Β - 08 - 2020 - JOUR - Mathioudakis - JALL - Vol. 4 (2) - pp.178-191

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2 Journal of Applied Languages and Linguistics Volume 4 Issue 2 / December 2020
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Fuzziness and Subjectivity while Inferencing the Word

Types of Neological Undictionaried Words in Kazantzakis’s
Poetry
Dr Nikos Mathioudakis
Universidad de Granada, Spain
Email: nikosmathious@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The present study is investigating whether and to what extent university students have the
competence of decoding and comprehending the language of literature, the poetic grammar of
individual authors. More specifically, we are interested in Kazantzakis’ language and his talent of
creating new words or using dialectic/idiomatic words in his epic poem ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ. Our research was
conducted in the Departments of Greek Philology of Universities in Greece, with 1st and 4th year
university students, as they are our target group. The students of Universities had to decode
twenty-four words which were different types of words (derivatives, compounds etc.) and
classified based on dominant POS (verbs, nouns, adjectives). After subjects had completed their
guessing about word types and parts of speech, they had to specify their degree of confidence
that they had guessed correctly, on a continuum/bar [0,1] – rather than the usual Likert’s scale –
and show they had understood not only the specific word they were asked to decode, but also the
underlying meaning of the whole sentence.
© Applied Language Studies House Publications 2020. All rights reserved
Keywords: Reading comprehension strategies, inferencing, guessing, accuracy, confidence,

fuzziness, ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ, Kazantzakis
1. Introduction
On the one hand, Mukařovský (1964) considers that violations of the rule of the common language
in poetry are legitimate and necessary, because without them there would be no poetry, so
whoever criticizes the deviations from the norm of language as mistakes means that he rejects
poetry itself. On the other hand, Peirce (1931) claims that nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted
as a sign and if this is true for everyday language, this is more so for literature and poetic
grammars created by the authors. Thus, the most interesting issue in education diachronically is
the familiarization of pupils with literature, both national and international.
The empirical approach to exploring the idiosyncratic vocabulary of an author, such as the
vocabulary of the ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ14 by Nikos Kazantzakis, is a real challenge, and shows great interest in
14
The original title of Kazantzakis’s epic ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ issued in majuscule script with an “Σ” in the first edition (1938). The
researcher adopts a proportionally similar script, first as a mark of respect towards the author’s will and second as a
distinct point to avoid confusion with the title of the famous epic of Homer’s Οδύσσεια (in English: Odyssey), which is
written with two “σ”. In this study we use a later version of the poem (1967), such as that released by Kazantzakis
Publications until today.
linguistics, especially in terms. The vocabulary of the ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ constitutes a true linguistic treasure,
which remains for several decades, the adoption of the saga to date, scientifically unexplored and
unexploited linguistically.
It is my belief that Kazantzakis’s epic poem is an important task of the literary era that had as its
main objective to preserve and pass on to younger generations a real linguistic treasure of our
demotic language. Also, about the poetic words of neological undictionaried words of ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ, I
think they may not be quite non-understandable because they were created by the creative ability
of ordinary speakers aiming to communicate and service their daily needs. Finally, I believe it is
particularly interesting to detect some cases with a vocabulary idiosyncratic character like
neological undictionaried words of the Kazantzakian poem, which could be a good and proper
exercise of the imagination of every reader, once the process of semantic identification of
unknown or difficult words resulting from direct and indirect knowledge activates a variety of
reading strategies and understanding of a literary text.
2. Research background
There are quite a few researches about the role of language, and lexis more specifically, in poetry.
As for Kazantzakis and his ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ, there are not many specific researches concerning his poetic
language (Mathioudakis 2012abc, 2014, 2020), at least not to our knowledge. On the one hand,
there is, of course, Pantelis Prevelakis’s work, The Poet and The Poem of Odyssey (1958), which is
general and still too academic; while other linguistic works about Kazantzakis’s language
specifically include the following: Kazantzakis’s Language by Nikolaos Andriotis (1959),
KAZANTZAKIS and the Linguistic Revolution in Greek Literature by Peter Bien (1972), The Language
of Odyssey of N. Kazantzakis by Eleftheria Giakoumaki (1982), Zur Sprache der Odyssee von
Kazantzakis by Alexander Sideras (1983) and Kazantzakis and Language by Vassilios Mandilaras
(1987). On the other hand, the literary epic of Kazantzakis is not used in educational studies, apart
from a few examples, where he was part of a qualitative research, particularly highlighting the
reading behavior of the participants. Specifically, Katsiki-Gkivalou (2009) conducted a survey15 of
first-year students (N=252: 206 girls and 43 boys) of the Faculty of Primary Education (University
of Athens), in order to determine the impact of Kazantzakis on modern young people, particularly,
the extent to which young people understand the spirit of the composition and the ideas that
underlie it.
The linguistic investigation of the ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ – apart from some isolated theoretical studies of
language and style – is an original work, since it is the first time a researcher is dealing more with
the vocabulary of the whole epic poem, from the beginning until the end, in order both to record
neological poetic words and to study the degree of understanding of those words from readers,
and the factors that may affect them.
Mathioudakis’s research efforts (2009/unpub, 2009, 2011, 2012c, 2014, 2020) are the first
empirical approaches of the epic poem by Nikos Kazantzakis, where an attempt is made to
investigate the accuracy of the participants’ effort to understand and find the exact meaning of
unknown words using a strategy of free unconfined guessing, using all the information provided
and evidence. It is worth noting that the researcher gives particular importance to an additional
factor which seems to play an important role in the process of language tests and concerns the
certainty or confidence of subjects that answered correctly and accurately guessed the importance
of keyword targets.
Specifically, the study of the ‘correctness’ or ‘accuracy’ agent is, as already reported, the most,
using various strategies, and texts of general interest, literary, scientific and others. However, after
a literature search it was found that there is lack of research focusing on literary texts of Greek
15
Illustrative noted that the survey was conducted in 1998.
authors, to determine in what circumstances and under what conditions the readers are able to
understand the meaning of unknown or difficult words during literary reading.
Conversely, the exploration factors of ‘certainty’ or ‘confidence’ occurs primarily in psychological
studies and are not at all common in investigations of language tests. But the researcher of the
present study believes that the consideration of the accuracy and confidence of participants in a
language test – according Kambaki-Vougioukli’s researches (1990-2013)16 – could be beneficial to
the learning process, since it is not only important to someone to be right in his answers but also
be confident about his own ability to answer correctly and thus enhance his self-esteem.
3. Fuzziness and Subjectivity in Literature
Vocabulary is part of authors’ poetic grammar, in order to choose the appropriate words and
expressions to formulate their literary message in the best possible way. Poetic neologisms in a
literary text are often aspects of the author’s temperamental vocabulary, making them either
difficult to understand or partially or completely unknown to the reader. The specific words in
many researches are target words that are chosen by the researcher to be investigated because
they are of special interest in different linguistic levels, such as morphology, semantics, pragmatics
and therefore they are researched in relation to various factors.
Furthermore, unfamiliar words in a text and, consequently, the poetic neological words of a
literary text, as some scholars argue (Halff, Ortony & Anderson 1976; Charles 2000), often show
semantic ambiguity, since the definition of their meaning does not depend only on the context or
on the morphology of the words but also has a direct effect on the subjective character and
personality of the reader himself, with the result that even he finds it difficult to define precisely
the meaning of each poetic word and to reveal the poetic message. The ambiguity of the meaning
of the neological words weakens the reader’s correctness, while it strengthens his uncertainty
about the hypothesis or the prediction of the meaning he gave to the word.
Therefore, literary texts, with regard to their vocabulary, inherently have dominant subjectivity
and intense ambiguity, both in reading and understanding the process (and also, in the process of
rapprochement and criticism). A literary work was created with the subjective character of the
author, read with the subjective character of each reader, who gives it his personal extensions,
and studied with the subjective character of each critic who gives it different philological
approaches.
Subjectivity and fuzziness in creation and interpretation are considered to be inherent in every
form of linguistic communication – and not only – and is a particularly fascinating element, which
is worth dealing with. The ambiguity can be detected both in the ‘accuracy’ of the reader’s
interpretation of a literary text and in the ‘confidence’ that he understood all or part of the
author’s message.
3.1. Accuracy and Confidence
In linguistic studies but also in the educational approach of literature, the usual research focuses
mainly on the extent that the participants have answered the test questions accurately, guessing
correctly, either the word or the meaning that the researcher is interested in. Thus, it is found that
the co-examination of accuracy and confidence in linguistic research, while not a common
methodological choice, actually is a challenge, since its theoretical basis is inevitably under
development.
16
See also Intze (2010) and Mouti (2011).
Therefore, we believe that the concept of confidence as a variable in linguistic research must or at
least should be considered, because we believe that the accuracy and correctness of a subject’s
answer depends on his self-confidence but also on his abilities and possibilities.
Our main goal is to investigate the terms accuracy and confidence, concepts which we believe are
completely dependent on subjectivity and fuzziness both for the reader (or the subject of a
research) and for the author or researcher – depending on the environment in which the research
takes place.
So, we believe that the accuracy and confidence, which could be variables in the research
approach not only in language teaching but also in literature, are directly involved in the process
of reading and comprehension of any text, including literary ones.
3.2. Fuzziness
The fuzziness as a notion has been investigated individually and through other sciences, such as in
the field of the semantics of linguistic science and science, such as physics, technology and
mathematics. In particular, Zadeh (1965) examines in detail the vagueness and its relation to
practical issues of everyday life, developing his views on the theory of fuzzy sets, in an attempt to
search for possible applications in linguistics.
In other words, it is believed that the theory of fuzziness is inherently strong in many linguistic
considerations and could be used to identify factors that exhibit subjectivity, for example in an
attempt to map the gray zones that are created upon reading and understanding the literature
with a more mathematical approach.
The fact is that in every study that deals with the interpretation of words and meanings, what is
the issue is the accuracy of the answers. In other words, in the usual procedure, subjects are asked
to give a response, which will be judged by the researcher as correct, partially correct, incorrect,
partially incorrect, etc. This process, however, is not enough, especially if it takes place in school
and the ultimate goal is learning. In such a case, the research subject is asked and answers, giving
an interpretation, but no one thinks of considering how certain that correct answer is or that
simply he replied because he had to respond.
Therefore, we find that both the accuracy of the answers to a question and the relative confidence
of the respondents, if they consider that they answered correctly, are two variables with strong
fuzziness and subjectivity in both literature and other sciences.
3.3. Measuring Fuzziness and Subjectivity
The correctness of guessing (accuracy) and the subjects’ conviction (confidence) about their
answers are two variables, which despite the vagueness and subjectivity which characterizes
them, is possible to be greatly enhanced, so as for a subject to answer correctly in language
testing either providing or guessing the appropriate word or giving the exact meaning, but at the
same time, being sure that the answer is correct. An important role in strengthening the faith of
the subjects is played by strengthening the educational process with methods and techniques to
help participants to assume or predict or guess correctly, managing as much existing or offered
information as possible; in other words, to teach students the use and combination of various
strategies in reading and understanding a text, especially of a literary work.
The escalation of a variable, such as accuracy or confidence, depends both on its nature and on
the researcher’s judgment. Decisions of this kind are difficult to be made in cases such as the
compilation of questionnaires to be used in linguistic and other research. There are definitely
certain scales which are preferred to others, such as the 5-grade Likert scale:
I completely agree, I rather agree,

I am somewhere between, I rather disagree, I completely disagree.
This type of scale is characterized by certain elements-rules normally identified in every step of the
scale. That is to say, they pinpoint a very positive beginning and a very negative end. However, the
most difficult part is partition and where exactly the limits of the actual partition lie. The problem
of discrimination of those categories is quite serious for the researcher but it is even more so for
the subjects of the research, who might need tedious explanations and, finally, miss the point of
the research.
In order to minimize such risks, Vougiouklis & Kambaki-Vougioukli (2008), based on the fuzzy
theory (Zadeh 1965), introduced a new statistical tool, ‘the bar’, as an alternative to the usually
employed Likert scales (Kambaki-Vougioukli et al. 2011).
Proposition:
In every question of a questionnaire the scale could be replaced
by the ‘bar’, whose two poles are defined by 0, on the left, and 1 on the right.
The participants, instead of the usual checking of one grade explicitly specified on the scale, will
have to ‘cut’ by a vertical line the continuum space at any point they think expresses best their
answer to the specific question. There are certain advantages in using the Bar instead of the Scale,
such as avoiding time consuming explanations as for the difference between the grades and
having the subjects start the filling in process straight away.
Nevertheless, the proposal of Vougiouklis & Kambaki-Vougioukli (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013) enables
researchers to process their data accurately converting discrete to continuous and even more
uniquely in multi-valued or vague/fuzzy (Vougiouklis 1994, 2008; Corsini & Leoreanu 2003; Davvaz
& Leoreanu 2007; Vougiouklis & Kambaki-Vougioukli 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013). Therefore, the bar
eliminates the problems of internal limits and allows addressing things as options on the real line,
where it is isomorphic to the continuum [0,1].
In conclusion, the use of the bar – unlike the scale – is considered to be the desired research tool
for the research approach in both teaching and understanding literary text or not. The handy tool
bar, which is “a mathematical artistic way” («έντεχνο μαθηματικό τρόπο», Lygeros 2008, 2009),
applies perfectly to scientific beliefs of the present research, for this reason and both the bar and
the theory of fuzzy sets of the main theoretical background for the processing of the key variables
will be used, namely the accuracy and confidence.
Finally, I think the V & V Bar (or V squared Bar – V2 Bar) is a very serious proposal if implemented
widely; it can bring more advantages which are extremely helpful for researchers and will be able
to identify any shortcomings of the tool and gradually be improved. By doing this you will create a
research tool, which combines objectivity in methodology and try to identify the ambiguity and
subjectivity of survey variables.
2.2. Rational and purpose – Hypothesis
The present research, regarding to the findings of previous studies and the results of previous pilot
studies (Mathioudakis 2009/unpub, 2009, 2011), focused on the study of students in the
Departments of Philology in all Greek Universities. The purpose of this descriptive and interpretive
research, or as it is commonly called field research, is to study the degree of accuracy and
confidence of subjects in the process of reading and understanding a literary text, using the
strategy of ‘open-inferencing’ (ελεύθερο μάντεμα, Mathioudakis 2020), to understand some
words that can be regarded as examples of an idiosyncratic vocabulary.
The lack of previous research relevant to understanding the language of the ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ by Nikos
Kazantzakis, and the difficulties in reading it, are two important reasons that make– in my opinion
– the research of linguistic skill necessary. Under Stylistics, several scientists have reported on the
usefulness and necessity of personal study and writing of poetry with a particular grammar for
each author, thus proving a better understanding of his work by contemporary readers. Therefore,
the main objective of the investigation remains the best possible understanding of this saga,
exploring the unknown and/or imaginative words.
According to the results of similar studies, the aim of this study is to clarify the relationship
between the dependent and independent variables, and the degree to which one variable affects
another in a lexical test using the strategy of open-inferencing (ελεύθερο μάντεμα) so as to
achieve the correct interpretation of an unknown or an abstruse either morphological or semantic
word. In the present study we will mainly investigate the correlations of accuracy and confidence
with the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives).
3. Research
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Subjects
The research subjects were students of the First (1st) and Fourth (4th) year of study in the
Department of (Greek) Philology of Universities throughout Greece. Specifically, the main research
sample consisted of five hundred fifty-five (555) subjects-students of Greek Language and
Literature: one hundred fifteen (115) male and four hundred forty (440) female. Of the total
sample – when the survey was conducted (April-May 2011) – three hundred ten (310) were
enrolled in the 1st year of study, [sixty-nine (69) male and two hundred and forty one (241)
female]; in addition, two hundred forty five (245) were enrolled in the 4th year of study [forty-six
(46) male and one hundred ninety-nine (199) female].
The educational institutions involved in the present research were the Departments of Greek
Philology at the universities of Athens, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Crete, Thrace, Patras and
Peloponnese. Especially for the fourth year in which the students were divided into fields,
sampling was equally planned out of all section fields (Classics, Modern Greek and Byzantine
Language, Linguistics).
In this research, the number of questionnaires was five hundred fifty-five (N=555); in other words,
more than fifteen percent (15% +) of the total population, so that the sample is representative and
is considered very satisfactory (N>500). According to the views of many researchers, the
proportional stratified sampling acquires representative character, if it has the form layouts, which
depict the same three-dimensional and real structure, i.e. the actual total population.
3.1.2. Materials and tasks
The data collection tools of the research are divided into two stages: the basic tool and auxiliary
tool. So, research tools were: (a) a constructed questionnaire, as a main tool, and (b) a lexical
corpus, as an auxiliary tool.
The questionnaire has twenty-four passages from the epic poem of the author containing an
underlined word, which – in the opinion of the researcher (Mathioudakis & Kambaki-Vougioukli
2009/unpub, 2011; Mathioudakis 2009) – were unknown and unfamiliar to subjects, since the
ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ has not been taught in school curriculum Texts in Modern Greek Literature in secondary
education from the 80s until today, but neither do students choose to read it (Katsiki-Gkivalou
2009; Mathioudakis & Kambaki-Vougioukli 2009/unpub).
The target words that were included in the questionnaire17 were selected around two axes: (a) the
main parts of speech, i.e. nouns, verbs and adjectives, and (b) the basic categories of the typology
of undictionaried words (see Mathioudakis 2012bc, 2020; also, Mathioudakis & Karasimos 2014),
17
For more information about the questionnaire, see Mathioudakis 2020: 7.4.2.1. & Appendix III/Β.
i.e. production, compounding, dialectical and onomatopoetic words. The questionnaire consisted
of eight (8) nouns, eight (8) verbs and eight (8) adjectives, i.e. 8+8+8=24, of which six (6) were
derived words, six (6) compound words, six (6) dialectal words and six (6) onomatopoetic words,
i.e. 6+6+6+6=24. The words, as shown in the table below, were equally spaced in the parts of
speech and represented equally the categories of undictionaried words.
Table 1: Word groups of the questionnaire
3.2. Design
The research variables are divided into the following two categories:
(I) In the ‘Dependent Variables’ (DV), which are those that are affected by the change in
value of another or some other variable, i.e. independent, “showing the degree of relation or
affinity that links the dependent and independent” (Siardos 2004:3).
(II) In the ‘Independent Variables’ (IV), which are those that can affect some other variable
and offer adjustment somehow (Tsopanoglou 2010:51).
The DVs were selected, for this study, are:
(a) the accuracy of the responses of the subjects and
(b) the confidence of the same subject for the correctness of his responses.
The IVs are:
(1) the ‘Experimental Variables’ (EV) that are the questions with the target words for the
interpretive approach. The questions are related to the use of the strategy to open-inferencing
(ελεύθερο μάντεμα), so subjects had to imagine the meaning of each word, exploring all the
elements, such as the context, the analysis of the word, potential correlations with other similar
words, in other words searching for internal and external cues before taking a final decision on the
correct – in their opinion – interpretation.
(2) the ‘Subject Variables’ (SV), which are related to the research subjects: (a) gender, (b)
the year of study, (c) the university, (d) foreign languages and/or dialects which the subjects speak
and/or understand, (e) the educational level of the father, (f) the educational level of the mother,
(g) philanagnosia of subjects (φιλαναγνωσία, information about how often they read literature),
(h) subjects’ contact with the general work of Nikos Kazantzakis and (i) grade of subjects’ reading
some of the books by Nikos Kazantzakis.
3.3. Procedure
The researcher visited the Departments of every university in person. Initially, he urged teachers
to leave the room and return at a particular time when it was estimated that the process would be
fully completed. Then, he asked those students who wished to participate in the research to
remain in the room.
After that, the researcher handed out the questionnaires to the subjects, asking them warmly to
read carefully the instructions that were written on the questionnaire. He did not offer them any
details concerning the lexical test. Also, the researcher asked the students to answer – as they
themselves wanted – without restrictions and letting their imagination free in any way they
believed that they would perform precisely the thinking.
The time allowed was only half an hour (30΄), in which the subjects were required to answer all
questions according to the instructions that were in the questionnaire and indicate their
confidence about the replies, noting on the bar.
The subjects, after writing the one word or periphrastic interpretations, noted how confident they
were about each of their answers (see Figure 1) on the continuum [0,1], where 0 = absolutely
unsure and 1 = absolutely sure. Essentially, the subjects had to ‘cut’ the bar at the point which
stated their confidence (see Figure 2), as follows:
Figure 1: Bar for evaluating the Confidence
absolutely unsure absolutely sure
It is clear that the possible cuts are endless, as points in a line are infinite. For example:
Figure 2: Example bar to evaluate the Confidence
absolutely unsure absolutely sure
3.4. Process – Scoring of Accuracy and Confidence
Still evaluating the accuracy and confidence, the researcher applied the following method score:
(a) As regards to accuracy, the researcher was able to evaluate the responses of the subjects
based on the theory of fuzzy sets, which tries to objectify subjectivity. As in literature, anyway, no
one can refer to a single interpretative approach of a word, therefore a score of zero (0) to four (4)
was chosen, where:
• Zero (0) means that the answer is completely wrong.

• One (1) means that the answer is almost wrong.
• Two (2) means that the answer is neither right nor wrong.
• Three (3) means that the answer is about right.
• Four (4) means that the answer is absolutely correct.
(b) As regards confidence, the researcher, after receiving the subjects’ questionnaires, measured –
with absolute precision and strictness – the bars (one by one) for all the answers, using a ruler.
The measurement point was made that each subject on the bar was the confidence of the subject
about this answer. In this research, the total length of the bar is 6.18 centimeters (≈6.20 cm), so
the prices of the subjects’ confidence about the correctness of their responses were from 0 cm up
to 6.18 cm.
Although the evaluation of the bar per subject proved a time-consuming process, the accuracy of
the values gives to each researcher a flexibility used in the evaluation and processing of the survey
data, an important factor in the development of research and mathematization of subjectivity.
4. Results
The values of the results, presented in the tables below, have interesting results about the
correlations of accuracy and confidence with the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives). (Of
course, these results represent the research findings in this sample of subjects and at a specific
time).
In Tables 2, 3 and 4, the results show that there are no statistically significant differences in the
correlation of the accuracy and confidence of the research subjects with the parts of the speech of
the target words.
Table 2: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the nouns
Table 3: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the verbs
Table 4: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the adjectives
In Table 5, it appears that the male students and the female students show almost equal values in
the accuracy of their answers (with small exceptions in the group of nouns the females precede
and in the groups of verbs and adjectives the males precede), while the male students present
higher values than the female students in their confidence, that is, if they believe that they gave
correct answers.
Table 5: Results of accuracy-confidence, about the part of speech,
with the gender
In Table 6, it appears that fourth-year students show higher values than first-year students both in
their accuracy and in the confidence of their answers. (See for more research results,
Mathioudakis 2020).
Table 6: Results of accuracy-confidence, about the part of speech,
with the year of study
5. Conclusion – Further research
In conclusion, the results of this study showed two very interesting and important things about
literary reading, and in particular Kazantzakis’s ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ: (a) The standard issue on gender
discrimination regarding the reading of literature is in jeopardy and under further research, since
the above results demonstrate equivalence in the reading ability between males and females,
dispelling the myth that males take the lead in science tests while females take the lead in theory
tests and reinforcing claims that males tend to be more confident about their skills than females.
(b) The results of the research showed that, with regard to the relationship between accuracy and
confidence as per year of study of the subjects, there is a significant difference between first-year
and fourth-year students, proving that the year of study plays an important role in the accuracy of
the subjects’ answers and in their confidence about the correctness of their responses, and
verifying the opinions that the year of study and consequently the age are a determining factor in
language tests.
In addition to the above remarks, it is worth noting that this research, conducted in male and
female students in the Departments of (Greek) Philology of Universities throughout Greece, could
be applied both to students of secondary education and higher education, colleges and other
people of various ages and no longer studying, all of whom constitute potential readers of the
ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ by Kazantzakis. The aim will be to create a comprehensive picture of the accuracy and
confidence of the open-inferencing (ελεύθερο μάντεμα) strategy of native speakers of Greek, in
the process of processing and understanding this epic poem. In other words, the application of
this or a similar research to potential readers of Kazantzakis’s epic would be an enlightening
argument because it would reveal the degree of understanding of the poem, which still remains
“unread” by people and scientifically undeveloped by researchers.
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Volume 4 Issue 2 DECEMBER 2020 ISSN 2585-2426

Volume 4 Issue 1 June 2020 ISSN 2585-2426

©2020 Applied Language Studies House Publications

Dr. Paschalis Chliaras

31 Kefallinias Street, 18345, Moschato, Greece

Letter from the publisher

Here’s what we’re trying to do:

Dr. Paschalis Chliaras

Fuzziness and Subjectivity while Inferencing the Word

Keywords: Reading comprehension strategies, inferencing, guessing, accuracy, confidence,

3. Fuzziness and Subjectivity in Literature

3.1. Accuracy and Confidence

3.3. Measuring Fuzziness and Subjectivity

I completely agree, I rather agree,

2.2. Rational and purpose – Hypothesis

3.1.2. Materials and tasks

Table 1: Word groups of the questionnaire

Figure 1: Bar for evaluating the Confidence

absolutely unsure absolutely sure

Figure 2: Example bar to evaluate the Confidence

absolutely unsure absolutely sure

3.4. Process – Scoring of Accuracy and Confidence

• Zero (0) means that the answer is completely wrong.

Table 2: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the nouns

Table 3: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the verbs

Table 4: Correlation of accuracy-confidence, about the adjectives

Table 5: Results of accuracy-confidence, about the part of speech,

with the gender

Table 6: Results of accuracy-confidence, about the part of speech,

with the year of study

5. Conclusion – Further research

Charles, W. G. (2000). Contextual correlates of meaning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 505-524.

Kambaki-Vougioukli, P. (1993a). Τhe Role of Advanced Greek Learners’ Psychotypologies. In Proceedings of

Kambaki-Vougioukli, P. (1995). The Lexical Decomposition Strategy in Guessing Meanings of Unknown

Καμπάκη-Βουγιουκλή, Π. (2001). Γλωσσική αποκατάσταση παιδιών επαναπατριζόμενων από την πρώην

Καμπάκη-Βουγιουκλή, Π. (2002). Γλωσσική Αποκατάσταση Ελληνοπόντιων Μαθητών: Μια ψυχογλωσσική

Κατσίκη-Γκίβαλου, Α. (2009). Φιλολογικές διαδρομές Β΄. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Πατάκη.

Καζαντζάκης, Ν. (1938). ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Πυρσός.

Καζαντζάκης, Ν. (1967). ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Καζαντζάκη.

Μανδηλαράς, Β. (1987). Καζαντζάκης και Γλώσσα. Αθήνα: Ιδιωτική έκδοση.

Lygeros, N. (2009). Interrogations fondamentales sur la méthodologie du questionnaire. Perfection, 1055.

Σιάρδος, Γ. (2004). Μέθοδοι πολυμεταβλητής στατιστικής ανάλυσης. Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτη.

Vougiouklis, T. (1994). Hyperstructures and Their Representations. Monographs in Mathematics. USA:

Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy Sets. Information and Control, 8(3), 338-353.

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