The Quantitative Analysis Of Language Difficulty In Intermediate Chinese Intensive Reading Textbooks

Based on the summary of the problems on language materials inintermediate Chinese intensive reading textbooks,this thesis discusses andanalyzes the elements that influence its language difficulty by introducing andreferring to the achievements in theory and practice on domestic and foreignreadability research.And for the first time,it puts forward eight importantvariables from the four aspects,including Chinese characters, vocabulary,syntax and grammar items,chapter.They are as follows:(1) the number of thethird and fourth level and out-syllabus characters by an average per100characters,(2)new words of each text,(3) the number of the third and fourthlevel and out-syllabus words by an average per100characters,(4) theproportion of content words and function words a book,(5) the number of setphrases(including set format) by an average per100characters,(6) theaverage sentence length,(7) the number of the third and fourth level andout-syllabus grammatical items by an average per100characters,(8) the textlength.On basis of this, this thesis selects two sets of intermediate Chineseintensive reading textbooks,which are most widely materials and the mostinfluential at present in domestic,namely“Bridge-intermediate practicalChinese course”, and “the Development-intermediate Chinese book”.It carrieson the quantitative analysis on these four books,and discusses their moderateregions of characters, words, phrases, sentences, grammar items and chapter.Statistical results show that the moderate regions of intermediate Chinesereading textbook,they respectively are: the number of the third and fourth leveland out-syllabus characters by an average per100is12-18,the average is14.83;new words of each text are59-77,the average is66.78; the number ofthe third and fourth level and out-syllabus words by an average per100characters is12-13, the average is12.22; the number of set phrases by anaverage per100characters is within1, the average is0.31;the ratio of function words is between1%-5%,the average is2.76%; the average sentence lengthis between25-34words, the average is29.37;the number of the third andfourth level and out-syllabus grammatical items by an average per100characters is less than1, the average is0.60;The text length of book one isbetween1200-1500words long, the average is1351words. The text length ofbook two is between2400-2600words long, the average is2520words.Finally, this thesis summarizes the problems on language difficulty incurrent intermediate Chinese intensive reading textbooks.And combined withthe statistical results of the above two sets of textbooks and some advice fromother language experts,it trys to put forward some reasonablesuggestions,which expect to help textbook writers with the selection andarrangement of language materials, or users of teaching materials in choosingthe appropriate intermediate Chinese intensive reading textbooks. In addition,it is useful for readability formula research in the future,which can providesome referential variables and data support. At last, some of the deficienciesare pointed out and the direction of future research is brought up in this thesis.