The definition of the traditional paragraph has remained unchanged for generations of readers. Yet today the predominant form of the paragraph on the Web is so new that it can only be called the new paragraph. So the question is which is the more readable of the two paragraph formats? More specifically, how can the new paragraph be defined and how can its readability be measured against the traditional paragraph? A literature review reveals that no attempt has ever been made to define the new paragraph. A novel approach is taken: collect the headline stories from the top 43 English language online daily newspapers and use them to define the new paragraph. They exclusively use the new paragraph format and 1200 stories were collected from them over a period of four months. The results indicate a drastic difference between the old and new paragraph with the new paragraph being on average less than half the size of the old paragraph. White space between paragraphs occupies almost exactly half a given story. Words of less than two syllables are the norm in a new paragraph. To determine the readability of the new paragraph, a test of readability was performed using human subjects. A passage of text was selected and formatted according to the rules for the traditional paragraph and according to the metrics of the new paragraph. The cloze procedure is then used to decide readability. The reading test‟s data is analyzed and the results and future directions of the study are discussed in the conclusion. / Software Engineering and Intelligent Systems

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Multiple-choice questions are acknowledged to be difficult for both English mother-tongue and second-language university students to interpret and answer. In a context in which university tuition policies are demanding explicitly that assessments need to be designed and administered in such a way that no students are disadvantaged by the assessment process, the thesis explores the fairness of multiple-choice questions as a way of testing second-language students in South Africa. It explores the extent to which two multiple-choice Linguistics examinations at Unisa are in fact ‘generally accessible’ to second-language students, focusing on what kinds of multiple-choice questions present particular problems for second-language speakers and what contribution linguistic factors make to these difficulties. Statistical analysis of the examination results of two classes of students writing multiple-choice exams in first-year Linguistics is coupled with a linguistic analysis of the examination papers to establish the readability level of each question and whether the questions adhered to eight item-writing guidelines relating to maximising readability and avoiding negatives, long items, incomplete sentence stems, similar answer choices, grammatically non-parallel answer choices, ‘All-of-the-above’ and ‘None-of-the-above’ items. Correlations are sought between question difficulty and aspects of the language of these questions and an attempt is made to investigate the respective contributions of cognitive difficulty and linguistic difficulty on student performance. To complement the quantitative portion of the study, a think-aloud protocol was conducted with 13 students in an attempt to gain insight into the problems experienced by individual students in reading, understanding and answering multiple-choice questions. The consolidated quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that among the linguistic aspects of questions that contributed to question difficulty for second language speakers was a high density of academic words, long items and negative stems. These sources of difficulty should be addressed as far as possible during item-writing and editorial review of questions.

In the last few years there have been many reports on students lack of reading comprehension in Sweden. Reading comprehension is crucial in today’s society. It is as central for school as it is for being able to be a part of society and work. The aim of the study is to compare and examine whether there is correspondence between two reading comprehension text books and the national test of reading comprehension in 2012. Through text analysis and theories of readability, question types and reading strategies the comparison was made. The text analysis is performed in accordance with Hellspong (2001) and Hellspong och Ledin (1997) model for text analysis, where the language formation is studied. The following research questions are answered: Which similarities and differences are found regarding the readability of the narrative texts and the factual texts? Which similarities and differences are found regarding the type of questions that are asked in relation to the narrative texts and to the factual texts? Which reading strategies are tested in the national test and which reading strategies are practiced through the teaching materials? The results of the analysis show both similarities and differences between the national test and the textbooks. The texts in the national test are less easily read while the textbooks consist of more types of questions and enables practice of more reading strategies. In the textbooks multiple reading strategies was found to be required in order to answer the questions, whilst the national test generally only needed one strategy for most questions. In this way partial correspondence is found between the textbooks and the national test. However, the textbooks are useful for practicing reading comprehension since they have a lot more type of questions and reading strategies, than the national test. A conclusion up for discussion is that the textbooks leave it to the teacher to provide practice of more complicated and longer texts since the texts in the national tests has shown to be more complicated to read.

Multiple-choice questions are acknowledged to be difficult for both English mother-tongue and second-language university students to interpret and answer. In a context in which university tuition policies are demanding explicitly that assessments need to be designed and administered in such a way that no students are disadvantaged by the assessment process, the thesis explores the fairness of multiple-choice questions as a way of testing second-language students in South Africa. It explores the extent to which two multiple-choice Linguistics examinations at Unisa are in fact ‘generally accessible’ to second-language students, focusing on what kinds of multiple-choice questions present particular problems for second-language speakers and what contribution linguistic factors make to these difficulties. Statistical analysis of the examination results of two classes of students writing multiple-choice exams in first-year Linguistics is coupled with a linguistic analysis of the examination papers to establish the readability level of each question and whether the questions adhered to eight item-writing guidelines relating to maximising readability and avoiding negatives, long items, incomplete sentence stems, similar answer choices, grammatically non-parallel answer choices, ‘All-of-the-above’ and ‘None-of-the-above’ items. Correlations are sought between question difficulty and aspects of the language of these questions and an attempt is made to investigate the respective contributions of cognitive difficulty and linguistic difficulty on student performance. To complement the quantitative portion of the study, a think-aloud protocol was conducted with 13 students in an attempt to gain insight into the problems experienced by individual students in reading, understanding and answering multiple-choice questions. The consolidated quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that among the linguistic aspects of questions that contributed to question difficulty for second language speakers was a high density of academic words, long items and negative stems. These sources of difficulty should be addressed as far as possible during item-writing and editorial review of questions.

Java has recently become a multi paradigm language, with the functional paradigmnow made available alongside the traditional, imperative, one. Programming in thefunctional paradigm may be considered complicated or hard to read, and there maybe concerns that the code it produces may become hard to maintain because ofcomplexity or readability issues. On the other hand, proponents of the functionalparadigm promises smaller amounts of less complex code, as the framework takeson a larger responsibility. This Bachelor’s thesis closely examines the differences be-tween effectively equal code written in functional and imperative Java, respectively,from the aspects of readability, complexity and verbosity, and shows that while codewritten in the functional paradigm is smaller and less complex, it is not harder to read.

The theme of the diploma dissertation became a view of a field of alphabets (letters and types) in contexts of communication, history, art and education. The theoretical part is focused on historical, contemporary movements of the phenomenon all at once. Inclusive of reflecting on alphabets in art and also links to a medial communication. The second part of the diploma dissertation reacts to the strongest and the most inspiring moments. It focuses on a practical applications for art lessons. The third part [artistic] takes advantage of media knowledges and art lessons. They are interfaced into an interactive teaching material which challenges students to an active perception of visual culture.

Accounting as a tool for communicating relevant information to multiple users must overcome issues and barriers of presenting such information. One of the issues is its understandability, once lack of understanding can impact decisions. However, understandability is not easily measured. Previous studies use readability metrics as proxies for understandability. They understand that these concepts are related to some extent, but while readability focuses on the text, understandability includes the reader characteristics. Thus, the main purpose of this research was to verify how readability impacts the understandability of the information from the notes to the financial statements. I also verified whether the distance between them was due to reporting language. The specific goals were: (i) to verify whether different readability levels have impact on the notes to the financial statements\' understandability; (ii) to verify whether the understandability levels are due to accounting specific terms; (iii) to verify if those notes\' understandability and readability are different for different languages; and (iv) to verify if the levels of readability and understandability changed after OCPC 07. I performed two different types of research methods, archival and experimental research. The archival research applied mean tests to 44 firms that presented their notes both in Portuguese and in English from 2012 to 2015. I studied the notes of Financial Instruments and Provisions. I used indexes of intelligibility as proxies to understandability, calculated by a linguistic software. I found that, for most indexes where firms had worse levels of readability, they showed better levels of intelligibility, which goes against the expected. My results also show that with few exceptions, the readability and intelligibility indexes are different for Portuguese and English. Moreover, I found that there was no change after the adoption of OCPC 07 on both readability and intelligibility indexes. In the experimental research, I applied a self-created instrument based on the MIT test to 112 students in Brazil of graduate and undergraduate courses related to business, to verify how readability impacts on understandability, by manipulating readability components of the Flesch index (number of words per sentence and number of syllables per word). I controlled for some characteristics of each participant and the technicality of accounting language. I used an ANCOVA to test the difference between treatments and a Mediation Analysis to verify the impact of the glossary. I found no difference in understanding through different levels of readability, while some participant\'s characteristics - such as previous understanding skills, level of education, courses and the type of school - showed relevance in explaining understandability. The evidence also suggests that using a glossary to assist the reader affected understandability, but mostly for those who have less prior knowledge regarding notes to the financial statements. These results allow me to conclude readability metrics are not good proxies to measure understandability in Accounting, glossary assists on reader\'s understandability, language has an impact over readability and understandability, and readability and understandability did not change with the OCPC 07. / A Contabilidade como ferramenta para comunicar informação relevante a múltiplos usuários, deve superar problemas e barreiras na apresentação dessa informação. Um dos problemas é sua compreensibilidade, dado que a falta de compreensão pode impactar as decisões. Contudo, compreensibilidade não é mensurada facilmente. Estudos anteriores usam métricas de legibilidade como proxies de compreensibilidade. Eles entendem que esses conceitos estão relacionados em certa medida, mas enquanto legibilidade foca no texto, compreensibilidade inclui características do leitor. Assim, o objetivo principal dessa pesquisa foi verificar como a legibilidade impacta na compreensibilidade das informações das Notas Explicativas. Foi verificado também se a distância entre elas se deve à língua do relatório. Os objetivos específicos eram: (i) verificar se diferentes níveis de legibilidade impactam a compreensibilidade das notas explicativas; (ii) verificar se os níveis de compreensibilidade dependem de termos específicos contábeis; (iii) verificar se a compreensibilidade e a legibilidade das notas são diferente em diferentes línguas; e (iv) verificar se a compreensibilidade e a legibilidade das notas mudaram depois da OCPC 07. Realizaram-se dois métodos de pesquisas diferentes, um de arquivo e outro experimental. A pesquisa de arquivo aplicou testes de média em 44 empresas abertas que apresentaram suas notas em português e em inglês de 2012 a 2015. Foram estudadas notas de Instrumentos Financeiros e Provisões. Utilizaram-se índices de inteligibilidade como proxies para compreensibilidade, calculados por um software linguístico. Os resultados mostram que a maior parte das empresas que possuíam os piores níveis de legibilidade, apresentaram os melhores níveis de inteligibilidade, o que é contrário ao esperado. Os resultados também mostram que, com algumas exceções, os índices de legibilidade e compreensibilidade são diferentes em português e inglês. Ademais, descobriu-se que não houve mudança após a adoção da OCPC 07 em ambos os índices de legibilidade e compreensibilidade. No experimento, foi aplicado um instrumento criado pela autora, baseado no teste MIT, a 112 estudantes no Brasil de cursos relacionados a negócios de graduação e pós-graduação, para verificar como a legibilidade impacta na compreensibilidade, manipulando os componentes de legibilidade do índice Flesch (número de palavras por frase e número de sílabas por palavra). Controlou-se algumas características de cada participante e pela tecnicidade da linguagem contábil. Usou-se a ANCOVA para testar a diferença entre tratamentos e a Análise de Mediação para verificar o impacto de um glossário. Não foram encontradas diferenças de compreensão entre os diferentes níveis de legibilidade, enquanto que algumas características dos participantes - como habilidades de compreensão prévias, nível educacional, curso e tipo de universidade - se mostraram relevantes para explicar compreensibilidade. Os resultados também sugerem que o uso de um glossário para ajudar o leitor afetou compreensibilidade, mas mais para aqueles que possuíam menor conhecimento prévio sobre Notas Explicativas. Os resultados permitem concluir que as métricas de legibilidade não são boas proxies para mensurar compreensibilidade em Contabilidade, o glossário auxilia na compreensibilidade do leitor, a língua impacta legibilidade e compreensibilidade e legibilidade e compreensibilidade não mudaram com a OCPC 07.

A tradução de protocolos na área da saúde tem possibilitado a aplicação de testes elaborados internacionalmente em virtude da baixa elaboração de instrumentos no Brasil, sendo, dessa forma, a tradução, uma ferramenta para a validação desses instrumentos e sua utilização por pesquisadores brasileiros. Entretanto, a maioria das traduções não é realizada por profissionais de tradução, mas sim por qualquer indivíduo que tenha o conhecimento linguístico do idioma estrangeiro e da língua portuguesa não sendo, dessa forma, profissional da área. Esse aspecto desfavorece a inteligibilidade do texto, isto é, o instrumento é traduzido, sua interpretação por parte dos participantes, torna-se ambígua ou confusa, em virtude da falta de compreensão na própria língua portuguesa do documento. Ao propor a tradução em língua portuguesa do instrumento Measure of Processes of Care 56 (MPOC-56), elaborado no Canadá e com a finalidade de verificar o atendimento do paciente por profissionais e pelo centro de terapia sob a perspectiva dos pais e a verificação da inteligibilidade permite ao tradutor não somente legitimar sua tradução, como também tornar mais acessível ao público em geral uma construção semântica, para que não ocorram equívocos na aplicação do questionário validado, tornando-o, dessa forma, um instrumento relevante para a área da Saúde e da Tradução Científica. Desse modo, o objetivo geral buscou traduzir o instrumento e verificar sua inteligibilidade na Língua Portuguesa. A pesquisa teve caráter metodológico, em virtude de investigações dos métodos de obtenção, organização e análise dos dados para a tradução de um instrumento. Para compor a metodologia, também foi utilizada a etapa do brainstorming, a qual contribuiu para o diálogo entre os peritos da área e a pesquisadora, objetivando a inteligibilidade do instrumento. Por meio do brainstorming, foi possível constatar que a etapa da retrotradução pode ser dispensada do processo tradutório em consequência do trabalho do profissional de tradução com os peritos bilíngues da área. / Health protocols translation has made possible the application of tests internationally organized due to a low production of instruments in the Brazilian Health area. So, translation is made a tool to validate these instruments and its utilization by Brazilian researchers. Nevertheless, most translations are not elaborated by translator professionals, but by any individual who knows the linguistic system of a foreign language and the Brazilian Portuguese language, not being, in this case, a professional translator. This point disfavors the readability of texts, that is, the translated instrument and its interpretation by participants become ambiguous or confused, due to the lack of comprehension in the Portuguese language itself in the document. When proposing the translation in the Brazilian Portuguese language of the protocol Measure of Processes of Care-56 (MPOC-56), produced in Canada in order to verify the attendance of patients by professionals and the therapy Centre from the perspective of parents and, specially, to Speech and Language area, the analysis of readability allows the translator not only to justify his/her translation, but also to make it more available to public in general a semantic construction not to occur mistakes on validated instrument and contributing to be a relevant protocol not only to Health, but also to the Scientific Translation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to translate and to verify the readability of the questionnaire translated into the Brazilian Portuguese. For this study, a methodological research was used in order to obtain and organize documents to translate the instrument. By means of brainstorming step, it was possible to conclude that one professional translator is enough to translate and to do the back translation and, by consulting experts in a certain area can contribute to Brazilian Heath Area to improve validation of protocols or to translate Brazilian protocols to another foreign language.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo identificar e analisar como a hospitalidade pública se manifesta na Praça Gustavo Teixeira, em São Pedro, Estado de São Paulo, a partir das relações estabelecidas entre moradores e turistas, tendo como base as dimensões de acessibilidade, legibilidade e identidade. A metodologia utilizada foi uma combinação de pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, fundamentada em documentos de arquivos públicos, fotografias e mapas da Prefeitura Municipal de São Pedro; relatórios de pesquisa baseados em trabalho de campo de auxiliares. Dentre as técnicas de coleta de dados estão observação sistemática e pesquisa de caráter qualitativo, exploratória e com questões semiestruturadas e abertas, o que permitiu um melhor direcionamento no decorrer da conversa informal. O grupo de entrevistados divide-se em moradores, composto por seis pessoas que possuem envolvimento com o local de pesquisa em todos os momentos da vida; e visitantes, composto por mais seis pessoas que não possuem envolvimento diário com o local. Constatou-se que a maioria dos moradores visita a Praça diariamente; suas falas são repletas de sentimentos pelo local; percebem, nitidamente, uma interação com outros moradores e com turistas; a dimensão da acessibilidade, por meio da localização, da qualidade das vias de acesso, da divulgação das atividades, está presente; a legibilidade, por sua vez, faz-se nítida por possuir área verde, bancos, coreto, tranquilidade de cidade do interior; e, por fim, a identidade é percebida na forma como os anfitriões conversam, nas atividades realizadas teatro, música, literatura, quermesse, museu que leva o nome do poeta. Já o grupo de turistas visita a Praça quase todas as vezes que está na Estância, com exceção de um integrante que a visitou pela primeira vez; são motivados pela natureza e pela segurança característica de cidade pequena ao deixar os filhos brincarem em meio ao espaço verde; notam um acolhimento por parte dos moradores, tanto na Praça quanto no comércio do entorno; a acessibilidade é percebida pelas informações passadas em pontos de informações turísticas, no comércio, na internet, na fácil localização por estar no centro da cidade; a dimensão da legibilidade faz-se presente no espaço verde em meio ao urbano, nas lembranças da infância e no encontro com amigos; já a identidade é percebida no artesanato e na gastronomia do entorno, na relação amigável entre as pessoas / The present study aimed to identify and analyze how public hospitality is manifested in Gustavo Teixeira Square, in São Pedro, State of São Paulo, based on relationships established between residents and tourists, based on the accessibility, readability and identity dimensions. The methodology used was a combination of bibliographical and documentary research, based on public records documents, photographs and maps of the São Pedro City Hall; research reports based on auxiliary field work. Among the techniques of data collection are observation systematic and qualitative, exploratory research with semi structured and open questions, which allowed a better targeting during the informal conversation. The group of interviewees is divided into residents, composed of six people who have involvement with the research site at all times of life; and visitors, composed of another six people who do not have daily involvement with the place. It was verified that the residents visit the Square daily; their lines are full of feelings for the place; they perceive, clearly, an interaction with other residents and tourists; the accessibility dimension, through location, the quality of the access roads, the dissemination of activities, is present; the readability, in turn, is made clear by having green area, benches, gazebo, tranquility of inner city; and, finally, the identity is perceived in the way the hosts talk, in the activities performed - theater, music, literature, kermesse, museum that bears the name of the poet. Already the group of tourists visits the Square every time it is in the Estancia, except for one member who visited it for the first time; are motivated by the nature and safety characteristic of a small town - by letting their children play in the green space; they notice a welcome on the part of the residents, both in the Square and in the commerce of the surroundings; the accessibility is perceived by the information passed in points of tourist information, in the commerce, in the internet, in the easy location for being in the center of the city; the dimension of readability is present in the green space in the middle of the urban, in the memories of childhood and in the encounter with friends; already the identity is perceived in the crafts and in the gastronomy of the surroundings, in the friendly relationship between the people