EASIT
EASY ACCESS FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION TRAINING
This is Unit 2: Easy-to-understand language.
In short: E2U.
Element 4: The language of E2U.
Video lecture: Lexical aspects of E2U.
My name is Sergio Hernández Garrido.
I'm from the Hildesheim University.
This lecture covers the lexical aspects of E2U language.
How we have been doing in this unit,
we will start from Easy Language and then move towards Plain Language.
General characteristics of Easy Language vocabulary
Unknown words are a hazard for comprehensibility.
Therefore, EL uses the central vocabulary of a natural language.
The words that may be used have the following characteristics.
They are short
accurate
and frequently used.
They occur in everyday language
And can be assumed as known by the groups
They are learnt early in life or when learning a second language.
And they are unlearnt late in case of language degradation processes.
Like dementia.
Words that do not match this list
need to be explained or exemplified in the text.
Vocabulary cannot be presupposed as known,
if it is not present in the user's everyday life.
This is often the case for expert texts of all kinds.
For example, on legal or health issues.
But there are exceptions.
People with disabilities often have knowledge on the disability discourse.
And they often know lexical items on this topic beyond the basic vocabulary,
because this topic belongs to their everyday life.
Explanations and exemplifications of vocabulary
Vocabulary presumed to be unknown to the users
must be explained or exemplified.
This is especially true for printed or online written texts.
Easy Language in time-based media formats can have other requirements.
Subtitles, for instance,
do not always allow explanations due to time and space limits.
In any text format,
the number of explanations given in a single text must be limited.
They also must comply to the processing capacity of the users.
This processing capacity may be limited due to their condition.
For example, due to a cognitive impairment
Explanations can be given in or against the reading direction.
In reading direction means, the unknown word comes first
and is followed by the explanation.
For example: The festival was in Hannover.
Hannover is a town in Northern Germany.
Against reading direction means a concept is explained in the text.
And the term is given in the end.
The reader must find the explanation of a term in what was said before.
Thus, the reading direction changes.
For example: Perhaps your arms and legs feel stiff.
Or your muscles are aching.
Your doctor calls this: rigor.
Explanations can be singled out from the text through the layout.
For example with indents,
like in the case of the Hannover example.
Or through text boxes.
In online-texts, there are other possibilities.
Like mouse-over-boxes or drop-down lists.
Avoid synonyms
Easy-to-understand language avoids synonyms.
The same concepts are rendered with the same words.
This is also true for verbs and text connectors.
Always use "therefore" to express causality.
Do not exchange "therefore" with "that’s why" or "hence".
Stylistic variation is no strategy to be followed for Easy Language.
Use the same words for the same concepts.
This reduces the processing efforts for the users.
What to do about metaphors?
Metaphors are linguistic images that illustrate certain concepts.
In standard texts, they are often used as stylistic elements.
Don't use metaphors in Easy Language if they are not known to the users.
This also applies if they're not intuitively clear from the content.
Metaphors may be used if they clarify abstract content for users.
For example: "Plain Language" is a metaphor.
"Plain" literally refers to a surface that is even.
"Plain" as in "Plain Language" is used metaphorically.
This means "without heights and depths, very simple and direct".
Nonetheless, this metaphor is easy to understand.
And illustrates well the concept to make complex content accessible.
Here, the metaphor is used to show a language's degree of complexity.
This makes such an abstract concept easy to grasp.
"To smell a rat" to say "to become suspicious" is also a metaphor.
But in order to understand it, it has to be learnt.
Its meaning cannot be derived directly from the text.
Thus, it may cause difficulties.
Such metaphors are only used if central for the text.
This rules also generally apply for Plain Language.
Here, a more extensive vocabulary can be presupposed as known
by the intended audience.
This is the end of this presentation about lexical aspects about E2U.
This lecture was prepared by Sergio Hernández and Christiane Maaß.
From the University of Hildesheim.
You can reach us at easit@uni-hildesheim.de.
The project EASIT has received funding
from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships
for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support
for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
Università degli Studi di Trieste,
Universidade de Vigo,
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim,
SDI München,
Dyslexiförbundet,
Radiotelevisija Slovenija,
Zavod Risa.
EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training.
Subtitles by Sertap Gülsever.