The Choice Of Lexis And The Content Perception
The content is strong when it is easily perceived by a reader. Several criteria play a crucial role in the perception of a written text. One of this is lexis by itself, in other words the choice of words. Why it plays an important role? Because it allows a reader to understand what the content and well perceive its true meaning.
It is well known that a well-explained piece of text should be expressed in simple terms with a clear grammatical structure. This allows anyone to understand the text and follow the thoughts that the author aimed to express. Writing clear, concise texts with a transparent lexis is harder that it may seem. There are several traps that lead to a complicated, overloaded with lexis and hard to perceive text. These relate largely to the lexis choice.
Mistakes To Omit In Lexis Choice
The words choice is always a strategic decision. Choosing the lexis for the text will have a crucial impact on the reader. Words make the right impact on a reader when they communicate the message clearly and unite in a harmonic sentence that is not hard to read. Simplicity and clarity are key. There are several common mistakes that lead to the failure in communication and directly depend on the words choice:
Sophisticated terms and professionalisms usage. Terms by definition are not easy to perceive. These are words that are used in the specific spheres and define specific quite sophisticated term. Usually, the terms are easier to read by professionals who work in the same sphere the term is taken from. A philologist will quickly understand the word ‘grammar’, while for the person from another field it may be not so obvious.
Often, terms are crucially needed in the text that is dedicated to the audience of different educational, professional backgrounds. In such a case there are several options of how to make the text with terms easier to perceive. First of all, it is essential to omit too large quantity of such words. Those from certain business sphere or scientific field, often aim to include as many professionalisms in the text as possible. One sentence often end up having 4-5 terms. This is not a good formula, if the author wants the content to be well-perceived by the audience. Usually, in a sentence with 4-5 terms, or professionalisms, 2-3 can be easily substituted by the synonym that can be clearly understood by a wider audience. The text with 1-2 term or a professional terms will be 70% easier to perceive. The author can be sure then that the true meaning will be transmitted to the audience.
Explanation of several terms in one text. The information is better perceived if it does not communicate too many concepts in one. The terms overload never leads to a good result. The reader can not concentrate on several important concepts at once. Therefore, the piece of content that puts into spotlight a limited number of terms and professionals will always gain audience’s attention.
Using too many adjectives to illustrate the meaning of a noun. Simply saying it is better to have word o communicate the message than illustrate the message with several words. The temptation to add too many words around the main word is often high. Usually, these are adjectives that illustrate the noun – ‘tremendous profound professionalism’ is a phrase that can well illustrate this concept. In this phrase, the adjectives ‘tremendous and profound’ are unnecessary. The word ‘professionalism is a term that already includes these side concepts. What do these ‘side words’ bring? They bring only unnecessary pressure on the reader, who may find it hard to concentrate on a main word. Therefore, the most important concept in this phrase will be missed. It is not the quantity of words that makes a text better perceived but it is a clean concise choice of lexis.
Terms usage from different spheres. Terms and professionals relate to each specific sphere. Therefore, their meanings can be easily understood by the person who works in that sphere. But what happens if a person knowledgeable in one sector reads a text with too many professionals from a different sphere? Obviously, the person will never het a meaning. Such words will distract and ruin the effective perception of the text. It is not a good practice to take lexis from several professionals spheres and mix them. This will lead to complete misunderstand of a text by the targeted audience. Instead, it is always a better solution to use only several words from one sphere and minimise as possible the usage of terms from another sphere. Targeting to explain limited terns in one piece of text will be more effective than explaining the whole series of terms.
These are several tips about effective communication to the audience. Words choice plays a crucial role in getting the right message to the reader. Taking into consideration all pitfalls of the extensive usage of terms and professionalisms will allow an author to take a better weighted decision while choosing the lexis. Also, it is the person who masters the topics and clearly understands what message to convey to the reader is the one who can write a clear, concise text. It all depends on the the author. Explanation of the content in right words is hard task. It comes with practice and work to convey the message in a simple way. The author who wants to master the audience has to learn the art of communicating smoothly and to omit overloading a text with the unnecessary words.
Words choice is one of the criterion that impacts the clarity of text perception. It is also one of the most important ones. Another variables that make the influence are grammatical structure of sentences, paragraphs’ length, text length, visual presentation of a content and some more. It is a science to communicate effectively and clearly. As all, it can be mastered by a regular practice and a strong determination of an author to create a text that will leave a reader with a right message.