ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-CORE-239-067 · ATLAS 260

Comprehensibility

The degree to which an utterance is accessible and intelligible to its addressees.

Part of the subject path Pragmatics and Conversation

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

A · Analytical concept R1 · Distinct contribution to understanding

Comprehensibility adds a relational assessment of how recipients can process and use an utterance. This differs from brevity and from accessibility's wider concern with perceptual, operational and situational access.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Comprehensibility is the degree to which addressees can infer, process, and use an utterance under particular conditions. It does not reside in the text alone. Vocabulary, syntax, organisation, and typography interact with prior knowledge, attention, sensory access, situation, and communicative task. A technically dense text may be comprehensible to specialists and inaccessible to non-specialists; a linguistically simple instruction may fail when essential assumptions remain unstated. Comprehensibility is therefore relational and must be tested for specified audiences and purposes. Plain Language and Easy Language are regulated or guiding approaches to accessibility, but they are not identical with comprehensibility as a whole. The movement goes from an utterance to the processing conditions of its audience and back to revision: not merely words but a path towards actionable meaning is designed.

Movement of thought

1. A message is first produced for particular addressees, a situation, and a concrete communicative task. 2. Linguistic form, organisation, medium, and prior knowledge interact to impose different perceptual and processing demands. 3. Addressees construct a model of meaning and action, while questions, errors, or hesitation reveal possible breaks in understanding. 4. A counter-test varies audience and purpose and separates comprehensibility from brevity, legibility, agreement, and factual correctness. 5. The utterance returns in revised form; understanding is designed as a fit among presentation, situation, and experience.

Scientific use case

Comprehensibility research, psycholinguistics, specialised communication, and accessibility studies combine textual measures, reading time, comprehension questions, task performance, and qualitative feedback for defined user groups.

Example

Instead of “administer preprandially,” patient information says: “Take the tablet about 30 minutes before eating.” Both the action and its timing become directly usable.

Counterexample

A short sentence is printed in large type but contains an unexplained specialist code and no instruction for action. It is visible and brief, yet not necessarily comprehensible.

Distinction

Distinguish it from readability, legibility, Plain Language, Easy Language, clarity, coherence, mutual understanding, agreement, and factual correctness; specify audience, task, and test method.

Effect on thought and perception

Comprehensibility supports participation, safe decisions, and knowledge transfer; superficial simplification may lose precision, patronise readers, or conceal differences in prerequisites.

Resonance

Understanding arises when a form finds a connection in another person's knowledge and situation; comprehensibility is the constructed bridge, not merely its material.

Etymology

Technical core term; individual etymological review pending

Provenance

Unresolved relation network → second core-concept review → Metzler/HWRh cross-check → ATLAS 239

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Comprehensibility“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-239-067. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-239-067

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-239-067

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Locke identifies being understood as the aim of communication in III.ix.4 and warns in III.ii.7 against using familiar sounds without settled signification. This is a historical critique of apparent understanding within his theory of ideas. It neither supplies modern readability measures nor establishes a general contemporary theory of comprehensibility.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Ask for the claim to be explained in the reader's own words. Familiar wording is insufficient when its role in the argument remains unclear.

References for the historical section

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.