Lue ja ymmärrä – selkokielisten verkkouutisten kielellisiä piirteitä

Authors

• Merja Koskela
• Eija Lehikoinen
• Anita Nuopponen

Keywords:

plain language, readability, online writing, online news

Abstract

The article presents the results of a quantitative study investigating features of plain language news in the online newspaper Selkouutiset [Plain News] published by the Finnish Centre for Plain Language. Comprehensibility and readability of plain language text are discussed on the basis of the results. Thirty online news articles were analysed quantitatively in the light of recommendations given for plain language on one hand and for online writing on the other hand. The study illustrates how similar these recommendations are: they concern especially the length and number of paragraphs, the length and structure of sentences as well as the choice of words. The results do not show any linguistic distinctions in the features analysed. The main difference seems to be rather in the content and the layout, i.e. not in readability but in accessibility factors.