The role of syntactic structure in the recall of English nominalizations

Rohrman, Nicholas L.

doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(68)80095-7

Cited by 42 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Since the noun detective is included in all three propositions in the cease case, and only in two in the case of prevent verbs, the latter deep structure can be considered more complex, inasmuch as the pronoun someone must be deleted from the sentence before the sentence can be transformed to a surface structure isomorphic to the original sentence (cf. Rohrman, 1968). At the surface level, the relational inclusiveness of detective does not differ, so any performance differences between the two sentences can be attributed to deep structural variation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Thus, Yngve (1960) presented a surface structure model which relates the difficulty of sentence processing during both listening and reproduction to the structural complexity of the sentence. Deep structure, on the other hand, has been related to comprehension in models that emphasize either the number and nature of the transformations that separate a sentence from its underlying structure or kernel sentence (e.g., Gough, 1965;Miller, 1962;Slobin, 1966) or the propositional complexity of the abstract structure from which the sentence is derived (e.g., Rohrman, 1968;Wanner, 1968).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Imagery and comprehension latencies as a function of sentence concreteness and structure

Paivio

Begg

1971

Perception & Psychophysics

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagery and comprehension latencies as a function of sentence concreteness and structure

Paivio

Begg

1971

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…As this link has only recently been recognized, theories have been put forth in order to explain it (Paivio, 1969). The transformational grammar explanation of language does not, however, contain assumptions which could enable it to cope with the unexpected situation, and research on the theory's predictions as to sentence storage has been somewhat equivocal (Blumenthal, 1967(Blumenthal, a, 1967Rohrman, 1968;Larsen, 1971). This theory, either in original versions (Chomsky, 1965) or variations (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo‐European and a Ural‐Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?

Strømnes

1973

Scandinavian J Psychology

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StrØmnes, F. J. A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo‐European and a Ural‐Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 291–304.‐A theory of information transmission by symbol systems is presented. The theory is related to results on imagery and verbal behaviour found in the literature, and a new experiment is briefly reported. It is argued that information transmission can exclusively take place by the transmission of geometric isomorphs. Some of the conditions which must be fulfilled by a sign system which can transmit geometric isomorphs are pointed out. A supporting experiment, which purports to show that the underlying geometric systems of Ural‐Altaic (represented by Finnish) and Indo‐European (represented by Swedish) are strikingly different, is reported.

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“…6 Complexity, not length, is what reduces comprehension, and longer sentences have more opportunities to be complex. 13 Sentence length is a factor in many readability formulas, however, which penalise longer sentences as surrogates for increased complexity. The advice to use shorter sentences is not necessarily bad, it's just simplistic; based on correlation, not causation; and not supported by the research.…”

Section: Why the Rule Won't Necessarily Improve Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why scientific writers should study writing scientifically: the value of research into written communication

2017

ESE

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In the November 2016 EASE Newsletter, Julian Venables proposed "Five golden rules for writing a good scientific paper. "1 Rule #5 is "Be clear -sentences should be less than 25 words long. " He continues: "The 20 + 10 rule says that for each 10 words above 20 a sentence becomes twice as hard to read. So for a 70 word sentence, which is not uncommon for francophone scientists, there is an 'excess of 50 words' ie 5 extra 10s, or a 2x2x2x2x2 = a 32-fold increase in difficulty!" [Spelling and punctuation are as published.] Unfortunately, Rule #5 won't necessarily improve writing.2-6 It's actually a myth, and one that harms us professionally when we perpetuate it.7 I don't mean to be critical of Dr Venables. Most of my fellow medical writers and clients who are nonnative English speakers are also unaware of the research base and advanced skills that are a part of our profession. I learned them in the 1970s, when I was trained to be a technical writer by technical writers. My sense is that people entering the profession of medical writing in mid career do not get the same orientation or training. This lack of awareness is curious, if not disturbing, for another reason however. If physicians study medicine, psychologists study psychology, and historians study history, why don't writers study writing? Why the rule won't necessarily improve writingThe Rule is puzzling. What does it mean if a text is "twice as hard to read?" What is a "32-fold increase in difficulty?" I suspect that "reading difficulty" is the concept of "reading grade level, " which is the outcome of some readability formulas. The usual understanding of reading grade level is that a text written at, say, an 8th-grade level can be understood by a reader with at least an 8th-grade education. Not so. It means that half the 8th graders tested for their comprehension of a standardised text can answer correctly half of the questions about it.8 So, if we test 10 adolescents and only 5 answer 5 of 10 questions correctly-the circumstance that defines reading grade level-the "comprehension success rate" is only 25%. In fact, readability formulas have long been discredited as a way to guide revision or to evaluate writing.2,9-12 Consider the fact that a text and the same text written backwards, making it meaningless, have the same reading grade level.Back to Rule #5. Shortening sentences, by itself, does not necessarily improve comprehension, 4,5 and may even reduce it.6 Complexity, not length, is what reduces comprehension, and longer sentences have more opportunities to be complex. 13 Sentence length is a factor in many readability formulas, however, which penalise longer sentences as surrogates for increased complexity. The advice to use shorter sentences is not necessarily bad, it's just simplistic; based on correlation, not causation; and not supported by the research. Why the rule harms scientific writersConventional notions of writing are founded on what we learned in college composition classes and practiced in writing term papers in college; that is, on ...

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The role of syntactic structure in the recall of English nominalizations

Cited by 42 publications

References 8 publications

Imagery and comprehension latencies as a function of sentence concreteness and structure

Imagery and comprehension latencies as a function of sentence concreteness and structure

A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo‐European and a Ural‐Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?

Why scientific writers should study writing scientifically: the value of research into written communication

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