Coh-Metrix: An automated tool for theoretical and applied natural language processing

Coh-Metrix provides indices for the characteristics of texts on multiple levels of analysis, including word characteristics, sentence characteristics, and the discourse relationships between ideas in text. Coh-Metrix was developed to provide a wide range of indices within one tool. This chapter describes Coh-Metrix and studies that have been conducted validating the Coh-Metrix indices. Coh-Metrix can be used to better understand differences between texts and to explore the extent to which linguistic and discourse features successfully distinguish between text types. Coh-Metrix can also be used to develop and improve natural language processing approaches. We also describe the Coh-Metrix Text Easability Component Scores, which provide a picture of text ease (and hence potential challenges). The Text Easability components provided by Coh-Metrix go beyond traditional readability measures by providing metrics of text characteristics on multiple levels of language and discourse. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-741-8.ch011

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