Des outils sémiotiques pour une évaluation de la complexité des expressions mathématiques
Charles Chandler · Annales de didactique et de sciences cognitives · 2013
We shall try to identify the difficulties of complexity attached to mathematical concept or notion in a text, through the examination of the mathematical expressions which are associated with them. We refer to Hjelmslev, who defines the complexity as being an articulation between level of expression, signs of a language, and the fictitious plan of the contents, which develop by the meanings that the text gives. For this linguist, this interaction carries the complexity of a text. We will build a measure of this complexity by estimating the complexity of the structure of formulae and demonstrations. We apply this method on two Schwartz’s textbooks, the one may be considered easy and the second more complex. These initiatives succeeded to build an evaluation of the level of complexity of mathematical texts. This is what we are trying to present here.