Translation Between L2 Acquisition and L1 Attrition: Anaphora Resolution in Italian by English–Italian Trainee Translators

Abstract

This article reports on the findings of an empirical study that relates translation studies and research on language acquisition/attrition by looking at the interpretation of overt pronominal subjects, previously found to be problematic in both domains. The focus is on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora and cataphora in Italian by two groups of native speakers, English–Italian trainee translators and a control group of non-translators. The participants did a picture selection task in which they had to identify the antecedents of third person null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous anaphoric and cataphoric conditions. Contrary to what was expected based on previous work, proposing that translators undergo a form of first language attrition due to extended exposure to a second language, trainee translators did not exhibit evidence of overt pronoun overgeneralization (i.e. second language influence). In fact, they selected pragmatically inappropriate antecedents to a lesser extent than the control group, leading to the conclusion that in language comprehension, metalinguistic awareness can override other influences affecting translators.