Translation Priming Between the Native Language and a Second Language
New Evidence From Dutch-French Bilinguals
Abstract
During the last two decades, bilingual research has adopted the masked translation priming paradigm as a tool to investigate the architecture of the bilingual language system. Although there is now a consensus about the existence of forward translation priming (from native language primes (L1) to second language (L2) translation equivalent targets), the backward translation priming effect (from L2 to L1) has only been reported in studies with bilinguals living in an L2 dominant environment. In a lexical decision experiment, we obtained significant translation priming in both directions, with unbalanced Dutch-French bilinguals living in an L1 dominant environment. Also, we demonstrated that these priming effects do not interact with a low-level visual prime feature such as font size. The obtained backward translation priming effect is consistent with the model of bilingual lexicosemantic organization of Duyck and Brysbaert (2004), which assumes strong mappings between L2 word forms and underlying semantic representations.
References
2007). Methodological considerations in performing semantic- and translation-priming experiments across languages. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 39(1), 1–18.
(1993). The CELEX lexical database.
([CD-ROM] . Philasdelphia: University of Pennsylvania: Linguistic Data Consortium.2007). Differences in semantic and translation priming across languages: The role of language direction and language dominance. Memory & Cognition, 35(5), 953–965.
(1999). Experimental run time system. Version 3.28.
(2002). The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5(3), 175–197.
(2005). Translation and associative priming with cross-lingual pseudohomophones: Evidence for nonselective phonological activation in bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(6), 1340–1359.
(2004). Forward and backward number translation requires conceptual mediation in both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30(5), 889–906.
(2008). Semantic access in number word translation: The role of cross-lingual lexical similarity. Experimental Psychology, 55(2), 102–112.
(2004). Wordgen: A tool for word selection and nonword generation in Dutch, English, German, and French. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36(3), 488–499.
(2004). The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 51(1), 1–22.
(1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10(4), 680–698.
(2003). Are phonological effects fragile? The effect of luminance and exposure duration on from priming and phonological priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(2), 346–378.
(1997). Translation priming with different scripts: Masked priming with cognates and noncognates in Hebrew-English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(5), 1122–1139.
(1998). Masked priming by translation equivalents in proficient bilinguals. Language and Cognitive Processes, 13(6), 601–623.
(2001). With great expectations, can two “wrongs” prime a “right”? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(6), 1451–1463.
(1999). Testing processing explanations for the asymmetry in masked cross-language priming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2, 59–75.
(2001). Cross-language priming asymmetries in lexical decision and episodic recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 44(1), 32–51.
(1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.
(1991). Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition: A selective review of current findings and theories. In , Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition (pp. 264–336). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2004). Lexique 2: A new french lexical database. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36(3), 516–524.
(1992). Bilingual lexical processing-exploring the cognate non-cognate distinction. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4(4), 293–310.
(2007). Soa does not reveal the absolute time course of cognitive processing in fast priming experiments. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(3), 321–335.
(2007). Cognate status and cross-script translation priming. Memory & Cognition, 35(5), 938–952.
(