{"title":"Profiling text cohesion in the development of L2 Chinese reading materials: variation by text level and genre","authors":"Yun Lin, Yanfang Su, Yiping Peng, Hua Liu","doi":"10.1007/s11145-024-10585-w","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Developing reading materials tailored to the specific needs and proficiency levels of students is important yet challenging for educators and teachers. Current data-driven indices assisting this task primarily focus on lexical and syntactic text features, often overlooking text cohesion, a key discourse feature impacting reading comprehension. To fill this gap, this study explored the variation of text cohesion in second language (L2) Chinese reading materials across different text levels and genres. We used an NLP-based tool to examine the lexical, grammatical, and topical cohesion features of 450 representative L2 Chinese reading texts. A two-way MANOVA was then conducted to analyze the variation of text cohesion across different text levels and genres, as well as the interaction between text levels and genres. Our findings have revealed significant disparities in text cohesion across varying text levels, particularly in lexical cohesion features, and among different genres, with narratives standing out from argumentative and expository texts. Interaction effects between text level and genre were noted, albeit with small effect sizes. This study highlights the importance of text cohesion when developing reading materials for L2 Chinese learners and offers insights into developing text cohesion benchmarks for preparing reading materials of different levels and genres.</p>","PeriodicalId":48204,"journal":{"name":"Reading and Writing","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Reading and Writing","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10585-w","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Developing reading materials tailored to the specific needs and proficiency levels of students is important yet challenging for educators and teachers. Current data-driven indices assisting this task primarily focus on lexical and syntactic text features, often overlooking text cohesion, a key discourse feature impacting reading comprehension. To fill this gap, this study explored the variation of text cohesion in second language (L2) Chinese reading materials across different text levels and genres. We used an NLP-based tool to examine the lexical, grammatical, and topical cohesion features of 450 representative L2 Chinese reading texts. A two-way MANOVA was then conducted to analyze the variation of text cohesion across different text levels and genres, as well as the interaction between text levels and genres. Our findings have revealed significant disparities in text cohesion across varying text levels, particularly in lexical cohesion features, and among different genres, with narratives standing out from argumentative and expository texts. Interaction effects between text level and genre were noted, albeit with small effect sizes. This study highlights the importance of text cohesion when developing reading materials for L2 Chinese learners and offers insights into developing text cohesion benchmarks for preparing reading materials of different levels and genres.
期刊介绍:
Reading and writing skills are fundamental to literacy. Consequently, the processes involved in reading and writing and the failure to acquire these skills, as well as the loss of once well-developed reading and writing abilities have been the targets of intense research activity involving professionals from a variety of disciplines, such as neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and education. The findings that have emanated from this research are most often written up in a lingua that is specific to the particular discipline involved, and are published in specialized journals. This generally leaves the expert in one area almost totally unaware of what may be taking place in any area other than their own. Reading and Writing cuts through this fog of jargon, breaking down the artificial boundaries between disciplines. The journal focuses on the interaction among various fields, such as linguistics, information processing, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, speech and hearing science and education. Reading and Writing publishes high-quality, scientific articles pertaining to the processes, acquisition, and loss of reading and writing skills. The journal fully represents the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of research in the field, focusing on the interaction among various disciplines, such as linguistics, information processing, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, speech and hearing science and education. Coverage in Reading and Writing includes models of reading, writing and spelling at all age levels; orthography and its relation to reading and writing; computer literacy; cross-cultural studies; and developmental and acquired disorders of reading and writing. It publishes research articles, critical reviews, theoretical papers, and case studies. Reading and Writing is one of the most highly cited journals in Education, Educational Research, and Educational Psychology.