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Method evidence record

Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD)

The Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) is a length-robust index of vocabulary richness introduced by Philip McCarthy in 2005 and validated by McCarthy and Jarvis in 2010. Rather than computing a single ratio over the whole text, MTLD reads the text word by word, tracking a running type-token ratio, and counts how many sequential word runs are needed before the ratio repeatedly falls to a criterion value of 0.720. The mean length of those runs, computed forward and backward and averaged, is the MTLD score — and in validation studies it was the one common index that did not vary systematically with text length.

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Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD)

Taxonomic method recordprocess-pipelinelinguistics

  1. McCarthy, P. M., & Jarvis, S. (2010). MTLD, vocd-D, and HD-D: A validation study of sophisticated approaches to lexical diversity assessment. Behavior Research Methods, 42(2), 381–392. · DOI 10.3758/BRM.42.2.381

  2. McCarthy, P. M. (2005). An assessment of the range and usefulness of lexical diversity measures and the potential of the measure of textual, lexical diversity (MTLD) (Doctoral dissertation). University of Memphis. · URL

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