Popularisering van Vakteksten: Naar een Model voor Herschrijfprincipes

Popularization is a form of communication between an expert and laymen. Not all popularized texts are written by experts, however. Often persons with less expertise have to rewrite highly specialized texts so as to make these texts accessible to a more general audience. In this paper we try to establish the main characteristics of this rewriting process. Furthermore, we formulate four principles on the basis of two parameters: 'surface vs. deep structure of the texť and 'material/technical perceptibility vs. cognitive accessibility of the text'. The two parameters yield four principles: readability, comprehensibility, usability, applicability. These principles can serve as guidelines both for the analysis of the expert text, and for its subsequent rewriting into a popularized text.