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<p>This article presents a newly developed instrument for measuring the perceived difficulty of Latin texts. A 13-item questionnaire was constructed to assess how smoothly readers process a given Latin passage. Text difficulty was defined here as the ease of text comprehension. The items were designed in accordance with Kintsch’s model of text comprehension and target distinct cognitive processes and representational levels involved in understanding a text. Additional items addressed translation difficulty more broadly. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed a two-dimensional structure, with one factor representing text comprehension and the other translation. Only the items measuring comprehension were retained for the final scale. The analysis indicated that most hypothesized processes and levels from Kintsch’s model could be applied to Latin texts. To control for individual differences, additional items were included to assess participants’ background knowledge, especially vocabulary, grammar, and—most importantly—knowledge of author and genre. These personal predictors proved to be highly influential. The final instrument is unidimensional, statistically reliable, and suitable for estimating the overindividual difficulty of Latin texts when administered to a sufficient number of readers. It thus provides an important empirical foundation for future research on Latin readability and the assessment of text difficulty in historical languages more broadly.</p>

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Creating a questionnaire for measuring the difficulty of Latin texts

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月18日

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  • Thomas Laurs

摘要

This article presents a newly developed instrument for measuring the perceived difficulty of Latin texts. A 13-item questionnaire was constructed to assess how smoothly readers process a given Latin passage. Text difficulty was defined here as the ease of text comprehension. The items were designed in accordance with Kintsch’s model of text comprehension and target distinct cognitive processes and representational levels involved in understanding a text. Additional items addressed translation difficulty more broadly. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed a two-dimensional structure, with one factor representing text comprehension and the other translation. Only the items measuring comprehension were retained for the final scale. The analysis indicated that most hypothesized processes and levels from Kintsch’s model could be applied to Latin texts. To control for individual differences, additional items were included to assess participants’ background knowledge, especially vocabulary, grammar, and—most importantly—knowledge of author and genre. These personal predictors proved to be highly influential. The final instrument is unidimensional, statistically reliable, and suitable for estimating the overindividual difficulty of Latin texts when administered to a sufficient number of readers. It thus provides an important empirical foundation for future research on Latin readability and the assessment of text difficulty in historical languages more broadly.