Word reading and translation in bilinguals: the impact of formal and informal translation expertise.

Adolfo M Garcã­A,Carlos G Lezama,Maã«Va Michon,ÃLvaro Rivera-Rei,David Huepe,Alexander L Houck,Sumeer Chadha,Agustã­N Ibã¡Ã±Ez

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01302

Abstract

Studies on bilingual word reading and translation have examined the effects of lexical variables (e.g., concreteness, cognate status) by comparing groups of non-translators with varying levels of L2 proficiency. However, little attention has been paid to another relevant factor: translation expertise (TI). To explore this issue, we administered word reading and translation tasks to two groups of non-translators possessing different levels of informal TI (Experiment 1), and to three groups of bilinguals possessing different levels of translation training (Experiment 2). Reaction-time recordings showed that in all groups reading was faster than translation and unaffected by concreteness and cognate effects. Conversely, in both experiments, all groups translated concrete and cognate words faster than abstract and non-cognate words, respectively. Notably, an advantage of backward over forward translation was observed only for low-proficiency non-translators (in Experiment 1). Also, in Experiment 2, the modifications induced by translation expertise were more marked in the early than in the late stages of training and practice. The results suggest that TI contributes to modulating inter-equivalent connections in bilingual memory.

Highlights

OF EXPERIMENT 2 Coincidences with Experiment 1 The acquisition of formal translation expertise, to any extent, does not seem to modify general aspects of bilingual isolated-word processing, namely: (i) the greater cognitive demands of word translation as compared to word reading; (ii) the tendency for reading to be easier in L1 than in L2; (iii) the absence of semantic involvement in word reading in either language; (iv) the absence of overall translation asymmetries; (v) the greater import of word-form similarity between equivalents in translation over reading; and (vi) the prevalence of languagenonselective access
In the discussion of Experiment 1, we proposed that the presence of selective directionality effects for non-cognates in HI, but not in LOW, might be influenced by both L2 proficiency and translation expertise
The impact of translation expertise seems to be greater in word translation than in word reading

Summary

Introduction

In psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, translation and its subskills have become the object of inquiry of two sets of studies: (i) experiments on bilingual memory organization, using paradigms such as word reading and word translation with nontranslators (Kroll and Stewart, 1994; for reviews, see French and Jacquet, 2004; Brysbaert and Duyck, 2010; Kroll et al, 2010); and (ii) investigations on the impact of translation expertise on both linguistic and non-linguistic functions (Fabbro et al, 1991; Bajo et al, 2000; Ibáñez et al, 2010; Yudes et al, 2012). Our goal is to explore how different types and levels of translation expertise impact on lexical access, both within and across languages. Previous studies have shown that word reading is faster than word translation (Kroll and Stewart, 1994; La Heij et al, 1996). In non-translators, lexical processes are usually faster in the native language (L1) than in the non-native language (L2), such a difference is attenuated as L2 proficiency increases (Kroll and Stewart, 1994; Sholl et al, 1995; French and Jacquet, 2004)

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