Brown (1973) a proposé la « longueur moyenne des énoncés » (LME) comme indice standard du développement langagier. La LME se calcule selon le nombre moyen de morphèmes dans 100 énoncés de parole spontanée. L’hypothèse sous-jacente à cet indice est que la complexité syntaxique croît avec le nombre de morphèmes dans les énoncés. Selon Brown, l’indice permet d’estimer le développement d’une « compétence grammaticale » jusqu’à environ quatre morphèmes. Certains auteurs ont toutefois critiqué le manque de fiabilité de la LME et la limite de quatre morphèmes. Des rapports démontrent des variations de la LME avec l’âge, ce qui suggère que des facteurs comme la croissance des capacités respiratoires peuvent influencer l’indice de Brown. La présente étude fait état de ces problèmes et examine comment la LME et certaines mesures de diversité lexicale varient selon le développement des capacités respiratoires. On a calculé la LME et la diversité lexicale dans la parole spontanée de 50 locuteurs mâles âgés de 5 à 27 ans. On a également mesuré, au moyen d’un pneumotachographe, la capacité vitale (CV) des locuteurs. Les résultats démontrent que la LME et des mesures de diversité lexicale corrèlent fortement avec la croissance de la CV. Ainsi, la croissance des fonctions respiratoires contraint le développement morphosyntaxique et lexical. Notre discussion fait valoir la nécessité de réévaluer l’indice de la LME et la conception « linguistique » du développement langagier comme une compétence mentale qui émerge séparément de la croissance des structures de performance. / Brown (1973) proposed the « mean length of utterance » (MLU) as a standard index of language development. MLU is calculated by counting the mean number of morphemes in 100 utterances of spontaneous speech. The underlying hypothesis of this index is that syntactic complexity rises with the number of morphemes in utterances. According to Brown, MLU indexes the development of a « grammatical competence » up to about four morphemes. However, authors have criticized the lack of reliability of the MLU and the limit of four morphemes. Reported variations in MLU with age also suggest that factors such as the growth of respiratory capacities can influence Brown’s index. The present study reviews those problems and examines how the MLU and certain measures of lexical diversity vary according to the development of respiratory capacities. We calculated the MLU and the lexical diversity in the spontaneous speech of 50 male speakers aged 5 to 27 years. We also measured, with a pneumotachograph, the vital capacity (VC) of the speakers. The results show that MLU and measures of lexical diversity strongly correlate with the growth of VC. Thus, the growth of respiratory functions constrains morphosyntactic and lexical development. Our discussion focuses on the necessity to revaluate the MLU index and a « linguistic » conception of language development as a mental competence emerging separately from the growth of performance structures.

Los estudios sobre riqueza léxica con participantes suecos tienen, en su gran mayoría, la L2 inglés como lengua objeto. A día de hoy, no se conocen investigaciones que tengan como lengua objeto el español. Respecto a los participantes, suelen ser estudiantes con un nivel de competencia alto. El presente estudio se centra en la L3 español y estudiantes de nivel bajo e intermedio. En concreto, las muestras de lengua analizadas son narrativas escritas por 180 estudiantes suecos de bachillerato, elicitadas a través de una serie de viñetas. De acuerdo con las dos preguntas de investigación, este trabajo tiene como objetivo principal arrojar luz sobre la relación entre diversidad léxica y competencia léxica y morfosintáctica en la L3 español. En segundo lugar, se comparan varias medidas de diversidad léxica en busca de una medida apta para discriminar de una manera fiable entre diferentes niveles de competencia en la lengua meta. Los datos demuestran un efecto tangible del nivel de competencia sobre la diversidad léxica, aunque de las comparaciones que resultan ser estadísticamente significativas se manifiesta una fuerte influencia del factor edad. Respecto a las medidas, el Índice de Guiraud y el indicador Carroll son las únicas que discriminan significativamente entre los participantes más jóvenes, y también resultan idóneas a discriminar en dos comparaciones del grupo más mayor. Por consiguiente, se consideran las medidas más fiables entre las que se han utilizado en el estudio. Sin embargo, los resultados estadísticos de las dos medidas coinciden a tal punto que se puede afirmar que se trata de dos versiones de la misma medida, aunque muestran valores numéricos diferentes. / Research on lexical richness with Swedish subjects have mostly English as a target language. At the present time, we cannot find investigations having Spanish as a target language. Subjects are usually university students with high proficiency. This study focuses on Spanish as a third language and students with low/intermediate proficiency. Language samples consist of 180 narratives written by Swedish high-school students with a low/intermediate average proficiency in Spanish. The samples have been elicited by means of pictures. According to the two research questions, the main aim of the present study is investigating the relationship between lexical diversity and lexical and morphosyntactic proficiency in Spanish as a third language. Secondly, we compare several measures of lexical diversity searching for results that can reliably discriminate between different proficiency levels in Spanish. The data show a clear effect of proficiency on lexical diversity, even though statistically significant comparisons also point out the influence of the age factor. Regarding the measures, Guiraud’s Index and Carroll’s indicator are the only ones that significantly discriminate among younger participants. They have also proved to be suitable for discriminating comparisons within the older participants’ group. Nevertheless, the statistical results of these two measures correspond to such a high degree that we can consider them as two versions of the same measure, even if they provide different numerical values.

The goal of this thesis is to analyze the textual composition of René Goscinny’s Astérix and Le petit Nicolas, demonstrating how they differ and why. Taking a statistical look at the comparative qualities of each series of works, the structural differences and similarities in language use in these two series and their respective media are highlighted and compared. Though one might expect more complicated language use in traditional text by virtue of its format, analysis of average word length, average sentence length, lexical diversity, the prevalence of specific forms (the passé composé, possessive pronouns, etc.), and preferred collocations (ils sont fous, ces romains !) shows interesting results. Though Le petit Nicolas has longer sentences and more relative pronouns (and hence more clauses per sentence on average), Astérix has longer words and more lexical diversity. A similar comparison of the albums of Astérix written by Goscinny to those of Uderzo, paying additional attention to the structural elements of each album (usage of narration and sound effects, for example) shows that Goscinny's love of reusing phrases is far greater than Uderzo's, and that the two have very different ideas of timing as expressed in narration boxes.

Denna studie jämför berättande elevtexter som är skrivna med penna och på tangentbord i årskurs 4 och 6. Jämförelsen görs både mellan redskapen inom årskurserna och mellan årskurserna. Studien omfattar 29 texter från årskurs 4 och 27 texter från årskurs 6. Antalet deltagare var 15 elever i årskurs 4 och 15 elever i årskurs 6. Elevtexterna analyserades utifrån fyra olika aspekter: textlängd, narrativ kvalitet, lexikal variation och stavning. Resultatet inom årskurs 6 visade att eleverna skrev signifikant längre texter på tangentbord. Eleverna i årskurs 4 presterade bättre med penna gällande narrativ kvalitet och lexikal variation, men presterade däremot bättre på tangentbord gällande textlängd och stavning. Dessa skillnader var dock inte statistisk signifikanta. Resultatet diskuteras utifrån simple view of writing.