scholarly journals Directionality and context effects in word translation tasks performed by conference interpreters

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Chmiel
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Context Effect ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Semantic Constraint ◽  
Word Translation

AbstractProfessional interpreters employed by international institutions usually work into their L1 from their L2, while freelance interpreters tend to work both into and from their L1. A study was devised to see if the long-term interpreting unidirectional practice (in the L2–L1 direction only), in contrast to bidirectional practice (in the L2–L1 and L1–L2 direction), influences the speed of lexical retrieval manifested through shorter translation latencies. Forty-eight professional conference interpreters produced oral translations of nouns presented in isolation, in high context constraint sentences and in low context constraint sentences. Contrary to predictions, unidirectional interpreters did not manifest directionality asymmetry and their L2–L1 translation latencies were not shorter than L1–L2 translation latencies. Surprisingly, the L2–L1 direction advantage was found in the group of bidirectional interpreters. The data suggest that the dominant directionality in interpreting practice has little impact on the strength of interlingual lexical links in the interpreter’s mental lexicon or that other factors (such as language use, exposure and immersion) might offset any such impact. The study also revealed an expected context effect, which shows that interpreters use semantic constraint to anticipate sentence-final words.

Computer Ondersteunde Vreemde-Taalverwerving op de Hogere Niveaus

1999 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Peter Groot
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Processing Theory ◽  
Term Retention ◽  
Study Programme ◽  
Word Lists ◽  
Long Term Retention

The interactive self-study programme (called CAVOCA: Computer Assisted VOCabulary Acquisition) is based on generally accepted theories about the mental lexicon (cf. Aitchison's Words in the Mind) and the "levels of processing" theory first advanced by Craik and Lockhart. The programme constitutes a systematic attempt to operationalize the theoretical analysis of the word learning process that recognizes various stages in this same process: learning about the various features of the word, embedding it in various networks, consolidation etc. leading to efficient lexical retrieval. With this end in mind, the words are presented in a variety of L2 contexts, enabling the learner to process the word intensively and facilitating long-term retention. The programme is intended as an alternative to more orthodox word learning techniques such as bilingual word lists with their disappointing long-term retention results. The programme has been contrasted in various experimental (differential treatment) settings with bilingual word lists, and the results confirm the theory concerning the structure of the mental lexicon in that a deeper level of processing results in better long-term retention.

scholarly journals “When I speak people look at me”

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jemina Napier ◽  
Rosemary Oram ◽  
Alys Young ◽  
Robert Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Sign Language Interpreters ◽  
Situational Influences ◽  
The Status ◽  
First Time ◽  
Deaf Signers

Abstract Deaf people’s lives are predicated to some extent on working with sign language interpreters. The self is translated on a regular basis and is a long-term state of being. Identity becomes known and performed through the translated self in many interactions, especially at work. (Hearing) others’ experience of deaf people, largely formed indirectly through the use of sign language interpreters, is rarely understood as intercultural or from a sociocultural linguistic perspective. This study positions itself at the cross-roads of translation studies, sociolinguistics and deaf studies, to specifically discuss findings from a scoping study that sought, for the first time, to explore whether the experience of being ‘known’ through translation is a pertinent issue for deaf signers. Through interviews with three deaf signers, we examine how they draw upon their linguistic repertoires and adopt bimodal translanguaging strategies in their work to assert or maintain their professional identity, including bypassing their representation through interpreters. This group we refer to as ‘Deaf Contextual Speakers’ (DCS). The DCS revealed the tensions they experienced as deaf signers in reinforcing, contravening or perpetuating language ideologies, with respect to assumptions that hearing people make about them as deaf people, their language use in differing contexts; the status of sign language; as well as the perceptions of other deaf signers about their translanguaging choices. This preliminary discussion of DCS’ engagement with translation, translanguaging and professional identity(ies) will contribute to theoretical discussions of translanguaging through the examination of how this group of deaf people draw upon their multilingual and multimodal repertoires, contingent and situational influences on these choices, and extend our understanding of the relationship between language use, power, identity, translation and representation.

scholarly journals Naming pictures and sounds: Stimulus type affects semantic context effects

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Wöhner ◽  
Andreas Mädebach ◽  
Jörg D. Jescheniak
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Context Effect ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Semantic Interference ◽  
Lexical Processes ◽  
Naming Tasks

Semantic context effects obtained in naming tasks have been most influential in devising and evaluating models of word production. We re-investigated this effect in the frequently used blocked-cyclic naming task in which stimuli are presented repeatedly either sorted by semantic category (homogeneous context) or intermixed (heterogeneous context). Previous blocked-cyclic naming studies have shown slower picture naming responses in the homogeneous context. Our study compared this context effect in two task versions, picture naming and sound naming. Target words were identical across task versions (e.g., participants responded with the word “dog” to either the picture of that animal or to the sound [barking] produced by it). We found semantic interference in the homogeneous context also with sounds and the effect was substantially larger than with pictures (Experiments 1 and 2). This difference is unlikely to result from extended perceptual processing of sounds as compared to pictures (Experiments 3 and 4) or from stronger links between pictures and object names than between sounds and object names (Experiment 5). Overall, our results show that semantic context effects in blocked-cyclic naming generalize to stimulus types other than pictures and – in part – also reflect pre-lexical processes that depend on the nature of the stimuli used for eliciting the naming responses.

Linguistic Integration and Immigrant Health: The Longitudinal Effects of Interethnic Social Capital

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesay A. Tegegne
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Health Status ◽  
Immigrant Health ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Linguistic Integration ◽  
The Relationship

The literature on immigrant health has by and large focused on the relationship between acculturation (often measured by a shift in language use) and health outcomes, paying less attention to network processes and the implications of interethnic integration for long-term health. This study frames English-language use among immigrants in the United States as a reflection of bridging social capital that is indicative of social network diversity. Using longitudinal data on self-rated health and the incidence of chronic conditions from the New Immigrant Survey (2003, 2007), I examine the contemporaneous and longitudinal associations between interethnic social capital and health. The results show evidence for a positive long-term effect of linguistic integration on health status, but no cross-sectional associations were observed. Overall, these results highlight the possible role of network processes in linking English-language use with immigrant health and the time-dependent nature of the relationship between linguistic integration and health status.

Transforming semantic interference into facilitation in a picture–word interference task

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1025-1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
QINGFANG ZHANG ◽  
CHEN FENG ◽  
XUEBING ZHU ◽  
CHENG WANG
Keyword(s):  
Context Effect ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Context Word ◽  
Lexical Selection ◽  
Semantic Interference ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Interference Task ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
Basic Level

ABSTRACTA number of studies that observed semantic facilitation in a picture–word interference task questioned the hypothesis that lexical selection during speech production is a competitive process. Semantic facilitation effects are typically observed when context words and target names do not belong to the same semantic category level. In the experiments reported in this article, we used a picture–word interference task with basic-level context words and basic-level naming (i.e., the context word is dog, and the target name is cat) to investigate semantic context effects. We observed a reversal of semantic context effect: context words that induce semantic interference when stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) are –100 and 0 ms and induce semantic facilitation at large negative SOA values (from –1000 to –400 ms, in steps of 200 ms). At the empirical level, our data suggest that manipulating SOA can reverse the polarity of the semantic context effect. Our analysis demonstrates that the conceptual selection model provides the most straightforward way to account for the reported polarity shift and the different SOA ranges covered by the semantic interference effect and the semantic facilitation effect.

Cognitive processes as evidence of the idiom principle

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt Erman
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Important Implication ◽  
Basic Assumption ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Pause Duration ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Spreading Activation ◽  
Conceptual Network ◽  
Linguistic Units

The study seeks to establish whether pause frequency and pause duration could inform us about the size of linguistic units stored in the mental lexicon. Pauses are seen as a reflection of cognitive effort in lexical retrieval. The basic assumption is that a particular concept starts activating related concepts in a conceptual network via spreading activation. Pausing is assumed to be rare when spreading activation is at work, i.e. in the recall of multiword, or prefabricated, structures. The results show that pausing was significantly more frequent in connection with lexical search in computed as compared to prefabricated structures, thus indicating that prefabricated structures are stored and retrieved as wholes. The most important implication of the study is that the results give further support to John Sinclair’s proposed ‘idiom principle’, according to which strings that would appear to be analyzable into segments nevertheless constitute single choices.

Basic skills in a complex task: A graphical model relating memory and lexical retrieval to simultaneous interpreting

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
INGRID K. CHRISTOFFELS ◽  
ANNETTE M. B. DE GROOT ◽  
LOURENS J. WALDORP
Keyword(s):  
Graphical Models ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Graphical Model ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Span Task ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Translation Efficiency ◽  
Reading Span ◽  
Simultaneous Interpreting ◽  
Word Translation

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex skill, where language comprehension and production take place at the same time in two different languages. In this study we identified some of the basic cognitive skills involved in SI, focusing on the roles of memory and lexical retrieval. We administered a reading span task in two languages and a verbal digit span task in the native language to assess memory capacity, and a picture naming and a word translation task to tap the retrieval time of lexical items in two languages, and we related performance on these four tasks to interpreting skill in untrained bilinguals. The results showed that word translation and picture naming latencies correlate with interpreting performance. Also digit span and reading span were associated with SI performance, only less strongly so. A graphical models analysis indicated that specifically word translation efficiency and working memory form independent subskills of SI performance in untrained bilinguals.

Treatment for Lexical Retrieval Impairments in Primary Progressive Aphasia: A Research Update with Implications for Clinical Practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (03) ◽  
pp. 242-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Croot
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Long Term Treatment

AbstractLexical retrieval impairments (also known as anomia or word-finding deficits) are an early and prominent symptom in primary progressive aphasia (PPA), causing distress and frustration to individuals with PPA and their communication partners, and prompting research on lexical retrieval treatment. This paper reviews the research on lexical retrieval treatment in PPA from the earliest reports in the 1990s to early 2018 and considers the implications of this research for clinical practice. The number of published studies has increased markedly over the past decade, consisting primarily of behavioral studies, with rapid recent growth in noninvasive brain stimulation studies. Five general treatment techniques were identified in the behavioral studies, described here as standard naming treatment, Look, Listen, Repeat treatment, cueing hierarchies, semantically focused treatments, and lexical retrieval in context. Across techniques, behavioral studies targeting difficult-to-retrieve items typically report immediate gains, and there is evidence these gains can be maintained over months to years by some participants who continue with long-term treatment. There is also evidence that prophylactic treatment supports retrieval of treated items compared with untreated items. There is limited evidence for generalization of treatment to untreated items, suggesting the primary aim of lexical retrieval treatment in this population is to maintain retrieval of a core vocabulary for as long as possible. Language and cognitive assessment and piloting of the intended treatment can inform decisions about treatment selection and participant suitability for long-term lexical retrieval treatment. The paper concludes with some questions to guide clinical decision making about whether to implement or continue with a behavioral lexical retrieval treatment.

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