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Lexical Density
Literacy

Interlocking
This is a measure of how much information there is in a definitions
particular piece of writing. Lexical words are perhaps more
commonly known as content words or information words. They Technical taxonomies
are the words that carry information. Consider the sentences
below.:(The lexical words are in bold type) Special expressions

Lexical density
Magnetic materials are materials that are attracted to Syntactic Ambiguity
magnets.(5)
In a chemical change, the materials break down Grammatical
completely. (5) metaphor
Materials that can carry electricity are called conductors -
they conduct electricity.(6) Semantic
discontinuity

Now consider these three sentences of similar length to the


ones above: The use of active and
passive voice

I'm going to the shop to get some food for the dinner.(3) The use of pronouns
We never really did anything much in science at school.(2)
My mother used to tell me about the singer in her town.(4) Complex sentences

The use of
Halliday defines lexical density as '...a measure of the density connectives
of information in any passage of text, according to how tightly
the lexical items (content words) have been packed into the grammatical structure. It can be
measured, in English, as the number of lexical words per clause.'

The first group of sentences have been taken from a primary-school text book. They have a
higher lexical density (shown in brackets) than the second group of sentences. Of course, in any
piece of text there will be variations in the lexical density from clause to clause but, generally, the
lexical density of spoken language is lower than written language. Secondly, in science the lexical
density can be much higher. Consider these sentences. Again taken from a primary school book.

Medicines called vaccinations and antibiotics are taken as pills or injected - to fight
microbes that cause illness. (10)

You can heat and evaporate off the water by using a flame, or just put the water and solid
in a wide dish and leave it in a warm place. (14)

When you're asked how a thing depends on something else, or how something affects
something else, then it's time to produce a snappy conclusion like this one... (13)

There is an incredible amount of information in each of these sentences. In Haliday (1993), three
examples from the journal Scientific American (December 1987) are given with lexical densities of
13, 10 and 13. When the lexical density goes up, the sentence becomes more difficult to read.
Consider these three examples of scientific writing:

Conductors are materials that allow electricity to flow through them and are mostly metals
apart from a material called graphite which can be found in pencils. (12)

Conductors are materials which can carry electricity. Conductors are mostly metals but also
include a material called graphite. Graphite can be found in your pencil. (4)

Conductors are materials that let electricity pass through them. All metals are conductors.
A material called graphite is also a conductor. You can find graphite in your pencils. (3)
The lexical densities have been calculated by averaging the number of lexical items (shown in
bold) in each sentence. As you can see, the lexical density is drastically reduced by splitting
complex sentences into simpler sentences. By doing this, the flow of the sentence is lost and the
writing appears more clumsy. Howver, it is not by accident that written science appears
complicated. Scientific language has developed to enable scientists to communicate effectively.
This involves a large number of inter-relating technical terms each of which has been defined and

'contains' information the reader is expected to already understand. (See introduction.)

A high lexical density gives difficulties for readers for a number of reasons. Consider the sentence
below:

The male part of a flower is called the stamen which consists of a long stalk called a filament
which supports an anther, inside which, pollen grains grow.

It is a sentence that contains a large amount of information. It contains:

• Technical terms such as stamen, filament and anther.


• The relational pronouns 'which' acting as a connective
• 'Unfamiliar' words such as consists, supports.
• The unfamiliar grammatical construction 'in which'

Consider the following questions that could be asked to 'unlock' the information within it. The first
set of questions are asking for information that is 'contained' within the sentence:

What is a stamen?
What makes up a stamen?
What is a filament?
What job does a filament do?
How many parts does a stamen have?
What is an anther?
What supports an anther?
What happens inside the anther?
What is the male part of the flower called?

All these questions, and probably a few more, could be answered just by reading this sentence; if
students were very familiar with scientific English. The questions are attempting to test students
understanding of the 'science'. In the mean time, the students have other hurdles to overcome.
In particular, the assumed knowledge and the so-called 'non-scientific' vocabulary and grammar?

What does consists mean?


What does support mean?
What does stalk mean?
How long is a long stalk?
What does grow mean?
What does male mean?
What is a flower?
What is a grain?
What is pollen?

What is a pollen grain? ( Syntactic)


What is the word which referring to?

Technical vocabulary

There is nothing inherently difficult about the technical words anther, stamen and filament.
Students, in general, are not dismayed by technical words. As Halliday points out:

It is usually the teacher who puts technical terms in the centre of the picture, because vocabulary
is much more obvious, and easier to talk about, than grammar. But the generalisations we have
to make, in order to help students cope with scientific writing, are mainly generalisation about its
grammar. (Halliday 1993, p71.)

However, as Osborne and Wellington point out, there are different types of technical words. They
present a taxonomy of technical words which is shown below:

Level 1: Naming words

1.1 Familiar objects, new names (synonyms).


1.2 New objects, new names.
1.3 Names of chemical elements
1.4 Other nomenclature

Level 2: Process words

2.1 Capable of ostensive definition, i.e. being shown.


2.2 Not capable of ostensive definition.

Level 3: Concept words

3.1 Derived from experience (sensory concepts).


3.2 With dual meaning, i.e. everyday and scientific: for example,
force.
3.3 Theoretical constructs (total abstractions, idealisations and
postulated entities.)

Level 4: Mathematical words.

Each of the categories contain words which acquire their meaning in a different way. The
structure of the taxonomy suggests that students are likely to find words categorised as high level
more difficult than those categorised as low level.

It is worth discussing the different categories of words because all are commonly found in the
writing aimed at primary school science students. Secondly, as Osborne and Wellington point out,
it allows us to become more aware of the language we are using. In doing so, we expose
difficulties which we often overlook because we are so familiar with this type of writing.

The first category of words are naming words and are the words least likely to cause difficulties.
They have been further categorised into three groups. The first group of words are words that
'denote identifiable, observable, real objects:' words like oesophagus, pollen, stamen, stigma and
vertebra. As Osborne and Wellington point out, many of these words are synonyms for everyday
words already familiar to pupils such as windpipe-oesophagus and backbone-vertebra. So this
involves giving familiar objects new names.

The second sub-category is labelled as new objects, new names. Words in this category are
assigned a higher level because they involve giving unfamiliar objects names. These words may
include things that students have never seen, either because they cannot be seen with the naked
eye or because students have not come across them in their studies. They include words such as
cell, microbe and carbon dioxide.

The second category of words are assigned a higher level because they are slightly more abstract.
These words denote processes and include words such as condensation, combustion,
reflection and evaporation. These words can be further classified as those that can be shown
i.e. are capable of ostensive definition. They include words such as combustion, distillation and
evaporation. These are perhaps easier for students to understand than the words in the second
sub-class which contains words that denote processes that cannot be shown. These words include
processes such as photosynthesis, evolution, fertilisation and adaptation.

The third category is called concept words. They include words such as fuel, salt, fruit, force,
energy, temperature and heat. These words are difficult because they cannot be understood
without reference to other words, usually through the medium of a definition. For example, fuels
are materials that burn to give off energy. To understand the word fuel requires the students to

have understood the idea of burning and energy, (See Definitions). Concept words are
further sub-classified as those that can be derived from experience e.g. colour and fruit. The
second sub-class contains words which have both an everyday meaning and a scientific meaning.
These include words such as energy, heat, fuel and pressure. The existence of two meanings is
an obvious cause of difficulty for readers. The final sub-class has been labelled theoretical
constructs. Words in this sub-class include mixture, solution, suspension and mass and are
perhaps the most difficult of all the technical terms a student will face. This is due to the fact that
they are concerned with theories and cannot be derived from experience.

Unfamiliar vocabulary

Another feature of scientific writing is what Osborne and Wellington (2001) call 'The language of
secondary education'. They present a list of words which they suggest are commonly used by
teachers at secondary school some of which are shown below. We have added our own (in bold)
which at first sight do not seem to be particularly unusual.

assumption …in terms of…

relative to factors

establish distinguish between

initially... effectively

determines

crucial emphasise

relative to typical

complex feature

ideally... produce

distinguish between.. consists

factors... carries

Words such as these are used not just by secondary school teachers or, for that matter, science
teachers. They are used almost unconsciously by most educated people. Primary school teachers
are more careful when it comes to thinking about how they speak to their students but there will
be occasions when vocabulary which is unfamiliar to students is either spoken or written.
Consider the sentence below:

The diagrams below show a typical plant cell next to a typical animal cell. The diagrams
emphasise the similarities and differences between them.

Most teachers would read this sentence without a second thought. This was presented to a class
of Year 7 secondary students who had been looking at cells through microscopes and had drawn
and labelled plant and animal cells. They were asked to make up their own sentences containing
the following words: typical, emphasise, similarities and, from further on in the passage,
features. They spent a full hour on this activity and the teacher guided and helped them. The
sentences are fairly complex but nothing prepared the teacher for the tremendous difficulties the
students had in using the words correctly. Only the most able students came up with sentences
that made sense. Some examples are given below:

"The match was a typical clash between Manchester United and Arsenal. The score line
emphasised the similarities between the two sides. It was a 3-3 draw. The match had all the
features of a classic and was end to end stuff. "

"A typical hamster is about 6cm long. All hamsters have a number of features in common. They
are all furry and have small tails. There are similarities between gerbils and hamsters but the
gerbil's long tail emphasises the difference between them."

Most teachers would probably think the activity given to the students was not overly difficult but
our experience in a mixed-ability class showed that not all students were able to cope with it
easily. We have to be careful not to overlook the difficulties that scientific writing presents to
students.
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