A dynamic network model of translatorial cognition and action

Abstract

As an interdisciplinary research endeavor into the foundations of human and artificial intelligence, cognitive science has substantial contributions to offer to the field of translation studies. Like any other explanatory approach to socially embedded and organized behavior, cognitive science deals with hard-to-resolve dichotomies such as static versus dynamic approaches, lab- or field-based methods or the opposing views of individual and social explanations. To introduce current theoretical developments from cognitive science, we offer a conceptual framework that conceives these apparent dichotomies as complementary perspectives and helps us to cope with the nested and embedded nature of translatorial cognition and action. For this purpose, we specify a dynamic network analytical model which treats acts of individual cognition and (inter)action as being constitutively interwoven with their social, symbolic and material environments and combine all its elements into a coherent dynamic process perspective. In our outlook, we discuss this extended model’s potential to structure the ongoing theoretical debate on translation process research, as well as its ability to serve as a scaffold for defining and contextualizing empirical studies and thus guiding research into the complex dynamics of translation as a situated activity.