Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T11:44:08.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Translation ambiguity but not word class predicts translation performance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2012

ANAT PRIOR ,
JUDITH F. KROLL  and
BRIAN MACWHINNEY
ANAT PRIOR*
Affiliation:
Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Israel
JUDITH F. KROLL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Center for Language Science, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
BRIAN MACWHINNEY
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Anat Prior, Department of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel, 31905aprior@edu.haifa.ac.il
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation probability, as determined by normative data, was the strongest predictor of translation production and translation recognition, after controlling for psycholinguistic variables. Word class did not explain additional variability in translation performance, raising the possibility that previous findings of differences between nouns and verbs might be attributed to the greater translation ambiguity of verbs relative to nouns. Proficiency in the second language was associated with quicker and more successful production of translations for ambiguous words, and with more accurate recognition of translations for ambiguous words. Working memory capacity was related to the speed of recognizing low probability translations for ambiguous words. These results underscore the importance of considering translation ambiguity in research on bilingual lexical and conceptual knowledge.

Keywords

translation ambiguityword classbilingual lexicon
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 16 , Issue 2: Computational Modeling of Bilingualism , April 2013 , pp. 458 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Anat Prior was supported by post-doctoral NRSA grant F32HD049255 and by EU-FP7 grant IRG-249163. The writing of this article was also supported in part by NIH Grant HD053146 and NSF Grants BCS-0955090 and OISE-0968369 to Judith F. Kroll and by the NSF Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. The authors thank Mercedes Farrell, Anna Guitchounts, Sofia Murra, Shayna Watson and Huiling Yu for data collection and coding. The authors also gratefully thank Prof. Ana I. Schwartz and members of the PROBAR Lab from the University of Texas, El Paso, for help in recruiting participants. Finally, the authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers who made helpful comments and suggestions on a previous version of the paper.

References

Barsalou, L. W. (1982). Context-independent and context-dependent information in concepts. Memory & Cognition, 10, 82–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baten, K., Hofman, F., & Loeys, T. (2010). Cross-linguistic activation in bilingual sentence processing: The role of word class meaning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 351–359.Google Scholar
Bird, H., Franklin, S., & Howard, D. (2001). Noun–verb differences? A question of semantics: A response to Shapiro and Caramazza. Brain & Language, 76, 213–222.Google Scholar
Black, M., & Chiat, S. (2003). Noun–verb dissociations: A multi-faceted phenomenon. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 231–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2011). Bilingualism influence inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition, 118, 245–257.Google Scholar
Boada, R., Sánchez-Casas, R., García-Albea, J. E., & Ferré, P. (2011). Translation dominance and semantic relatedness in multiple translation words: A study with highly proficient bilinguals. Poster presented at the 8th International Symposium of Bilingualism, Oslo, Norway.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M., & Duyck, W. (2010). Is it time to leave behind the Revised Hierarchical Model of bilingual memory after 15 years of service? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 359–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappa, S. F., & Perani, D. (2003). The neural correlates of noun and verb processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 183–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caramazza, A., & Hillis, A. E. (1991). Lexical organization of nouns and verbs in the brain. Nature, 349, 788–790.Google Scholar
Chiarello, C., Shears, C., & Lund, K. (1999). Imageability and distributional typicality measures of nouns and verbs in contemporary English. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 31, 603–637.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1983) The cost of dichotomization. Applied Psychological Measurement, 7, 249–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, A. R. A., Kane, M. J., Bunting, M. F., Hambrick, D. Z., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R. W. (2005). Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and a user's guide. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12, 769–786.Google Scholar
Costa, A. (2005). Lexical access in bilingual production. In Kroll, & De Groot, (eds.), pp. 308–325.Google Scholar
Damasio, A. R., & Tranel, D. (1993). Nouns and verbs are retrieved with differently distributed neural systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 90, 4957–4960.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 665–671.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degani, T., Eddington, C. M., Tokowicz, N., & Prior, A. (November, 2009). Comparing within-language and across-language word ambiguity. Poster presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Degani, T., Prior, A., & Tokowicz, N. (2011). Bidirectional transfer: The effect of sharing a translation. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 23, 18–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degani, T., & Tokowicz, N. (2010). Ambiguous words are harder to learn. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 299–314.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B. (1992). Determinants of word translation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 1001–1018.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B., Dannenburg, L., & Van Hell, J. G. (1994). Forward and backward word translation. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 600–629.Google Scholar
Dietrich, R. (1990). Nouns and verbs in the learner's lexicon. In Dechert, H. W. (ed.), Current trends in European second language acquisition research, pp. 13–22. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Van Heuven, W. J. B., & Grainger, J. (1998). Simulating cross-language competition with the bilingual interactive activation model. Psychologica Belgica, 38, 177–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dufour, R., & Kroll, J. F. (1995). Matching words to concepts in two languages: A test of the concept mediation model of bilingual representation. Memory & Cognition, 23, 166–180.Google Scholar
Federmeier, K. D., Segal, J. B., Lombrozo, T., & Kutas, M. (2000). Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class-ambiguous words in context. Brain, 123, 2552–2566.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferretti, T. R., McRae, K., & Hatherell, A. (2001). Integrating verbs, situation schemas and thematic role concepts. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 516–547.Google Scholar
Francis, W. S. (2005). Bilingual semantic and conceptual representation. In Kroll, & De Groot, (eds.), pp. 251–267.Google Scholar
Friel, B. M., & Kennison, S. M. (2001). Identifying German–English cognates, false cognates, and non-cognates: Methodological issues and descriptive norms. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 4, 249–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M., & Moawad, R. A. (2010). Semantic interaction in early and late bilinguals: All words are not created equally. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 385–408.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1981). Some interesting differences between verbs and nouns. Cognition and Brain Theory, 4, 161–177.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs: Linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In Kuczaj, S. A. (ed.), Language development: Language, cognition and culture, pp. 301–334. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gentner, D., & Boroditsky, L. (2001). Individuation, relativity and early word learning. In Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S. (eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development, pp. 215–256. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A., & Faust, M. (1991). The mechanism of suppression: A component of general comprehension skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 245–262.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. [Original work published 1979.]Google Scholar
Grainger, J., Midgley, K., & Holcomb, P. J. (2010). Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d). In Kail, M. & Hickmann, M. (eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems, pp. 267–284. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory. Psychological Review, 99, 122–149.Google Scholar
Kempe, V., & MacWhinney, B. (1996). The crosslinguistic assessment of foreign language vocabulary learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 149–183.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z. (2006). Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 119–135.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & De Groot, A. M. B. (eds.). (2005). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Michael, E., Tokowicz, N., & Dufour, R. (2002). The development of lexical fluency in a second language. Second Language Research, 18, 137–171.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for symmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Tokowicz, N. (2005). Models of bilingual representation and processing: Looking back and to the future. In Kroll, & De Groot, (eds.), pp. 531–554.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Van Hell, J. G., Tokowicz, N., & Green, D. W. (2010). The Revised Hierarchical Model: A critical review and assessment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 373–381.Google Scholar
Kucera, H., & Francis, W. N. (1967). Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.Google Scholar
La Heij, W. (2005). Selection processes in monolingual and bilingual lexical access. In Kroll, & Groot, De (eds.), pp. 289–301.Google Scholar
La Heij, W., Kerling, R., & Van Der Velden, E. (1996). Nonverbal context effects in forward and backward translation: Evidence for concept mediation. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 648–665.Google Scholar
Laxen, J., & Lavaur, J-M. (2010). The role of semantics in translation recognition: Effects of number of translations, dominance of translations, and semantic relatedness of multiple translations. Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, 13, 157–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1996). From lexical semantics to argument realization, Ms., Northwestern University & Bar Ilan University.Google Scholar
MacCallum, R. C., Zhang, S., Preacher, K. J., & Rucker, D. D. (2002). On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables. Psychological Methods, 7, 19–40.Google Scholar
Mestres-Missé, A., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Münte, T. F. (2010). Neural differences in the mapping of verb and noun concepts onto novel words. NeuroImage, 49, 2826–2835.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, G. A., & Fellbaum, C. (1991). Semantic networks of English. Cognition, 41, 197–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miyake, A., Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1994). Working memory constraints on the resolution of lexical ambiguity: Maintaining multiple interpretations in neutral contexts. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 175–202.Google Scholar
Morford, J. P., Wilkinson, E., Villwock, A., Pinar, P., & Kroll, J. F. (2010). When deaf signers read English: Do written words activate their sign translations? Cognition, 118, 286–292.Google Scholar
Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal process. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Perani, D., Cappa, S. F., Schnur, T., Tettamanti, M., Collina, S., Rosa, M. M., & Fazio, F. (1999). The neural correlates of verb and noun processing: A PET study. Brain, 122, 2337–2344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, R. R., & Savoy, P. (1998). Lexical selection and phonological encoding during language production: Evidence for cascaded processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24, 539–557.Google Scholar
Pérez, M. A., Alameda, J. R., & Cuetos, F. (2003). Frecuencia, longitud y vecinidad ortografica de las palabras de 3 a 16 letras del diccionario de la lengua Española (RAE, 1992). Revista Electrónica de Metodología Aplicada, 8, 1–10.Google Scholar
Prior, A., MacWhinney, B., & Kroll, J. F. (2007). Translation norms for English and Spanish: The role of lexical variables, word class, and L2 proficiency in negotiating translation ambiguity. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 1029–1038.Google Scholar
Prior, A., Wintner, S., MacWhinney, B., & Lavie, A. (2011). Translation ambiguity in and out of context. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 93–111.Google Scholar
Pulvermuller, T., Lutzenberger, W., & Preissl, H. (1999). Nouns and verbs in the intact brain: Evidence from event-related potentials and high-frequency cortical responses. Cerebral Cortex, 9, 497–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwanenflugel, P. J., Harnishfeger, K. K., & Stowe, R. W. (1988). Context availability and lexical decisions for abstract and concrete words. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 499–520.Google Scholar
Sunderman, G., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). First language activation during second language lexical processing: An investigation of lexical form, meaning, and grammatical class. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 387–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talamas, A., Kroll, J. F., & Dufour, R. (1999). From form to meaning: Stages in the acquisition of second-language vocabulary. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2, 45–58.Google Scholar
Tokowicz, N., & Degani, T. (2010). Translation ambiguity: Consequences for learning and processing. In VanPatten, B. & Jegerski, J. (eds.), Research on second language processing and parsing, pp. 281–294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tokowicz, N., & Kroll, J. F. (2007). Number of meanings and concreteness: Consequences of ambiguity within and across languages. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 727–779.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tokowicz, N., Kroll, J. F., De Groot, A. M. B., & Van Hell, J. G. (2002). Number-of-translation norms for Dutch–English translation pairs: A new tool for examining language production. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 34, 435–451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tokowicz, N., Michael, E., & Kroll, J. F. (2004). The roles of study abroad experience and working memory capacity in the types of errors made during translation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 255–272.Google Scholar
Turner, M. L., & Engle, R. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 127–154.Google Scholar
Tyler, L. K., Russell, R., Fadili, J., & Moss, H. E. (2001). The neural representation of nouns and verbs: PET studies. Brain, 124, 1619–1634.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. M. B. (1998). Conceptual representation in bilingual memory: Effects of concreteness and cognate status in word association. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 193–211.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1988). The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Willms, J. L., Shapiro, K. A., Peelen, M. V., Pajtas, P. E., Costa, A., Moo, L. R., & Caramazza, A. (2011). Language-invariant verb processing regions in Spanish–English bilinguals. Neuroimage, 57, 251–261.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

PRIOR et al. supplementary material

Supplementary material

Download PRIOR et al. supplementary material(File)
File 45.7 KB
Supplementary material: File

PRIOR et al. supplementary material

Supplementary material

Download PRIOR et al. supplementary material(File)
File 65.4 KB
Supplementary material: File

PRIOR et al. supplementary material

Supplementary material

Download PRIOR et al. supplementary material(File)
File 41.4 KB
Supplementary material: File

PRIOR et al. supplementary material

Supplementary material

Download PRIOR et al. supplementary material(File)
File 50.8 KB