6: Language in Texts

Abstract

This review is the sequel to my review of graphics in text in Volume 5 of this series (Macdonald-Ross, 1978). Together the two chapters survey the field of research relevant to the design of printed curriculum materials. They also demark an area of applied research, namely, research which helps to develop the practical art of the communicator and hence may improve the quality of texts used for pedagogy. Necessarily, this review has some limitations which ought to be kept in mind. Research into language is being published at an astonishing rate; no one could possibly be familiar with all of it, nor is there space to discuss each paper in detail. Therefore, this review is selective: I have chosen the research which seems to me important for its potential significance to the improvement of curricular texts. Wherever possible reviews and other key sources are quoted, and the reader can get access to the older literature by consulting these key works. The review is based on an extensive bibliography which lists all the sources in detail (Macdonald-Ross & Smith, 1978). Research workers will find this bibliography a source of further information. The 20th century will doubtless be remembered in many ways—for its wars and its social changes, for atomic physics, for the start of genetic engineering, for the mass media, and for the first intelligent machines. Such great events do seize our imagination, but there are also quiet revolutions which are just as important in the long run. This century we have become conscious of language. In some sense we all know that the human race is the only form of life which uses