Comicsprache – leichte Sprache?

Abstract

If has frequently been claimed that the language of comics is “bad” language. This paper tests the hypothesis whether the language used in comics is therefore particularly easy to understand. To this end, a 4,900-word corpus of English-language comics, comic strips and cartoons was compiled, and a readability score based on word and sentence length was calculated. While the data on word frequency first seems inconclusive, the combined results suggest that the language of comics is indeed relatively easy to understand, and that reading comics can therefore be particularly recommended to language learners