Reframing translational norm theory through 4EA cognition

Abstract Norm theory was invented in 1986, by Daniel Kahneman and Dale T. Miller, as a decision-science subdiscipline of psychology, but with close connections with emerging embodied, embedded, enactive, extended and affective (4EA) cognitive science. Notably, they gave affective response a key role in marking not only the intensity but the cognitive load of norm-formative decision-making. A few years later, in the early 1990s, Gideon Toury, Andrew Chesterman, and other translation scholars began to theorize translational norms—with a very different model that apparently owed nothing to Kahneman and Miller’s pioneering work. In translational norm theory, norms are established based on the rational work of competent professionals, and anyone who doesn’t simply obey those norms cannot be considered a professional. This article rethinks translational norm theory using not only Kahneman & Miller but the later convergence of Merleau-Ponty’s lived experience with cognitive science in 4EA cognition.