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Michael Carl

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Carl.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Translation Indeterminacy and the Distributional Fallacy

Large language models (LLMs) are commonly associated with the distributional hypothesis, according to which (1) semantic meaning is grounded in distributional patterns of linguistic context, and (2) knowledge of cross-linguistic distributional correspondences allows for successful translation. This paper rejects the first claim as a causal inversion: linguistic distributions reflect patterns arising from meaning-making practices rather than constituting their source. At the same time, it accepts the second claim, arguing that translation -human or machine - can succeed without requiring access to meaning or reference. Knowledge of interlingual distributional correspondence and their inferential organization may be sufficient for translation. The paper develops an ecological-enactivist perspective, according to which reference and meaning are grounded in agent-environment interaction and stabilized through action-grounded concepts, forms of world-involving cognition that current LLMs do not possess.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2026

Assessing Pause Thresholds for empirical Translation Process Research

Text production (and translations) proceeds in the form of stretches of typing, interrupted by keystroke pauses. It is often assumed that fast typing reflects unchallenged/automated translation production while long(er) typing pauses are indicative of translation problems, hurdles or difficulties. Building on a long discussion concerning the determination of pause thresholds that separate automated from presumably reflective translation processes (O'Brien, 2006; Alves and Vale, 2009; Timarova et al., 2011; Dragsted and Carl, 2013; Lacruz et al., 2014; Kumpulainen, 2015; Heilmann and Neumann 2016), this paper compares five approaches for computing these pause thresholds, and suggest and evaluate a novel method for computing Production Unit Breaks.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2025

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

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.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2025

The Behavioural Translation Style Space: Towards simulating the temporal dynamics of affect, behaviour, and cognition in human translation production

The paper introduces a novel behavioural translation style space (BTSS) that describes possible behavioural translation patterns. The suggested BTSS is organized as a hierarchical structure that entails various embedded processing layers. We posit that observable translation behaviour - i.e. eye and finger movements - is fundamental when executing the physical act of translation but it is caused and shaped by higher-order cognitive processes and affective translation states. We analyse records of keystrokes and gaze data as indicators of the hidden mental processing structure and organize the behavioural patterns as a multi-layered embedded BTSS. We develop a perspective in which the BTSS serves as the basis for a computational translation agent to simulate the temporal dynamics of affect, behavioural routines and cognition during human translation production.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2024

Temporal Dynamics of Emotion and Cognition in Human Translation: Integrating the Task Segment Framework and the HOF Taxonomy

The article develops a generative model of the human translating mind, grounded in empirical translation process data. It posits that three embedded processing layers unfold concurrently in the human mind, and their traces are detectable in behavioral data: sequences of routinized/automated processes are observable in fluent translation production, cognitive/reflective thoughts lead to longer keystroke pauses, while affective/emotional states may be identified through characteristic typing and gazing patterns. Utilizing data from the CRITT Translation Process Research Database (TPR-DB), the article illustrates how the temporal structure of keystroke and gaze data can be related to the three assumed hidden mental processing strata. The article relates this embedded generative model to various theoretical frameworks, dual-process theories and Robinson's (2023) ideosomatic theory of translation, opening exciting new theoretical horizons for Cognitive Translation Studies, grounded in empirical data and evaluation.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2023

Empirical Translation Process Research: Past and Possible Future Perspectives

Over the past four decades, efforts have been made to develop and evaluate models for Empirical Translation Process Research (TPR), yet a comprehensive framework remains elusive. This article traces the evolution of empirical TPR within the CRITT TPR-DB tradition and proposes the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and Active Inference (AIF) as a framework for modeling deeply embedded translation processes. It introduces novel approaches for quantifying fundamental concepts of Relevance Theory (relevance, s-mode, i-mode), and establishes their relation to the Monitor Model, framing relevance maximization as a special case of minimizing free energy. FEP/AIF provides a mathematically rigorous foundation that enables modeling of deep temporal architectures in which embedded translation processes unfold on different timelines. This framework opens up exciting prospects for future research in predictive TPR, likely to enrich our comprehension of human translation processes, and making valuable contributions to the wider realm of translation studies and the design of cognitive architectures.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2022

The Monitor Model and its Misconceptions: A Clarification

Horizontal (automatic) and vertical (control) processes have been observed and reported for a long time in translation production. Schaeffer and Carl's Monitor Model integrates these two processes into one framework, assuming that priming mechanisms underlie horizontal/automatic processes, while vertical/monitoring processes implement consciously accessible control mechanisms. The Monitor Model has been criticized in various ways and several misconceptions have accumulated over the past years. In this chapter, I update the Monitor Model with additional evidence and argue that it is compatible with an enactivist approach to cognition. I address several misconceptions related to the Monitor Model.

cs.CL↗
arXiv2022

A tropical view on Landau-Ginzburg models

This paper, largely written in 2009/2010, fits Landau-Ginzburg models into the mirror symmetry program pursued by the last author jointly with Mark Gross since 2001. This point of view transparently brings in tropical disks of Maslov index 2 via the notion of broken lines, previously introduced in two dimensions by Mark Gross in his study of mirror symmetry for $\mathbb{P}^2$. A major insight is the equivalence of properness of the Landau-Ginzburg potential with smoothness of the anticanonical divisor on the mirror side. We obtain proper superpotentials which agree on an open part with those classically known for toric varieties. Examples include mirror LG models for non-singular and singular del Pezzo surfaces, Hirzebruch surfaces and some Fano threefolds.

math.AG↗
arXiv2005

Bohr-Sommerfeld Star Products

We relate the Bohr-Sommerfeld conditions established in microlocal analysis to formal deformation quantization of symplectic manifolds by classifying star products adapted to some Lagrangian submanifold L, i.e. products preserving the classical vanishing ideal I of L up to I-preserving equivalences.

math.QA↗