“Plain language” and readability of public information as a new area of Poland’s language policy
The article discusses a style of writing known as “plain language.” It is a standard of communication in the public domain introduced in many countries through legislation or social campaigns. Its basic premise is that all public and socially relevant content should be as intelligible as possible. The authors of the article consider the possibility of developing, validating and applying the standard of “plain language” in Poland. They describe assumptions behind the Polish model of plain language, recognizing quantitative measures of readability as its basis. They also discuss some examples of how the Gunning Fog Index, one of such measures, can be used to assess the readability of Polish public texts.