Word Complexity is in the Eye of the Beholder

Sian Gooding; Ekaterina Kochmar; Seid Muhie Yimam; Chris  Biemann

Word Complexity is in the Eye of the Beholder

Sian Gooding
, Ekaterina Kochmar
, Seid Muhie Yimam
, Chris Biemann

Department of Computer Science

University of Cambridge
Language Technology group, Universität Hamburg

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

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Abstract

Lexical complexity is a highly subjective notion, yet this factor is often neglected in lexical simplification and readability systems which use a "one-size-fits-all" approach. In this paper, we investigate which aspects contribute to the notion of lexical complexity in various groups of readers, focusing on native and non-native speakers of English, and how the notion of complexity changes depending on the proficiency level of a non-native reader. To facilitate reproducibility of our approach and foster further research into these aspects, we release a dataset of complex words annotated by readers with different backgrounds.

Original language	English
Publication status	Acceptance date - 10 Mar 2021
Event	2021 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics - Virtual Duration: 6 Jun 2021 → 11 Jun 2021 https://2021.naacl.org

Conference

Conference	2021 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Abbreviated title	NAACL-HLT 2021
Period	6/06/21 → 11/06/21
Internet address	https://2021.naacl.org

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abstract = "Lexical complexity is a highly subjective notion, yet this factor is often neglected in lexical simplification and readability systems which use a {"}one-size-fits-all{"} approach. In this paper, we investigate which aspects contribute to the notion of lexical complexity in various groups of readers, focusing on native and non-native speakers of English, and how the notion of complexity changes depending on the proficiency level of a non-native reader. To facilitate reproducibility of our approach and foster further research into these aspects, we release a dataset of complex words annotated by readers with different backgrounds.",

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AU - Kochmar, Ekaterina

AU - Yimam, Seid Muhie

AU - Biemann, Chris

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Y1 - 2021/3/10

N2 - Lexical complexity is a highly subjective notion, yet this factor is often neglected in lexical simplification and readability systems which use a "one-size-fits-all" approach. In this paper, we investigate which aspects contribute to the notion of lexical complexity in various groups of readers, focusing on native and non-native speakers of English, and how the notion of complexity changes depending on the proficiency level of a non-native reader. To facilitate reproducibility of our approach and foster further research into these aspects, we release a dataset of complex words annotated by readers with different backgrounds.

AB - Lexical complexity is a highly subjective notion, yet this factor is often neglected in lexical simplification and readability systems which use a "one-size-fits-all" approach. In this paper, we investigate which aspects contribute to the notion of lexical complexity in various groups of readers, focusing on native and non-native speakers of English, and how the notion of complexity changes depending on the proficiency level of a non-native reader. To facilitate reproducibility of our approach and foster further research into these aspects, we release a dataset of complex words annotated by readers with different backgrounds.

M3 - Paper

T2 - 2021 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics

Y2 - 6 June 2021 through 11 June 2021

ER -

Word Complexity is in the Eye of the Beholder

Abstract

Conference

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