English Translation Equivalents Research Articles

Cross-Language Priming Asymmetries in Lexical Decision and Episodic Recognition

Masked translation priming between languages with different scripts exhibits a marked asymmetry in lexical decision, with much stronger priming from L1 to L2 than from L2 to L1. This finding was confirmed in a lexical decision task with Chinese–English bilinguals who were late learners of English. Following a suggestion made by Bradley (1991), the experiment was repeated using a speeded episodic recognition task. Participants studied Chinese words, and then were tested in an old/new classification task in which Chinese target words were primed by masked English translation equivalents. Significant priming was obtained for old items, not for new items. However, no priming was obtained when lexical decision was used. Unexpectedly, the episodic task showed a reverse asymmetry, since L1–L2 priming was not obtained with this task, although strong effects were obtained for lexical decision. A possible explanation for this pattern of results is that knowledge of L2 lexical items is represented episodically for late learners.

Automatic Extraction of Rules for AnaphoraResolution of Japanese Zero Pronouns in Japanese–English Machine Translation from Aligned Sentence Pairs

This paper proposes a method to extract rules for the anaphora resolution of Japanese zero pronouns in Japanese–English MT from aligned sentence pairs. After aligned sentence pairs unsuitable for rule extraction because of analysis errors or free translations are automatically rejected, zero pronouns in the Japanese sentences and the English translation equivalents of their antecedents are extracted from the remaining Japanese and English aligned sentence pairs using ten hand-developed alignment rules. This method identifies all Japanese zero pronouns whose translation equivalents are not explicitly expressed in an English sentence, this method identifies these as unalignable. Then, resolution rules for the remaining zero pronouns are automatically extracted using the aligned pairs, equivalent word/phrase pairs extracted from the aligned sentence pairs, and the syntactic and semantic structures of the Japanese sentences. This method was implemented in a Japanese–English MT system, ALT-J/E. 98.4% of all pairs were automatically aligned correctly in a window test, and 94.0% in a blind test. Furthermore, extracted rules for zero pronouns with deictic references created automatically from sentence pairs correctly resolved 99.0% of the zero pronouns in a window test and 85.0% of the zero pronouns in a blind test.

Learning & Recall of Word-Sign Pairs: The Impact of Sign Etymology

In this study we examined the effect of providing information on the etymology or origin of a sign and memory for that sign. Eightytwo subjects, undergraduate students unfamiliar with American Sign Language (ASL), were presented lists of ASL signs and their English translation equivalents in one of three experimental conditions: sign etymology supplied, sign motor rehearsal, and no coding instructions provided. Subjects were tested immediately after list presentation and again after a one-week delay for cued item recall; the ASL signs served as the cues for the English words. In immediate recall, there were only small differences across experimental conditions. In delayed recall, those subjects who received the sign etymologies remembered more sign-word pairs than the subjects in the other two conditions. Those who received the etymologies also showed smaller decrements in recall levels across the one-week delay. Apparently, learning about a sign’s origin facilitates long-term sign retention. These findings are interpreted within the framework that deeper, more distinctive, or more elaborative processing of information aids its retention.

Similarity between French and English words?a factor to be considered in bilingual language behavior?

Some French and English translation equivalents are similar in form and meaning (e.g., carotte and carrot), while others are dissimilar in form (e.g., drapeau and flag). In continued-word association to the two types of key words, French-English bilinguals produced different patterns of responses. More response words to the similar than to the dissimilar key words tended to be translation equivalents between the two languages. This finding sheds some lights on how bilinguals organize words in their memory.