Textlevel

Textlevel is a term used in information technology to describe the level of textual granularity or abstraction at which a system processes, presents, or analyzes text. It is not a fixed standard, but a descriptive concept that can vary by domain and tool.

In practice, textlevel refers to the scope of text content considered for a given operation. Common levels include document, section, paragraph, sentence, clause, phrase, and token or word. Some systems also support multi-level hierarchies, such as paragraph within section within document.

In natural language processing, the chosen textlevel influences feature extraction, annotation schemes, and evaluation. For example, sentiment or discourse features may be calculated at the sentence or paragraph level, while indexing and search may operate at the document or token level. In user interfaces, textlevel can govern how text is displayed, folded, or navigated.

Applications of textlevel include corpus annotation, readability assessment, content tagging, and document summarization. It also helps align automated outputs with human tasks, such as labeling units for training data or presenting navigable text blocks in an editor.

Because there is no universal standard, the meaning of textlevel should be defined in documentation for each project or tool. When integrating multiple systems, it is important to specify the exact levels supported and how they map to one another. See also terms such as text granularity, readability level, and discourse level.