The objection
Every thesis-level defeat condition in the line has the same form. Human judgements of fidelity, or of shared kind, are predicted by a text-similarity score as well as by the theory’s measures.
- CLAIM-115: “predicted as well by propositional or embedding similarity as by measured preservation of pragmatic observables (stance, footing, alignment, expected uptake)”.
- CLAIM-139: “predicted as well by topic-factor, embedding or surface similarity as by independently measured relational profiles”.
- CLAIM-005: “Embedding or propositional similarity between source and rendering predicts held-out human communicative-fidelity judgements as well as the context-indexed distribution distance does.”
- CLAIM-078: “Structural and decision-theoretic measures add no prediction of communicative-identity changes beyond text similarity”.
No rival account the record holds says that fidelity judgements follow embedding or surface similarity. CLAIM-023 says the contribution is “not that translation is pragmatic or that speech acts change contexts, but a specified, testable account of which communicative distinctions a translation preserves”. It names Gutt (LIT-784, unread), and it records that the translation-studies works the exchange recommended (Nida, House, Reiss and Vermeer, Nord) are absent from the manuscript and from the record. One is held through quotation: Nida’s principle, in his own words (LIT-1864, p. 129; CASE-056 is its example), is that “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message”. That puts fidelity in the effect on the receiver, not in the text, so Nida’s dynamic-equivalence account predicts that ratings of stance and footing beat embedding similarity on renderings built to dissociate the two. A pass is what it predicts, and the test cannot tell the thesis from the position CLAIM-023 disclaims as not new. Gutt’s interpretive resemblance, as his 1989 thesis states it, predicts the same: CLAIM-501, which rests on this claim.
The same holds for the rival CLAIM-115 itself names. The manuscript’s Abstract, as QUESTION-021 quotes it, sets the account against “a privileged global semantic object”. A global object enriched with force, a proposition together with an illocutionary type, is not embedding similarity, so it passes the test too.
The record does state a test that would discriminate. QUESTION-021’s “Where it stands” says what would settle its question: “a latent act variable that adds nothing once the relational observables are measured”. That test is in no defeat condition.
The line’s distinctive machinery has defeat conditions of its own: global compatibility (CLAIM-105), the Blackwell order (CLAIM-050), intertwining (CLAIM-117) and the composition bounds (CLAIM-056). The thesis-level defeat conditions depend on none of them. If all four failed, CLAIM-115 and CLAIM-139 would still survive their own defeat conditions, provided judged pragmatic observables beat text similarity.
The weakness was seen once before, for an earlier thesis. CLAIM-083 (Superseded) says the manuscript’s Case I criterion “is weighed against embedding similarity, not against static pragmatic similarity”. CASE-005’s Experiment 2 had the stronger comparison, choosing translations “by maximum semantic similarity, by maximum static pragmatic similarity and by maximum trajectory similarity”, and CASE-005 records that “the three-way selection design is gone by A52”. Neither entry says it of the central theses’ defeat conditions.
Granted, because each step is read off the texts of the defeat conditions and of CLAIM-023.
What it does not say
- It does not say the theses are false, or that a functionalist rival is right.
- It does not say that beating embedding similarity is worthless. It is the right first test, and failing it would defeat the theses.
- It does not say how to repair the defeat conditions; that is the owner’s.
The obvious repair adds a rival that discriminates to each
defeated_if: static pragmatic similarity without the transport structure, human-rated propositional sameness, or QUESTION-021’s latent act variable.
Note of 2026-10-28: split under ADR-061
The old title ended in a verdict on support: “surviving them would not tell the thesis from the functional and relevance-theoretic accounts”. That verdict is now ARG-026, from the central defeat test (CASE-184) to CLAIM-115, CLAIM-139, CLAIM-005 and CLAIM-078, form evidence, Rejected, as its answer to “does it tell the hypothesis apart from its rivals?”. This claim keeps what the rival accounts predict, which is about the subject matter, and undercuts that argument. CLAIM-232 no longer rests on it; the two complement each other. The text above is unchanged.
Note of 2026-10-30: narrowed to the rivals the record holds
The nineteenth status review narrowed the title (ADR-057). Version 2 said “every rival account the record names (functional equivalence, Gutt’s interpretive resemblance, speech-act pragmatics)” predicts a pass. Gutt is named and unread (LIT-784, Unavailable), so what his account predicts moves to CLAIM-501, Proposed. Functional equivalence stays, held through Nida’s principle as CASE-056 quotes it, and speech-act pragmatics stays as the proposition-with-force rival above. The objection to ARG-026 needs one rival that passes the test, and two remain.
Note of 2026-10-30: Nida read
Read first-hand, Nida’s dynamic equivalence directs attention “toward the receptor response” (LIT-1864, p. 136) and requires that “sarcasm, irony, or whimsical interest” and each participant’s class and dialect be kept (p. 139). That is stance and footing under other names. He also requires that a translation “clearly reflect the meaning and intent of the source” (p. 136), with meaning before style (p. 134). So his account predicts that meaning matters as well as response, and a propositional score would track part of what it values. It does not predict that text similarity does as well as judged pragmatic observables. The prediction stands, weighed.