Simplification in specialized and non-specialized discourse: Broadening CBTS to multi-discourse analysis

This paper intends to contribute to research on the simplification hypothesis by incorporating a multi-discourse analysis. The study compares non-specialized and academic specialized discourse with the aim of describing their similarities and difference in terms of syntactic and stylistic simplification. Considering two variables (non-specialized/specialized discourse and original/translated texts) allows for examination of which has a greater influence on the tendency towards simplification. According to the adopted corpus-based methodology, four corpora are compiled, including original and translated English texts representing non-specialized and academic discourse. Then, simplification -related features (lexical variety, lexical density, mean sentence length, use of subordination and non-finite sentences) are determined and identified in each corpus. The comparison of the results across different corpora shows signs of simplification in both types of discourse. However, each presents different linguistic features, suggesting that simplification is more related to the type of discourse than to the original or translated nature of the analyzed texts.