Vortex F.L

 To French version
Contact me here!  
Welcome to Vortex FL!

Through my activity of scientific consultant, I first wish to act as a knowledge "conveyor" and/or "facilitator".
My activity encompasses scientific communication, popularization and translation.
We are living in a tremendously dynamic, prolifically growing era regarding interdisciplinary research about Non-Living Matter and Living Matter/Systems. Such research is often not accessible to the general audience and the gap between the world of research and the general audience is expanding. Then the breakthroughs carried by teh world of research remain unknown, misunderstood, not grabbed by the man in the street.
Creating bridges with the public through accessible-for-all commmunication events and/or media, papers is of major importance, as well as growing the public awareness of the impacts of Research and generally Science onto our lives.
Research fields include namely :

This site includes many resources intended for sharing with you some of my main areas of interest.
It implements a "wiring board" or a cluster of links towards web sites of Research Institutes, especially in the fields of Neurosciences and Complex Systems (coupling of pluridisciplinary knowledge).
Enjoy your exploration !

Browsing tips: each page has many layers: hover over the topics-buttons on the left to access the different layers. You can also click on the button of a topic to access further information. From the top menu bar (green buttons), you can access many submenus.

What is "Translating"?

The translator's role is to make easy for the reader the access to the text as well as the mental manipulation of its objects so as the reader can weave his own virtual network of relationships between them (multimodal internal mental representations based on language and/or images spontaneously associated).

The translator operates on a pair of language bases: the source language base and the target language base, preferably his/her mother language. His task consists in acting as a developer of the semantic landscape registered in the source language by transcoding its emulsion into the target language.
A language base is a set of operands, operators, "state variables" organized in semantic networks. Their internal arrangement (and speed of access) within the translator's mind depends on his/her knowledge level of the field(s) covered by the text to translate.
These operands, operators and other "state variables" are words articulated by the syntactic rules of the used language. These words can be either concrete words or abstract words and their meaning can be context-dependent. Concrete words often have a univocal match between languages. Abstract words (concepts, properties, etc.) sometimes require the translator's determination of the target word having the closest meaning with the source word and with the author's thinking. Verbs act as operators or descriptors and enable the expression of temporality in statements. The text articulation and its placement in space and time are performed by connectors and adverbs as well as by the sequencing of subordinate clauses.

Behind the language base lies the knowledge field or the specialty involved by the communication carried by the text in the case of a technical or scientific translation. For a quick access and a correct manipulation of the designation vocabulary of the entities raised by the knowledge field, the translator should better own a good knowledge level of the involved field(s) and of their foundation layers. The entities handled by the text can be either physical laws or dependence relationships which enable the conceptual manipulation of the properties of those entities at different scales. Such entities can be either operating principles of devices or systems, tools used by operating processes, manufacturing processes or coding processes (in Computer Science, Electronics, Biotechnologies, etc). The text may also handle the dynamic description of such processes and their sequencing. The terminology used by a specialized text not only covers the vocabulary related to concrete entities (physical objects) or abstract entities (concepts, principles) of the investigated field/topic but also the vocabulary of the actions performed on such entities.

Wording Density

Depending on the author's target audience, the wording will be more or less dense, concise and the information density contained in each sentence will be more or less high.
A dense wording assumes that the concepts and definitions raised by accurate designations are shared by the author and his readers. The text will have a high compactness and a low level of decomposition.
A wording which can be accessed by a wider audience will unfold its statements step by step (high level of decomposition), using a simple vocabulary and simple concepts and will focus on making them understandable.

Fluency and Clarity of a Text

"What is well devised is clearly stated
And the words to tell it come easily".

Boileau, l'Art poétique

The efficiency of a communication depends on the fluency and the clarity of its textual support.

To provide his/her reader with a text having a high level of fluency, the author, as well as the translator shall, of course, respect the language syntax, "stage" the words to unfold the meaning, focus on achieving a smooth sequencing of the sentences (a good text articulation) and, as far as possible, care for the phonetic aspect, i.e the text ease of enunciation. (substitution of "queer sounding" words by synonyms).

The clarity of a text and its accessibility by a reader depend on the used formulation (specialized language, clauses expressed in a positive or negative voice, etc.) and on the quality of the discursive sequence. A meandering statement will not give rise to the inferences expected by the author within his/her readers' mind or at least will delay their rise.

The author, as well as the translator, must implement the optimal shape of the meaning unfolding through an arrangement of words and clauses which reflect by their place in the sentence, by their use as a subject or as an object, by the use of the active or passive voice for a conjugation, the priority level allowed to them or the emphasis wished by the author.

The meaning unfolding through the language should optimally be felt by the reader in a way as natural as his conscious perception of his environment.
The sharpness and the granularity of the dynamic landscape unfolded by the text are based on the used coding (formulation density) and on its fluency (feeling of continuity, good articulation).

Illustrations - Visual Backup

Ultimately, coupling a text with diagrams or graphics implementing visual representations of the relationships and/or the dynamic interaction of objects quoted by the text will always be useful. Such illustrations back up and enhance the reader's understanding through the visual channel and implement visual abstracts which can be memorized and ultimately recalled.



To former page

th visit