ABSTRACT
In his seminal theorization of habitus for a putative field of translation, Daniel Simeoni begins with polysystem theory to critique that theoretical tradition's tendency to depersonalize norms. By giving the translator's habitus, pride of place, Simeoni argues, that one effectively focuses on the act of translating as the main locus precipitating mental, bodily, social and cultural forces. The important larger point to make is that both submission to norms and resistance to norms are icotic responses, shaped by the sociosomatic ecologies that train, vet, hire, and reward translators. Since icoses are the felt social ecologies of specific groups, which icotize or plausibilize certain experiences as true and real and valid and condition people to notice certain others at all, and individual social actors belong to different groups. Somatic mimesis is not enough, it has to be pressurized, conatized, rendered collectively normative, for it to serve as the primary channel and medium of social regulation.
