this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Collapse
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As someone who arrogantly assumes that I'd be in the 5% that had a "detailed, literal understanding of the first paragraphs of Bleak House" since I achieved a 36 on my Reading ACT many years ago (and yes, I feel like a loser even writing that), I'll give a tiny defense of at least some of these participants and their results.
The study says that:
I feel like that, in combination with the potential stress of the situation, might lead to really stupid sounding answers, like some of those quoted in the article. I personally tested myself using the "mud" example, and while I think I gave a passable initial answer, a verbal answer that accurately matches and translates the original text on a sentence-by-sentence basis is fairly difficult to construct verbally for me, at least within the first pass. That job of translating the text into modern English is difficult, and is a synthesis of information that requires far more cognitive reasoning than just understanding the text. Give me a pen and paper, and I think I could do a far, far better job, and I would assume the same of a lot of the participants.
Additionally, many of the words and phrases in those samples are very archaic. Participants were allowed to search up definitions, which would definitely help to clarify those archaic terms, but again, I'll note that this seems like a stressful test, and participants may feel like they're being negatively judged for even looking up terms like that. One of the examples highlighted by the article could even be interpreted as showing exactly that:
The article uncharitably attributes her behavior to "the cognitive load of reading these archaic terms and complex sentences," but I don't know, that just seems like plain test-related stress to me.
Some even come with scientific baggage from that era.
The dinosaur, in particular -- during that era, it was believed that most of the great sauropods were too large to exist unencumbered upon land; that they had to be partially or fully aquatic in order for buoyancy to permit them to actually stand on their legs. Plus, most ambulatory references were made to modern lizards and reptiles, the majority of whom walk with legs out to the side instead of directly underneath the body like most mammalian quadrupeds. So the characterization of the dinosaur’s shambling gait was a mischaracterization that arose from assumptions and insufficient data.
Anxiety is a good explanation for what's happening here, yeah. There a social pressure of what is essentially an oral exam, and even if it's basically an open book test there's a test taker right there judging them.
That still implies something kind of bad? Not that they are illiterate, but they are so socially dysfunctional that it makes them illiterate.
Relatable.
I think it's fair to say that them handing this poorly isn't a good sign when it comes to their ability to handle stress (and their social acumen?), but I do think that begs the question: how correlated is their inability to handle a high stress situation here with typical tasks you'd use English proficiency for, or things we'd normally associate with English proficiency?
"In real time, verbally translate an archaic 19th century novel you haven't previous read while under high stress" isn't a situation I think a lot of English majors or scholars find themselves in very often — the closest analogues I can think of would be other specific tests or maybe something like a student asking them a question in a literature course where they're the professor. The vast majority of the time, even on most tests, people can take their time reading, write down notes or make annotations, and re-read the passage as necessary, without needing to verbally dictate their logic.
I really can't understand this sentiment. That is modern English
First off, the linked article uses the term "archaic" first to describe the text, which is where I'm taking it from. Regardless, I don't think "archaic" is an unfitting term here — Bleak House was written 171 years ago, with a setting even further back than that. It has a particular written style that is distinctly different from typical, modern English, and it uses now uncommon terms that most modern English speakers (outside of maybe those from the UK?) won't recognize. Mind you, I'm not saying it violates grammatical rules or uses something like Middle English, but at least some of what makes it a challenging read is how old it is.
For example, did you understand what "Michaelmas Term" was without looking it up or having it defined in the article?
I'm sorry, my tone was off somewhere. I was not criticizing you at all, but rather the source material. It just surprised me that they characterized it that way.
I do apologize for the confusion.
No worries, I feel like it's hard to convey tone on the internet. I often personally find it challenging not to come off as confrontational, no matter what my actual intent is.
Reflecting on it a little further, I also think my inconsistent use of "modern" in the prior posts as sometimes a shorthand for both "contemporary" and also "plainly understood" wasn't doing me any favors in conveying my argument.
Right, understood. I'm saying that's it's Modern English as opposed to, say, Middle English. I can (mostly) read Chaucer, for example, but I still have to look stuff up. To me, that's archaic. I cannot read Old English at all. And difficult, to me, would be, say, James Joyce (over my head, honestly), or Thomas Pynchon (readable, but requires a lot of thought), or say Foucault's Pendulum (Eco is so much more erudite than I am).
Edit: punctuation, ironically
Dickens is not difficult and none of those passages need translation. It's just plain modern English
I mean, the study itself seems to disagree with that sentiment:
I get it, I read that too. Maybe my opinion shouldn't count for much.