From Representation to Enactment: The ABC Framework of the Translating Mind

Abstract

Building on the third-wave extended-mind (EM) theory and radical enactivism, this article suggests a novel view on the translating mind. We build on the ABC framework, in which translation is not understood as the manipulation of static interlingual correspondences but an enacted activity, dynamically integrating affective-evaluative, behavioral-enacting, and cognitive-inferential (ABC) processes. Drawing on affordance theory, we argue that the translating mind is a dynamically organized process through which the translator and its environment constitute and transform a landscape of enlanguaged translation affordances that emerges through loops of brain–body–environment interactions. This non-representational account reframes translation as skillful participation in socio-cultural practice, where meaning is co-created in real time through embodied interaction with texts, tools, and contexts.