Quantitative Text Mining Analysis of the Testimonies for the Church: Implications for Non-Native English Readers

Abstract

Abstract With its international constituency, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a large a membership that primarily comprises non-native English speakers. Students have had challenges in understanding and appreciating the writings of one of the church’s co-founders, Ellen White. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Testimonies for the Church and to quantitatively identify the difficulties with comprehending White’s writing. The results reveal that the readability is consistent with a middle school reading level; the text is moderately formal in nature; the sentiment of the text is neutral; and White’s writing style varies little over time.