Cross-Language Translation Priming Asymmetry with Chinese-English Bilinguals: A Test of the Sense Model

Abstract

The present study aimed to test the Sense Model of cross-linguistic masked translation priming asymmetry, proposed by Finkbeiner et al. (J Mem Lang 51:1-22, 2004), by manipulating the number of senses that bilingual participants associated with words from both languages. Three lexical decision experiments were conducted with Chinese-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1, polysemous L2 words and their L1 Chinese single-sense translation equivalents were selected as primes and targets. In Experiment 2, single-sense L1 words and their L2 translation equivalents with polysemous senses severed as primes and targets. We found translation priming effects in the L1-L2 direction, but not in the L2-L1 direction. In Experiment 3, presentation time of the L2 priming stimulus was prolonged, and significant translation priming effects were observed in the L2-L1 direction. These findings suggest that the Sense Model does not adequately explain cross-language translation priming asymmetry. The sense numbers of primes and targets, as well as the activation proportion of these senses between them, were possibly not the primary reason for cross-language translation priming asymmetry. The revised hierarchical model (Kroll and Stewart in J Mem Lang 33:149-174, 1994) and the BIA+ model (Dijkstra and van Heuven in Bilingualism Lang Cognit 5:175-197, 2002) better explain the cross-language translation priming asymmetry we found.

Multilingualism and the Mental Lexicon

“…In their classic study with Hebrew-English bilinguals, Gollan, Forster, and Frost (1997) obtained a 53ms cognate priming effect in the L1 to L2 direction, but a non-significant effect in the opposite direction (9ms). This asymmetry is found in other studies (e.g., for Chinese-English: Jiang and Forster 2001;Chen et al 2014; Allen, Conklin, and van Heuven 2015, for Japanese-English cognates).…”

L2-L1 Translation Priming Effects in a Lexical Decision Task: Evidence From Low Proficient Korean-English Bilinguals

“…One thing to note is that several previous studies using an SOA longer than the one used in Experiment 1 of the current study have still reported a null L2-L1 translation priming effect. For example, Xia and Andrews ( 2015 ) found a null L2-L1 translation priming effect in unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals with moderate to high proficiency in L2 using a 200 ms SOA with 50 ms prime duration (see also Jiang, 1999 ; Jiang and Forster, 2001 ; Witzel and Forster, 2012 ; Chen et al, 2014 ). We propose several possible reasons for this inconsistency.…”

“…Another possible reason might be the number of items used for the experiments. Previous studies reporting a null effect for L2-L1 priming using English-Chinese translation pairs have frequently used fewer than 16 items per cell in a factorial design (e.g., Gollan et al, 1997 ; Jiang, 1999 ; Witzel and Forster, 2012 ; Chen et al, 2014 ; Xia and Andrews, 2015 ; cf. Wang, 2013 ), whereas the current study used 30 items per cell.…”

“…In contrast to these findings, a backward translation priming effect (L2 prime-L1 target) tends to be very weak or even absent especially for the different-script non-cognate translation equivalents. The main focus of the current study is on non-cognate translation pairs, which refer to words that share the same meanings but do not share orthographical or phonological similarity (e.g., Gollan et al, 1997 ; Jiang, 1999 ; Jiang and Forster, 2001 ; Finkbeiner et al, 2004 ; Duyck and Warlop, 2009 ; Schoonbaert et al, 2009 ; Davis et al, 2010 ; Dimitropoulou et al, 2011a ; cf., Dimitropoulou et al, 2011b ; Witzel and Forster, 2012 ; Nakayama et al, 2013 ; Wang, 2013 ; Chen et al, 2014 ; Wang and Forster, 2015 ). The asymmetry in the priming effect between forward and backward directions provides useful insight for the development of bilingual word recognition models.…”

Neuroscience in Intercultural Contexts

“…However, a host of studies now report facilitatory cross-linguistic infl uences for different-script languages as well Sumiya & Healy, 2004 ;Zhang, van Heuven, & Conklin, 2011 ). Across masked priming and translation priming lexical decision and picture-naming tasks, cognate facilitation effects have been found for Greek-French (Voga & Grainger, 2007 ), Korean-English (Kim & Davis, 2003 ), Chinese-English (Chen, Zhou, Gao, & Dunlap, 2014 ), Japanese-English (Allen & Conklin, 2013 ;, and Hebrew-English (Gollan, Forster, & Frost, 1997 ) bilinguals, indicating that the nontarget language can be active despite having a completely different writing system. Interestingly, Table 1 in Schoonbaert, Duyck, Brysbaert, and Hartsuiker ( 2009 ), which quantitates translation priming effects in same-script and different-script bilinguals, suggests that L2-L1 priming may not be as strong in different-script bilinguals as in same-script (see Section 4.2.4.2 ).…”