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

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16811 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16811/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [pymdp: A Python library for active inference in discrete state spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03904/) (2022)
- [Temporal Dynamics of Emotion and Cognition in Human Translation: Integrating the Task Segment Framework and the HOF Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03111/) (2024)
- [The Behavioural Translation Style Space: Towards simulating the temporal dynamics of affect, behaviour, and cognition in human translation production](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12208/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Building on the third-wave Extended Mind (EM) theory and radical enactivism, this article suggests an alternative to representation-based models of the 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 the dynamically organized process through which the translator and its environment constitute and transform a landscape of enlanguaged translation affordances for action, that emerges through loops of brain-body-environment interactions. This non-representational account reframes translation as skillful participation in sociocultural practice, where meaning is co-created in real time through embodied interaction with texts, tools, and contexts.