The claim
A18, by analogy with passive and active transformations: in a passive one “An analogous communicative act is expressed and recognized under different linguistic and social conventions”; in an active one “The translator actually changes the communicative act—for example, converting affectionate teasing into moral condemnation”. “The party always gets its cut” is roughly passive, “The high life eats your paycheck” roughly active (CASE-012). “This distinction matters because not every difference between translations can be explained as a difference of frame. Some differences are changes to what is being framed.”
As an objection it limits the owner’s thesis (CLAIM-006): frame cannot be the main thing if some variation is not variation of frame.
Where it went
A24 gave up the fixed act U that a passive transformation holds fixed (TERM-031), but the distinction survived it as an objection to the relativity analogy (ARG-004). A38 §7.2: “Distinguish changing how a communicative act is represented from changing which act is performed”, which “limits any straightforward interpretation of translation as a mere coordinate transformation”. A40 §9.2: “A change in linguistic delivery may alter the communicative act itself rather than merely its representation.” The relativity section did not reach the manuscript, and the distinction went with it.
The manuscript §4 separates “(i) exact preservation, (ii) representation-changing equivariance, (iii) approximate preservation, and (iv) structural reorganization”, but has no way to tell (ii) from (iv) in a given pair. Restated without an underlying act, the criterion would be: an active transformation changes the decision-relevant observables (stance, force) beyond what the change of target context requires.
Its last appearance is proposal v5’s §14.3 (A84, under U30), “Relativistic frames and invariant structure”: “Recover the initial physical analogy through changes of representation and preservation of relational structure. Distinguish coordinate-like changes in description from interventions that change empirical models. Present global compatibility as a question separate from frame invariance.” C6 has no relativity section, and the manuscript has none.
Note of 2026-10-10: re-derived again, without citation
The distinction kept being re-derived after the manuscript dropped it, each time as though new.
- A164: a coordinate difference set against a structural transformation (CLAIM-143).
- A178’s organizing question.
- A187 §3: representational transformation against constitutive transformation, the latter “converting shared joking into a reprimand by changing speaker authority and expected uptake”. A18’s active example was “converting affectionate teasing into moral condemnation” (CLAIM-151, which rests on this claim).
- A210 §5: the topic kept while the act changes (CLAIM-129).
None of these gives the criterion this claim lacks.
Note of 2026-10-27: stated in the live term
The status review of this date (ADR-057) found this claim using TERM-016, which is Superseded. It now uses TERM-030: the passive/active distinction is between a change in the configuration of the communicative situation and a change in the act configured, which is TERM-030’s sense. The claim’s status is not changed by this.
Note of 2026-10-28: what holds it back
The fourth status review (ADR-057) took this claim second among the Proposed claims with their premises held and no live objection: it has 9 dependents. It stays Proposed. Its defeater is the absence of the very thing the body says it lacks: a reliable criterion that separates reframing an act from changing it. The body’s own candidate is that an active transformation changes the decision-relevant observables (stance, force) beyond what the change of target context requires. What would promote it is that criterion stated, and judges sorting pairs of renderings by it above chance. CASE-012’s two renderings would be a first pair.
The fifth review (2026-10-28) found the blocker still holds, with one refinement: CASE-012 is fictional, and its footing labels changed between passes (CLAIM-227), so a first pair should be a documented one judged by people who did not write it.
Note of 2026-10-30: what holds it back
The criterion is still missing. CASE-056 supplies the documented first pair the fifth review asked for: Phillips’s handshake, which Nida judges keeps the greeting, against a literal “kiss” the UBS handbooks judge amorous where kissing is. What would promote it is the criterion stated so that it sorts more pairs than this one, and shows the classes disjoint even though TERM-030 counts norms and audience in the configuration and CLAIM-151 counts them among the act’s constituents.