. This often leads to contradictions between the individual rules. For example, the rule "avoid repetition", which is often viewed as an aspect of a good, lively writing style, mostly violates the optimization of intelligibility. The most common rules for understandable texts are therefore listed below, taking into account that these sometimes conflict with rules for "good", lively or varied texts:

  • Form short and simple sentences, avoid box sentences
  • Use simple, familiar and specific words, avoid or (if necessary) explain foreign and technical terms as well as anglicisms and abstract terms (often ending with -heit or -keit)
  • Avoid or explain abbreviations
  • Avoid passive constructions
  • Avoid nominalizations (substantiated verbs or adjectives that often end in -ung)
  • Structure the text well, both in terms of content (red thread, clear references) and optically (e.g. subheadings, lists)
  • Do not require expert knowledge (e.g. explanations using information boxes)
  • If possible: support comprehensibility through illustrations
  • And finally George Orwell's “golden rule”: ignore any of the rules just mentioned before you create a language monster ( Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous ).

Journalistic texts

With regard to journalistic texts, reference is often made to Walther von La Roche's rules of comprehensibility :

  1. Only bring what you yourself understand.
  2. Report clearly.
  3. Report accurately.
  4. Give names.
  5. Tell the story.
  6. Show connections.
  7. Repeat if you are concerned that the reader, listener, or viewer has already forgotten a detail that you mentioned earlier and that they need to have in mind to fully understand the present passage.
  8. Look for the appropriate word.
  9. Use the correct word.
  10. Be careful with metaphors.
  11. Lexical variance is more damaging.
  12. Avoid official German.
  13. Banish the bloat style.
  14. Avoid consonance and collision.
  15. Skimp on foreign words.
  16. Explain terms and abbreviations.
  17. Use short sentences.
  18. Prefer the active.
  19. Respect spelling and grammar.
  20. ... and pay attention to the punctuation marks.

Business texts

As the reference to style guides shows, general rules are geared more towards demanding texts than towards usage texts. In the case of utility texts, and thus business texts, some of the rules that are geared towards good style take a back seat. For example, it is less important that words are short. Metaphors should be avoided; the strong subjunctive is not necessary, "would" is enough. References can be replaced by repeating nouns. Business texts can be geared more towards the addressee:

  • Write respectfully, considering paraverbal and non-verbal information.
  • Take into account the different levels of understanding of the addressees (e.g. the actual addressee as a specialist, his superiors more as a layperson).
  • Business texts should state very clearly what it is about, in particular which services in contracts
  • Do not write legally as a non-lawyer (which would probably be unclear or incorrect).
  • Use uniform terms, repeat words if necessary.
  • Write specifically in order to keep the scope for interpretation as low as possible.
  • For contractors: write soberly / simply, so not very promising.
  • Relative clauses and adjectives leave what they are, namely descriptions; include important statements in a new sentence.
  • Align the text in contracts with the fact that you want something from the other contractual partner

Texts on the web

Maximum text understandability is particularly important for texts on the web. Because the web is read differently than with printed texts:

  • Reading on the screen is 25 percent slower than reading a print text.
  • You read in an unusual posture.
  • Websites are not read by 70–80 percent of users, but hurriedly scanned through. Much is simply left out - especially when readers are looking for specific information.
  • Only prominent information such as headings, bold text, lists and photos are taken into account.
  • 50 percent of the information offered is not noticed.
  • The number of eye movements is reduced by 60 percent compared to traditional reading.
  • Attention is only paid to what attracts attention.

The following rules of intelligibility have proven to be effective for web texts:

  • The most important things at the beginning
  • Just one thought per sentence
  • About 7 to 11 words per sentence
  • Verbs instead of nominal style (avoid nouns with -ung, -keit, -heit, -ät, -ion, -ive, -ismus as far as possible)
  • Use of easily understandable words
  • Consideration of previous knowledge and reference to what is known (avoiding words that are incomprehensible, strange or unfamiliar to the target group)
  • Replacement of subordinate clauses with main clauses (where you put a comma in the print area, a point should be put in online texts)
  • Avoiding stumbling blocks such as insertions, brackets, abbreviations, unusual typefaces
  • Increased reading speed through brevity, prefixing important facts, understandable language and dividing the text into small portions
  • Pictorial language through metaphors, images and examples
  • Anglicisms are more suitable (example: "Link" is better than "Link")
  • Lots of paragraphs with headings
  • Lots of white space
  • Highlight important statements in bold or in color
  • Texts should be max. be two pages long; Split into thematic blocks
  • Links should be at the end and not in the middle of the text (exception: word explanations)
  • Avoid redundant links (such as "more", "next") and unclear goals (click here)
  • Use standard fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana or font family: sans-serif)

Administrative language

As part of the University of Hohenheim's Klartext initiative, which is intended to make the university's administrative language friendlier and easier to understand, the following rules have been drawn up:

  • Address the reader personally, in a friendly and open manner. Explain administrative actions, do not use an official or command tone.
  • Avoid the passive voice whenever you can. When you know the doers, make them the subject of the sentence.
  • Don't use negatives when there is a positive word. And avoid double negations altogether.
  • Use simple and familiar terms as possible. If possible, replace a foreign or technical word with a common German word. The same applies to avoidable anglicisms (e.g. location, challenge).
  • Crack Tapeworm Words. Write "Examination Recognition" instead of "Examination Recognition". If a word is difficult to divide, hyphens help to make it easier to read (e.g. "Bachelor students" instead of "Bachelor students"). The new spelling even provides for this.
  • Explain essential technical terms and unfamiliar abbreviations when used for the first time in brackets or in a separate sentence.
  • Use as few nouns and "weak" verbs as possible. Verbs like "to take place", "to carry out" or "to concern" are weak. Strong verbs are active, concrete, and meaningful.
  • Concentrate on the essentials. Eliminate unnecessary filler words. Avoid unimportant detailed information.
  • Make clear references between words, phrases and sentences. In particular, use a consistent choice of words. Avoid using "torn" (two-part) verbs if possible. At the end, check all payments again (especially after reductions or changes).
  • Crack tapeworm sentences. Shorten or split sentences that are longer than 20 words. There should be no more than six words between subject and predicate (as well as the two parts of a predicate).
  • Make sure you have a clear structure. A well-structured text consists of a main part that follows a recognizable red thread (subheadings, emphasis). Entry and end are particularly easy to understand. In the case of enumerations, we recommend lists in which you arrange the individual items one below the other.
  • Put laws at the end. Legal sources should be put in brackets at the end of a sentence so as not to hinder the flow of reading.
  • Do not use official and law firm German. Write “inform” instead of “inform”, write “despite” instead of “notwithstanding”. Avoid bureaucratic abbreviations such as "aaO", "iHv", "uAwg", "idF", "iVm" or "iSdG".

The Harburg district in Lower Saxony and the Soest district in South Westphalia have also launched initiatives for comprehensibility similar to those of the University of Hohenheim. Within the framework of these projects, regulations for administrative staff were developed and then published.

Rules for the optimal sentence length

Numerous information and specifications can be found in the advisory literature on the optimal sentence length:

Words per sentence Specification or specification (with source)
3-9 Range of what an average German reader reads in a processing unit of 3 seconds
9 Upper limit of optimal intelligibility according to dpa
12 Upper limit for short sentences according to Björnsson
7-14 Range of “steps of meaning” in everyday speech or range of what words can be conveyed in the “present duration” of short-term memory (approx. 6 seconds)
10-15 Recommended sentence length for written language according to Seibicke
12 Average sentence length in the BILD newspaper
12-15 Most of the sentences in the written language according to Seibicke
13 Upper limit for radio news to Weischenberg
15th Upper limit for print news to Weischenberg
17th Average sentence length in the Gospel of John and in the Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
18th Upper limit of ease of understanding according to Reiners, upper limit for journalists according to Sturm & Zirbik
20th Upper limit of what is desired at the dpa
30th Upper limit of what is allowed at the dpa
31 Average sentence length in Dr. Faustus by Thomas Mann

Practice text comprehensibility

There are numerous self-study courses to improve your own understanding of the text. The most popular of these courses are briefly presented below.

  • Express yourself in an understandable way by Langer, Schulz von Thun and Tausch: The exercise program developed within the framework of the Hamburg comprehensibility concept is certainly the best-known and most frequently carried out self-study program to increase text intelligibility. The book "Expressing Yourself Understandably", in which the exercise program is included, is now in its 9th edition. As part of the exercise program, the four "intelligibility" of the Hamburg concept of intelligibility are first explained and how one can judge texts based on these four criteria. Exercises for text optimization based on the four criteria follow. Compared to other exercise programs, the program has the advantage that it has been scientifically evaluated by the authors. It turned out that the learning effects were most pronounced in the rehearsal group who had completed the exercise program in full. In comparison, the other four groups performed significantly worse. They either had received no training at all, only a short version of the program or only theoretical information on understandable text design or had only been trained using Reiners' style guide.
  • The style primer by Ludwig Reiners: The style primer is the evergreen of comprehensibility training, which is also shown by the fact that it is now in its 35th edition. The first edition appeared in 1951. However, Reiner's concern is not only with more understandable texts, but more generally with the "path to good German", as the subtitle of the book also reveals. However, a significant part of the total of 20 lessons is aimed at understanding the text (e.g. 9th lesson: "Build short sentences!", 16th lesson: "Write clearly!"). However, if one believes the evaluation by Langer, Schulz von Thun and Tausch, then the effectiveness of the "Style Guide", at least in terms of improving understandable writing, is worse than the exercise program for the Hamburg comprehensibility concept.
  • German for professionals by Wolf Schneider: The 14th edition of the style guide by Wolf Schneider is already a similar classic to the style guide by Ludwig Reiners. However, German for professionals is not a self-study course in the narrower sense, as the book does not contain any exercises. In addition, as with Reiner's style guide, it is a guide to good style - not primarily a guide to comprehensibility. However, the book has its own chapter "How to write intelligibly", which explains, among other things, "Where understandable and good German part". Schneider's books "Deutsch für Kenner", "Deutsch fürs Leben" and "Deutsch! The Handbook for Attractive Texts" are also recommended, albeit with greater overlaps with "Deutsch für Profis".
  • Writing texts - simple, clear, understandable by Günther Zimmermann: Prof. Dr. Günther Zimmermann is a linguist and after his retirement he founded a company that offers comprehensibility advice for companies. The advantage of Zimmermann's exercise program is that it explains the most important theoretical basics again in advance, e.g. B. "Why do people write so difficult to understand?" or "How do we understand texts?" Understanding these fundamentals also facilitates the practical implementation of the intelligibility rules. In addition, Zimmermann's exercise program contains a separate chapter on the subject of writing and giving presentations. Günther Zimmermann also oversees the distance learning course "Convincing Texts", which is already in its 7th edition.
  • Write well and understandably in ten simple steps by Ingrid Glomp: As the title suggests, Ingrid Glomp's self-study program is not just a course of comprehensibility. However, the intelligibility lessons make up over half of the "ten easy steps". Ingrid Glomp is a freelance journalist and also writes on the subject on her blog "Schreibhandwerk".
  • The writing seminar by Andrea Fehringer and Thomas Köpf: Again, this is not a pure comprehensibility course. Nevertheless, a large part of the lessons is devoted to understandable writing (e.g. “Find simple words”, “Write in short sentences”, “Be sparing with the syllables”, “Be afraid of the passive voice”). The good and bad text examples and the "practical tips" from the two Austrian journalists are useful. Also nice are the many amusing and fitting quotes from famous people on the subject of intelligibility, with which the lessons are "spiced up" (see also " Famous quotes on text intelligibility ").
  • Comprehensible writing - more success with good texts by Monika Salchert: Monika Salchert works as a freelance journalist for various daily and weekly newspapers, as well as an author and presenter for WDR radio and WDR television. Your self-study course is based on the seminar of the same name at the Federal Academy for Public Administration (BAköV) . It is published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and can be downloaded free of charge.

Text understandability tools

Free tools (for home users)

There are numerous free online tools for measuring certain readability formulas and parameters (e.g. average word and sentence length). One of the best-known and most popular online tools is Leichtlesbar.ch, which can only be used to calculate the Flesch value (Flesch-Reading-Ease) of texts. Schreiblabor.com offers a significantly larger range of functions. It calculates the Flesch value (adapted for the German language), as well as sentence and word length and marks filler words, long words, long sentences, empty phrases or phrases, anglicisms and the Kincaid Grade Level as well as the four Viennese factual formulas . It has the additional advantage that the character and word boundaries can be changed for long words and long sentences. There is also a filler word test that not only shows the filler words in the text, but also compares the filler word rate of the text with values ​​from known reference texts (e.g. Harry Potter).

Also useful and free of charge is Psychometrica's online tool, which can be used to analyze texts using the Lix readability index. Lix was originally developed at the pedagogical center of the Stockholm school administration to find a method for the objective assessment of the degree of difficulty of German texts for Swedish school books. The index was extensively evaluated for this purpose. In Kercher's study of the intelligibility of politicians' language, he did very well with regard to his predictive power. Lix has a range of values ​​from around 20 to 70 and classifies the difficulty of texts based on five levels of difficulty: very low (> 25), low (> 35), medium (> 45), high (> 55), very high (> 65). The values ​​can, however, also be illustrated using common types of text: children's and youth literature (> 40), fiction (40–50), non-fiction (50–60), specialist literature (over 60). Psychometrica's Lix tool can also be downloaded as a desktop version.

If only the fluency of individual words is to be assessed, the vocabulary project of the University of Leipzig offers a practical query option. The frequency of almost any word can be determined here. The lower the frequency class, the more common the word. For example, the specific article "der" has frequency class 0, the word "elementary school" has frequency class 7 and a rare foreign word such as "oxymoron" has frequency class 18. This makes it clear: The determination of word difficulty based on word frequency is more precise than that in individual cases Determination of word length (elementary school = 11 letters, oxymoron = 8 letters).

The currently most comprehensive and free tool for analyzing text intelligibility is offered by wortliga.de. Here, not only the overall readability is assessed (with its own index), but also the parameters keywords, sentence length, passive sentences, perfect tense, impersonal language, modal verbs, abbreviations, word length, filler words, phrases and noun style. When entering text, the user defines a keyword for the "Keywords" parameter, on the basis of which the tool then checks whether this keyword occurs in the text with an appropriate frequency. The tool works with a traffic light system: green, yellow or red indicate how urgent a revision of the text is in relation to the respective parameter. If you move the mouse pointer over the respective parameter, the corresponding search results are highlighted in yellow in the text. Compared to the analysis tool from Schreiblabor.com, however, the Wortliga tool has the disadvantage that the limit values ​​for the respective parameters cannot be changed. Depending on the type of text, this leads to missing or pointless hits in the text.

Paid tools (for professional users)

Although some of the free analysis tools offer a considerable range of functions, they suffer from a central weakness: They offer little or no options for adapting the analysis to the relevant type of text or the respective application. The text inspector, for whom the text type, target group and age group must be selected before the analysis, does not take these settings into account in the analysis result. It therefore doesn't deliver more, but rather less than the other free analysis tools. Users with professional application purposes will therefore quickly find that the free tools can be used for an initial assessment of the text comprehensibility and to find important comprehensibility hurdles, but that at the same time a large number of "false hits" are produced. For example, it often happens that certain words (e.g. brand or product names) are unavoidable or unalterable in professional contexts despite a certain "excess length" and should therefore not be criticized by the software. However, the free tools do not have the option of excluding such words when marking hits. Another disadvantage of the free tools is that they cannot be integrated into common word processing programs since they are purely online tools. When optimizing text, it is therefore always necessary to copy back and forth between the respective word processing program and the online tool.

If you do not want to accept these disadvantages, you have to resort to a paid text analysis tool. Three providers dominate the market:

  • TextLab, a joint development by H&H Communication Lab GmbH in cooperation with the University of Hohenheim,
  • LinguLab, a development by LinguLab GmbH (meanwhile, however, sold by media access GmbH)
  • the 4 D Wording Optimizer from Pintexx GmbH, which was developed in cooperation with Hans-Peter and Andreas Förster (the authors of "Corporate Wording® 3.0").

These programs not only analyze comprehensibility, but also make specific suggestions for improvement options (e.g. more understandable synonyms) in the event of comprehensibility problems. In addition, they offer the possibility of adapting the analyzes to the respective application context, for example to feed individual lists of words into the analysis that the program should mark or ignore. In addition to online use via the browser, integration in Microsoft Word is also possible. All programs use specially developed indices to calculate overall intelligibility: TextLab the Hohenheim Understandability Index (HIX), LinguLab the LinguLab Readability Index (LLI) especially for web texts and CW-Online or the 4 D Wording Optimizer the CW Index. The strength of LinguLab lies in the optimization of the web suitability of texts (search engine optimization, scannability, interactivity, conciseness). The 4 D Wording Optimizer differs from the competition in particular through its language climate analysis (so-called 4-color language method). In addition to the scientifically based comprehensibility analysis, it offers extensive rules and functions for analyzing language style, terminology management and corporate language. TextLab can also be integrated not only in Microsoft Word, but also in Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes. LinguLab also offers integration into Typo3, Wordpress, SharePoint, ContentXXL, FirstSpirit and Contao. TextLab and LinguLab also enable integration into external programs via an API interface. All programs can also be installed as a cloud solution (software as a service) or on a business server in the intranet.

Famous quotes for text comprehensibility

The importance of text comprehensibility is also expressed in the large number of famous philosophers, writers, scientists and politicians who have already commented on this topic. Text intelligibility is also a problem that preoccupied people a long time ago: Corresponding references can already be found in Confucius and in the Bible.

  • "If the language is wrong, then what is said is not what is meant." (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 541–479 BC)
  • "The language of truth is simple." ( Euripides , Greek playwright, 480–407 BC)
  • "Anyone who has acquired broad knowledge should strive to express themselves briefly and clearly." ( Mengzi , Chinese philosopher and successor to Confucius, around 370 BC)
  • "Unclear words are like a blind mirror." (Chinese proverb)
  • "Every word you seldom hear should flee like a reef." ( Julius Caesar , Roman statesman, general and author, 100–44 BC)
  • "If you don't speak a clear language, how are you supposed to understand what is being said? You are speaking to the wind, as it were." ( New Testament , 1 Corinthians, 9/14)
  • "There are people who like ambiguities and find it annoying when they are asked to commit to an explanation of terms." ( Francis Bacon , English statesman and philosopher, 1561–1626)
  • "How many fallacies and errors come at the expense of words and their uncertain or misunderstood meanings." ( John Locke , English philosopher, 1632–1704)
  • "Never use a new word unless it has three properties: It must be necessary, understandable and melodious." ( Voltaire , French philosopher, 1694–1778)
  • "Let the language of the spirit pass through the heart so that it can be understood." ( Jean-Jacques Rousseau , French philosopher, 1712–1778)
  • "Foreign words reveal either poverty or negligence." ( Immanuel Kant , German philosopher, 1724–1804)
  • "Anyone who speaks to the head has to understand many languages ​​and one understands only one well; anyone who speaks with the heart is understandable to everyone." ( Ludwig Börne , German writer, 1786–1837)
  • "You have to think like very few and talk like most." ( Arthur Schopenhauer , German philosopher, 1788–1860)
  • "The language of the law should satisfy lawyers and be understandable to the nation." ( Johann Caspar Bluntschli , Swiss legal scholar and politician, 1808–1881)
  • "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the same as between the lightning and a firefly." ( Mark Twain , American writer, 1835–1910)
  • "Some words are so long that they are not words, but alphabetical processions." (Mark Twain, American writer, 1835–1910)
  • "For an individual, there can be no question that a few clear terms are worth more than many confused ones." ( Charles Sanders Peirce , American philosopher and mathematician, 1839–1914)
  • "The most incomprehensible people speak therefore, for whom the language serves nothing more than to make themselves understandable." ( Karl Kraus , Austrian writer, 1874–1936)
  • "The old words are the best and the short ones are the very best." ( Winston Churchill , British statesman and Prime Minister, 1874–1965)
  • "Most people have a sacred respect for words they cannot grasp, and see it as a sign of an author's superficiality if they can grasp it." ( Albert Einstein , German-American physicist, 1879–1955)
  • "As simple as possible. But not easier!" (Albert Einstein, German-American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1879–1955)
  • "Authors should write standing at a desk. Then they would think of short sentences on their own." ( Ernest Hemingway , American writer, 1899–1961)
  • "If something is easy to read, then it was difficult to write." ( Enrique Jardiel Poncela , Albanian writer, 1901–1952)
  • "Understandable language spoken by a politician shows a clear conscience." ( André Malraux , French politician, writer and critic, 1901–76)
  • "If you can't say it simply and clearly, you should keep silent and continue working until you can say it clearly." ( Karl Popper , Austrian-British philosopher, 1902–1994)
  • "I would give a thousand originalities of expression for clarity." ( Manès Sperber , German-French writer, 1905–1984)
  • "Quite a few experts see their raison d'être in infinitely complicating a relatively simple matter." ( Pierre Elliott Trudeau , Canadian politician and Prime Minister, 1919–2000)
  • "Inaudibility is by no means proof of deep thoughts." ( Marcel Reich-Ranicki , Polish-German literary critic, 1920–2013)
  • "If you can't explain what you're doing to your grandmother, you may not have fully understood it yourself." ( Günter Blobel , American biochemist and Nobel Prize winner, * 1936)
  • "It's hard work to write books that are easy to read." ( John Irving , American writer, * 1942)
  • "Difficulty understanding is not always a glitch. Some people can also see advantages in putting obstacles in the way of understanding for their fellow human beings: with the help of difficult-to-understand language and with the help of difficult-to-understand content." (Inghard Langer, German comprehensibility researcher, 1943–2013)
  • "One of the worst things you can do to your own language is to polish up your vocabulary and look for complicated words just because you're a little ashamed of the simple ones." ( Stephen King , American writer, * 1947)
  • "Thought is not written the same, written is not read the same, and read is not immediately understood." ( Andrea Fehringer & Thomas Köpf, Austrian journalists, in their book "Das Schreibseminar")

See also

literature

  • Katrin Baum, Cornelia Deeg: Express yourself clearly - training program. Learn to write reader-oriented. With a foreword by Friedemann Schulz von Thun . Ernst Reinhardt, Munich 2018.
  • Ines Bose, Dietz Schwiesau (Ed.): Writing, speaking, listening to messages - research into the intelligibility of radio messages . Frank & Timme, Berlin 2012.
  • Ursula Christmann: Models of word processing: text description as text understanding . Aschendorff, Münster 1989.
  • Sascha Demarmels: What do you actually measure when you measure intelligibility? In: Erika Werlen, Gérald Schlemminger, Thorsten Piske (eds.): Language learning concrete! Applied linguistics and language teaching. Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, Baltmannsweiler 2010, pp. 105–121.
  • Karin M. Eichhoff-Cyrus, Gerd Antos (ed.): Understandability as a civil right? Legal and administrative language in public discussion . Dudenverlag, Mannheim et al. 2008.
  • Gisela Goblirsch: Writing usage texts. Systemic text models for journalism and PR, Journalistic Practice series . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017.
  • Barbara Hemforth: Psycholinguistic methods for studying sentence and text comprehension. In: Hardarik Blühdorn, Eva Breindl, Ulrich H. Waßner (Ed.): Text - Understanding: Grammar and Beyond. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, pp. 205–221.
  • Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013.
  • Inghard Langer, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Reinhard Tausch: Comprehensibility in schools, administration, politics and science . Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 1974.
  • Inghard Langer, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Reinhard Tausch: Express yourself in an understandable way. 9th edition. Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 2011.

Web links

Wiktionary: Text intelligibility  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norbert Groeben: Reader Psychology: Text Understanding - Text Understanding. Aschendorff, Münster 1982, p. 148.
  2. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 60.
  3. ↑ Bernd Ulrich Biere: Text Understanding and Text Understanding. (= Study Bibliographies Linguistics. 2). Groos, Heidelberg 1991, pp. 10f., Pp. 25ff.
  4. ↑ Marianne Tauber: Reader-adjusted comprehensibility: The influence of legibility and structure using the example of newspaper articles. Peter Lang, Bern 1984, p. 9.
  5. ↑ Ursula Christmann: Models of word processing: text description as text understanding. Aschendorff, Münster 1989, p. 26ff.
  6. ↑ Joachim Grabowski: The Propositional Approach of Text Understanding: Coherence, Interestingness and Retention. Aschendorff, Münster 1991, p. 5ff.
  7. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 93.
  8. ↑ George R. Klare: The Measurement of Readability. Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA 1963, pp. 91ff.
  9. ↑ Jeanne S. Chall, Edgar Dale: Readability Revisited: The New Dale-Chall Readability Formula. Brookline Books, Brookline 1995, p. 5.
  10. ^ Ralf Lisch : readability research . In: Ralf Lisch, Jürgen Kriz : Basics and models of content analysis. Inventory and criticism. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-499-21117-3 , pp. 176–191.
  11. ↑ Jeanne S. Chall, Edgar Dale: Readability Revisited: The New Dale-Chall Readability Formula. Brookline Books, Brookline 1995, pp. 82f.
  12. ^ George K. Zipf: The Psycho-Biology of Language: An Introduction to Dynamic Philology. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1935, 20ff.
  13. ^ George K. Zipf: Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An Introduction to Human Ecology. Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, Mass. 1949.
  14. ↑ Karl-Heinz Best: Are word and sentence length useful criteria for determining the legibility of texts? In: Sigurd Wichter, Albert Busch (Ed.): Knowledge transfer - success control and feedback from practice. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 21–31, here, p. 28.
  15. ↑ Inghard Langer, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Reinhard exchange: of course in school administration, politics and science. Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 1974.
  16. ↑ Inghard Langer, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Reinhard exchange: of course in school administration, politics and science. Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 1974, p. 13ff.
  17. ↑ Norbert Groeben: The comprehensibility of teaching texts: dimensions and criteria of receptive learning stages. Aschendorff, Münster 1972.
  18. ↑ Norbert Groeben: The comprehensibility of teaching texts: dimensions and criteria of receptive learning stages. 2., verb. and exp. Edition. Aschendorff, Münster 1978.
  19. ^ Norbert Groeben: Reader Psychology: Text Understanding - Text Understanding. Aschendorff, Münster 1982.
  20. ↑ Joachim Grabowski: The Propositional Approach of Text Understanding: Coherence, Interestingness and Retention. Aschendorff, Münster 1991, p. 19ff.
  21. ↑ Norbert Groeben: Understanding, Retaining, Interest: Corresponding answers and controversial questions about the relationship between text structure, text understanding and learning effect. In: Educational Science. 1976, Volume 4, No. 2, pp. 128-142.
  22. ^ Walter Kintsch, Teun A. van Dijk: Toward a Model of Discourse Comprehension and Production. In: Psychological Review. 1987, Vol. 85, No. 5, pp. 363-394.
  23. ^ Teun A. van Dijk, Walter Kintsch: Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. Academic Press, Orlando et al. 1983.
  24. ^ Walter Kintsch: Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition. University Press, Cambridge 1998.
  25. ↑ Joachim Grabowski: The Propositional Approach of Text Understanding: Coherence, Interestingness and Retention. Aschendorff, Münster 1991, p. 24ff.
  26. ↑ Walter Kintsch, Douglas Vipond: Reading comprehension and readability in educational practice and psychological theory. In: Lars-Göran Nilsson (Ed.): Perspectives on memory research. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 1979, pp. 329-365.
  27. ↑ James R. Miller, Walter Kintsch: Readability and Recall of Short Prose Passages: A Theoretical Analysis. In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory. 1980, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 335-354.
  28. ^ A b Susanne Göpferich: Text Production in the Age of Globalization: Development of a Didactic of Knowledge Transfer. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2002, p. 153.
  29. ^ Susanne Göpferich: Comprehensibility assessment using the Karlsruhe Comprehensibility Concept. In: The Journal of Specialized Translation. No. 11, p. 32.
  30. ↑ Susanne Göpferich: From Hamburg to Karlsruhe: A communication-oriented frame of reference for evaluating the comprehensibility of texts. In: Fachsprache - International Journal of specialized communication. No. 3–4, pp. 117-138, here, p. 120.
  31. ↑ Steffen-Peter Ballstaedt, Heinz Mandl, Wolfgang Schnotz, Sigmar-Olaf Tergan: Understanding texts, designing texts. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich / Vienna / Baltimore 1981, p. 211.
  32. ↑ Marianne Tauber: Reader-adjusted comprehensibility: The influence of legibility and structure using the example of newspaper articles. Peter Lang, Bern 1984, p. 10f.
  33. ↑ Ursula Christmann: Models of word processing: text description as text understanding. Aschendorff, Münster 1989, p. 9f.
  34. ↑ Ursula Christmann: Models of word processing: text description as text understanding. Aschendorff, Münster 1989, p. 131.
  35. ↑ Marianne Tauber: Reader-adjusted comprehensibility: The influence of legibility and structure using the example of newspaper articles. Peter Lang, Bern 1984, p. 24.
  36. ↑ Joachim Mrazek: Understanding and understandability of reading texts. Peter D. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1979, p. 336.
  37. ↑ Klaus Bayer, Brigitte Seidel: Understandability. In: Praxis Deutsch. 1979, No. 36, pp. 12-23, pp. 19f.
  38. ↑ Klaus Bayer, Brigitte Seidel: Understandability. In: Praxis Deutsch. 1979, No. 36, pp. 12-23, here, pp. 19f.
  39. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for professionals: ways to good style. 14th edition. Goldmann, Munich 2001, pp. 139ff.
  40. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 153ff.
  41. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 154ff.
  42. ^ Robert C. Stalnaker: Assertion. In: Peter Cole (Ed.): Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 9: Pragmatics. Academic Press, New York 1978, pp. 315-332.
  43. ^ Herbert H. Clark, Thomas B. Carlson: Context for Comprehension. In: John Long, Alan Baddeley (Eds.): Attention and Performance. Vol. 9, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 1981, pp. 313-330.
  44. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 159ff.
  45. ↑ Joachim Mrazek: Understanding and understandability of reading texts. Peter D. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1979, p. 262.
  46. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 55ff., P. 159f.
  47. ↑ Hans Jürgen Heringer: Comprehensibility - A Genuine Research Area in Linguistics? In: Journal for German Linguistics. 1979, 7th vol., Pp. 255-278, here, p. 265.
  48. ↑ Maria Schwarz: Understanding and Remembering - Your Effects as the specified target criteria on the processing of texts. In: Heinz Mandl (Ed.): On the psychology of word processing: approaches, findings, problems. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich et al. 1981, pp. 41-62, here, p. 42.
  49. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 162ff.
  50. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 159.
  51. ↑ Ludwig Reiners: The safe way to good German: A style guide. 35th edition. dtv, Munich 2007.
  52. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for professionals: ways to good style. 14th edition. Goldmann, Munich 2001.
  53. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for connoisseurs: The new style. 7th edition. Piper, Munich 2005.
  54. ^ George Orwell: Politics and the English Language. ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Horizon. Vol. 13, 1946, pp. 252-265. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mtholyoke.edu
  55. ↑ Walter von La Roche: Introduction to practical journalism. 19th, rework. Edition. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 113-133.
  56. ↑ Christoph Zahrnt: Writing business texts: clearly and legally secure. Amazon, current status 2015, ISBN 9783000482915
  57. ↑ Susanne Weiss, Michael Sonnabend: Writing, blogging, presenting: Paths of science into the world. Essen: Management company for science care, 2011.
  58. ↑ Manuela Altendorfer: Readability of online texts. Online publication.
  59. ↑ Cornelia Dietz: Target group-oriented writing on the web. Lecture at WikiCon 2012.
  60. ↑ Martina Rüter: Accessible web content: Barrier-free editorial work with content management systems. akademie.de, 2011.
  61. ^ Frank Brettschneider, Jan Kercher, Anikar M. Haseloff: Understandable administrative communication: The clear text initiative of the University of Hohenheim. In: Günter Bentele, Manfred Piwinger, Gregor Schönborn (ed.): Communication management. (Loose leaf 2001ff.). Luchterhand, Cologne 2012, Art. 7.38.
  62. ↑ Peter Berger: Fleet writing from the office - a style guide. Carl Heymanns Verlag, Cologne et al. 2004.
  63. ↑ Kreis Soest: Writing administrative texts clearly - 8 principles. Soest 2012 ( online publication ( memento of the original dated November 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kreis-soest.de
  64. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 194.
  65. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for connoisseurs: The new style. Piper, Munich 2005, p. 170.
  66. ↑ Ernst Pöppel: Limits of Consciousness: How do we come to the time, and how does reality arise? Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 72.
  67. ↑ a b c d e f Wolf Schneider: German for professionals: ways to good style. 14th edition. Goldmann, Munich 2001, p. 90.
  68. ^ Carl H. Björnsson: Readability by Lix. Pedagogiskt Centrum, Stockholm 1968, p. 8.
  69. ↑ Erich Straßner: TV news: A production, product and reception analysis. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1982, p. 53.
  70. ↑ Wilfried Seibicke: How do you write good German? A style guide. Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1969, p. 79.
  71. ↑ Wilfried Seibicke: How do you write good German? A style guide. Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1969, p. 64.
  72. ^ A b Siegfried Weischenberg: Message writing . Journalistic practice for study and self-study. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1990, p. 142.
  73. ↑ Ludwig Reiners: The safe way to good German: A style guide. CH Beck, Munich 1951, p. 193.
  74. ↑ Robert Sturm, Jürgen Zirbik: The television station. A guide to local and regional television. UVK, Konstanz 1998, p. 226.
  75. ↑ Inghard Langer, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Reinhard Tausch: Express yourself clearly . Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 2011.
  76. ↑ Ludwig Reiners: The safe way to good German: A style guide. 35th edition dtv, Munich 2007.
  77. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for professionals - ways to good style. Goldmann, Munich 2001.
  78. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German for connoisseurs: The new style. Piper, Munich 2005.
  79. ↑ Wolf Schneider: Deutsch fürs Leben: What the school forgot to teach. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004.
  80. ↑ Wolf Schneider: German! The manual for attractive texts. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2005.
  81. ↑ Günther Zimmermann: Writing texts - simple, clear, understandable. BusinessVillage, Göttingen 2010.
  82. ↑ Ingrid Glomp: Write well and understandably in ten easy steps. Books on Demand, 2010.
  83. ↑ Andrea Fehringer, Thomas Köpf: The writing seminar: From chaos of letters to language art. Ueberreuter, Vienna 2008.
  84. ↑ Monika Salchert: Understandable writing - more success through good texts. Paderborn, Bonifatius 2012.
  85. ^ Carl H. Björnsson: Readability by Lix. Pedagogiskt Centrum, Stockholm 1968.
  86. ↑ Jan Kercher: Understanding and comprehensibility of political language. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 389ff.
  87. ↑ Hans-Peter Förster, Andreas Förster: Corporate Wording® 3.0: industrialize communication. Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch, Frankfurt am Main 2014.