Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
www.elsevier.com/locate/actpsy
Activation of lexical and syntactic target language properties
in translation
C. Ruiz, N. Paredes, P. Macizo, M.T. Bajo
*
Department of Psychology, University of Granada, Campus de Cartuja, 18071 Granada, Spain
Received 16 January 2007; received in revised form 31 July 2007; accepted 2 August 2007
Available online 19 September 2007
Abstract
Is reading for translation equal to reading in monolingual contexts? Horizontal/parallel theories of translation propose that normal
reading and reading for translation differ because the translator engages in partial reformulation while reading for translating the source
text. In contrast, vertical/serial theories assume that the translators first extract the meaning of the message, and only then they proceed
to reformulate it. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical and syntactic properties of the target language (TL) while translators read
for repetition or for translation. On-line sentence comprehension was affected by the lexical frequency of words in the TL (Experiment 1)
and the syntactic congruency between the source language (SL) and TL sentences (Experiment 2). However, the influence of lexical and
syntactic TL properties was restricted to the reading for translation task. According to our results, the horizontal view of translation
includes code-to-code links between the SL and TL involving at least the lexical and syntactic level of processing.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PsycINFO classification: 2340
Keywords: Translation; Lexical frequency; Syntactic structure
1. Introduction
Translation involves rephrasing a message expressed in
one language, the source language (SL), into another language, the target language (TL). Although it is possible to
distinguish among many translation tasks depending on
particular variations of the modality of the input (e.g.,
visual, auditory), the modality of the output (e.g., written,
oral) and the temporal parameters relating the input and
output (e.g., simultaneous, consecutive, self-paced) (see
Christoffels & de Groot, 2005; Macizo & Bajo, in press),
most theories of translation agree that there are three major
processes involved in all these tasks: analysis and understanding of SL, switching between two linguistic codes,
and production of the message in the TL. Thus, there is a
general agreement that the translator, as all normal readers
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 958243769; fax: +34 958246239.
E-mail address: mbajo@ugr.es (M.T. Bajo).
0001-6918/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2007.08.004
or listeners, performs lexical, syntactic and discourse analyses in order to construct a mental representation of the
source message. The theories also agree that planning and
lexical selection are needed to produce the target message.
However, there are different theoretical positions about
the nature of the reformulation or code switching process.
Specifically, the disagreement concerns the way in which
comprehension and reformulation are articulated and
coordinated.
The horizontal/parallel view of translation defends that
comprehension and reformulation occur in parallel, that is,
during comprehension of the SL, lexical and syntactic
properties of both languages are accessed (Gerver, 1976).
In contrast, the vertical view proposes that comprehension
and reformulation occurs in a sequential manner, so that
reformulation into the TL takes place only after comprehension of the SL has ended. When the input message is
processed, its superficial form is lost (Seleskovitch’s deverbalization theory, 1976) so that reformulation will only be
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
based on the meaning representation extracted from the SL
message. According to this view, comprehension for translation does not differ from normal monolingual comprehension since comprehension and reformulation occur at
different stages. In contrast, the horizontal view argues that
comprehension in translation is different from normal comprehension since comprehension and reformulation cooccur in time and, therefore, they influence each other. In
addition, while the horizontal perspective defends the existence of direct connections between the linguistic forms of
both languages at different levels of analysis (lexical and
syntactic), vertical/serial theories do not include code-tocode direct connections.
Still, a third hybrid approach proposes that both serial
and parallel models of translation only represent two possible routes to a translation response, so that any of these
two processes or strategies can be used by any bilingual;
experience and training determines which processes are
used the most (Paradis, 1994; Paradis, Goldblum, & Abidi,
1982). However, within this hybrid approach there is some
bias regarding the relative importance of both translation
strategies. Thus, horizontal, code-to-code translation, is
considered more probable in amateur translators (Seleskovitch, 1976, 1999) or in conditions where performance
temporarily breaks down (Paradis, 1994), but it will rarely
occur in experienced translators. In addition, recoding is
also more probable when the SL linguistic form is continuously present (as in text-to-text translation), but it will
rarely take place in conditions where the SL linguistic form
is transient (as in consecutive interpretation) (Seleskovitch,
1976).
Even though the parallel/serial issue has been a topic of
discussion within the translation literature (Gile, 1991; Paradis, 1994; Paradis et al., 1982; Seleskovitch, 1976), very
few empirical studies have attempted to disentangle the relative importance of the two types of translation processes
and most translation and interpreting textbooks emphasise
deverbalization as the only way of achieving quality translations (Lederer, 1994, 2003). However, there is some support for the influence of direct code-to-code connections in
translation. For example, Isham (1994) and De Bot (2000)
reported that recently presented SL words and syntactic
structures influence lexical and syntactic selection in the
target language. Similarly, many studies with bilingual participants have shown that during comprehension some
properties of the non-presented language are activated in
parallel. For example, properties of L2 such as the cognate
status of a word or the orthographic similarity between languages influence recognition and lexical decision of L1
words (Dijkstra, Timmermans, & Schriefers, 2000;
Garcı́a-Albea, Sánchez-Casas, & Valero, 1996; Van Hell
& Dijkstra, 2002).
Recently, Macizo and Bajo (2006) directly investigated
whether lexical entries of the TL get activated while reading
SL sentences for later translations. Professional translators
read Spanish (L1) sentences word-by-word under instructions to either repeat the sentences in Spanish (reading in
491
a monolingual context) or to translate them into English
(L2). The cognate status of words located at the beginning
or the end of the sentences was manipulated. The results
indicated that when the translators were asked to read
the sentences for later translation, the reading times for
cognate words (zebra in English, cebra in Spanish) were
faster than the reading times for control words located at
the end of the sentence (caterpillar in English, oruga in
Spanish). However, when they were asked to read and
repeat the sentences, no facilitation effects were found for
cognate words. This different pattern of cognate effects
when comparing comprehension in a monolingual context
and comprehension in a translation context directly shows
that experienced translators activate the TL lexical entries
while processing the meaning of the SL sentences that
had to be translated later. Thus, this experiment provides
evidence supporting that, when reading for translation,
units in the SL and the TL become activated in parallel.
However, because they manipulated the cognate status of
the words as the critical property of the TL and it has been
suggested that cognate words have a special status in the
bilingual’s mental lexicon (De Groot, 1992), it can be
argued that these results only hold when the cognate status
is the critical manipulation to observe TL activation. In
addition, because the cognate effect might be located at
the lexical or semantic level of processing (De Groot &
Nas, 1991), the data do not clearly indicate the nature of
the TL activation during the SL sentence processing.
The purpose of Experiment 1 was to provide further evidence that at least, lexical properties of the TL become
active during SL comprehension. In Experiment 1 we replicated the Macizo and Bajo (2006) procedure but we
manipulated the frequency of usage of the translation
equivalents (TL) of the presented SL words. Lexical frequency has been shown to affect performance in a broad
variety of tasks, including picture or word naming (e.g.,
Forster & Chambers, 1973), lexical decision (e.g., Frederiksen & Kroll, 1976), and semantic and syntactic categorisation (e.g., Monsell, 1985); and its effect has been clearly
located at the lexical level (e.g., Balota & Chumbley,
1984; Seidenberg, 1995). Hence, if the TL lexical entries
are accessed while reading and understanding the SL sentences to later translate them, we should find facilitation
effects for more frequent TL equivalents relative to less frequent ones, even though their frequency in the SL was held
constant. Therefore, Experiment 1 will allow us to extend
Macizo and Bajo (2006) findings to non-cognate words
and to clearly specify the lexical nature of the effect.
In addition, in Experiment 2 we aimed to explore if activation of the TL also extends to the syntactic level. In a
study, Hartsuiker, Pickering, and Veltkamp (2004)
reported a syntactic priming effect in Spanish-English bilinguals. Studies using syntactic priming in monolingual
contexts have shown that the use of a specific syntactic
form affects subsequent syntactic processing (Bock, 1986;
Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 2000). In the Hartsuiker
et al. study, bilingual participants listened to the descrip-
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C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
tion of a picture in Spanish and they had to later describe a
different picture in English. Their results showed that participants tended to use the same syntactic structure that
they previously heard (e.g., passive form) when describing
pictures in English. Therefore, syntactic processing in one
language may influence syntactic processing in another.
In Experiment 2, we manipulated the syntactic congruency between the SL and TL sentences. Again, professional
translators read Spanish sentences word-by-word with the
instructions to understand and repeat the sentences or to
understand and translate them. If understanding for translation involves parallel searches for syntactic structures in
the TL, congruent SL/TL structures should facilitate the
reading process. Therefore, we expected that congruency
would have an effect when the translators were asked to
read for translation, but it would not when they were asked
to read within a monolingual context.
Note that in both experiments, in order to control for
the speech planning processes necessarily involved in overt
translations, we asked the participants to repeat the sentences in the language of presentation (Spanish) when they
were in the control non-translation condition. This request
for repetition may make the task more demanding than
normal reading. And therefore, the reading for repetition
conditions of our two experiments cannot be considered
exactly as normal reading as this increment in demands
may influence the comprehension processes.
2. Experiment 1
As indicated, the purpose of Experiment 1 was to
explore whether there is lexical activation of the TL during
reading for translation. In this experiment, professional
translators performed self-paced reading of Spanish sentences either for repeating them into Spanish or for translating them into English. Apart from the type of task
(reading for repetition/reading for translation), we manipulated lexical frequency of critical words in the TL (low/
high frequency words) while lexical frequency of words in
the SL was held constant. If the lexical entries of the TL
are being activated while comprehending the SL, the presence of high frequency words should facilitate the reading
processes when participants are asked to translate the sentences. In contrast, if comprehension and reformulation
proceed serially, the presence of TL high frequency words
in the sentences should not facilitate comprehension in
either of the two reading conditions.
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants and design
The type of reading (reading for repetition or reading
for translation) and the TL lexical frequency of the SL
words (high or low lexical frequency) were manipulated
within-participants. Sixteen professional translators (with
more than 2 years of experience) participated in the exper-
iment. Their mean age was 33.25 years (SD = 5.49). All of
them were native speakers of Spanish (their L1), but were
very fluent in English (their L2). They were paid for participating in the study.
Before performing the actual experiment, all the participants were asked to perform a Spanish version of the
Reading Span Test (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980). The
mean span for the group was (4.19, SD = 0.92). Following
criteria used by other authors (e.g., Miyake, Just, & Carpenter, 1994), our participants were considered as having
a high span score (reading span scores higher than 3.5).
In addition, the translators completed a language history
questionnaire to assess their fluency in L1 and L2 and they
also rated their professional experience in translation and
interpreting tasks. The results of these questionnaires are
shown in Table 1.
2.1.2. Materials
A set of 184 Spanish words with similar frequency of
usage in Spanish (source language, SL, frequency) were
selected. These words were divided based on the frequency
of usage of their English translation (target language, TL,
frequency) in two groups of 92 words each. The two groups
of words varied in their TL frequency, low TL frequency
(24.18, SD = 13.73), high TL frequency (161.20,
SD = 130.65), t(182) = 10.00, p < .05 (Kucera & Francis,
1967, based on a count of one million English words).
The natural log transformation of the low TL frequency
and the high TL frequency was 2.92 (SD = 0.90) and 4.85
(SD = 0.63), respectively. However, the low and high TL
frequency groups were similar in their SL frequency,
97.52 (SD = 25.76) and 105.23 (SD = 33.51), respectively,
t(182) = 1.75, p > .05 (Alameda & Cuetos, 1995, based
on a count of two million Spanish words). The natural
log transformation of the Spanish frequency was 4.56
(SD = 0.19) and 4.62 (SD = 0.26) for the low TL frequency
group and the high TL frequency group, respectively.
Table 1
Characteristics of participants in the experiments
Language proficiency questionnaire
Speech fluency
Speech comprehension
Writing proficiency
Reading proficiency
Professional experience in translation
tasks
Professional experience in interpreting
tasks
Mean L1
(SD)
Mean L2
(SD)
9.12
9.56
9.31
9.56
6.37
7.68
7.43
8.12
(1.02)
(0.72)
(1.07)
(0.72)
(2.52)
(1.40)
(1.54)
(1.25)
5.75 (1.43)
8.12 (0.71)
Note: The self-report ratings in the language proficiency questionnaire for
L1 (Spanish) and L2 (English) ranged from 1 to 10 where 1 was not fluent
and 10 was very fluent. The self-report rating in the professional experience for translation and interpreting tasks ranged from 1 to 10 where 1
indicated low experience and 10 indicated high experience. Standard
deviation is given in brackets.
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
Ninety-two Spanish sentences were created embedding a
low TL frequency word and a high TL frequency word in
each sentence. In addition, two versions of each sentence
were created: (1) in the LH (Low–High) version, a low
TL frequency word was at the initial position of the sentence (one of the first three words of the sentence) and a
high TL frequency word was at the end of the sentence
(one of the last three words of the sentence) and (2) in
the HL (High–Low) version, the same two critical words
appeared in the reverse order. The two types of sentences
were identical in their structure and content and only differed in the position of the critical words (see Table 2 for
examples). Thus, if a sentence contained a high frequency
word in its initial portion and a low frequency word in
its final portion, there was an identical sentence in which
the low frequency word appeared at the initial portion
and the high frequency word appeared at the final portion.
It is important to remember that although the critical
words varied in their English frequency, they were presented in Spanish. Therefore, the frequency manipulation
refers to the English equivalent of the presented critical
Spanish words.
The presentation of the two versions of the sentences
was balanced across participants. Each participant was
presented with only one version (LH or HL) of each sentence, but across participants, the two versions were presented an equal number of times.
To make sure that the two versions of the sentences (LH
version and HL version) were equated in difficulty and they
would be equally well understood, we asked a group of 15
psychology students to rate the sentences from 1 (easy to
understand) to 5 (difficult to understand). The ratings for
the LH and HL versions were 2.59 (SD = 0.86) and 2.71
(SD = 0.89), respectively. There were no differences in rated
comprehensibility among the sentences, t(91) = 1.62,
p > .05.
Also, to force participants to engage in comprehension
processes, all of the trials included a verification task
regarding the meaning of the sentences. Thus, 184 verification sentences were constructed to be included in the sentence verification task (see Table 2 for examples).
Table 2
Example of the type of experimental materials used in Experiment 1
Version
Sentence
Low–High
Desde la torre, construida entre esos dos recintos,
se observaba perfectamente aquel puente. (From
the tower, that was built between these two sites,
the bridge can be observed perfectly.)
Desde el puente construido entre esos dos recintos
se observaba perfectamente aquella torre. (From
the bridge, that was built between these two sites,
the tower can be observed perfectly.)
Desde el puente se observaba la torre. (si/no)
(From the bridge, the tower can be observed.)
(yes/no)
High–Low
Verification sentence
Note: Sentences were presented in Spanish. The critical words in each
sentence are in italics. Approximate English translations are given in
brackets.
493
2.1.3. Procedure
The sentences appeared word-by-word in the middle of
a computer screen (Just, Carpenter, & Woolley, 1982). Participants read at their own pace by pressing the space bar to
see new words. The time between consecutive key presses
was taken as an index of the processing time for the displayed words.
Each participant received two blocks of 46 sentences.
Each block contained 23 LH sentences and 23 HL sentences. In one block participants were instructed to read
for understanding each Spanish sentence and to repeat it
after finishing reading, in the other they were instructed
to read and then to translate (from Spanish to English).
Instructions to repeat or to translate were displayed at
the beginning of the block. The order of the blocks was balanced across participants. The order of the sentences
within each block was randomised for each participant.
Each trial started with a fixation point followed by the
word-by-word sentence. Right after the last word of the
sentence, the message ‘‘repeat’’ or ‘‘translate’’ appeared
in the middle of the screen. Once participants had finished
the repetition/translation task, the message ‘‘verification’’
appeared followed by a sentence on the centre of the
screen. This sentence remained on the screen until the
true/false response was made. Participants indicated
whether the meaning of the sentence was congruent with
the previously repeated or translated sentence by pressing
the ‘‘true’’ or ‘‘false’’ key.
2.2. Results and discussion
On-line comprehension was evaluated by considering
the reading times of the critical words for the correctly verified and produced sentences. Global comprehension of the
sentences was assessed by looking at the accuracy of the
responses in the verification task. In addition, oral productions in the repetition and the translation tasks were
recorded and their general quality was evaluated. Quality
of task performance was measured by scoring each sentence for how well the participant performed the task.
The scoring system for the translation output emphasized
both how well the meaning of the input was preserved
and how well the lexical and syntactic constructions
matched those of the English language. For the repetition
task, the scoring system emphasized the extent to which
the output matched the lexical and syntactic forms of the
input. Each production was rated from 1 to 5 where 1 indicated very poor production and 5 indicated very good production. Sentences with a rating of 3 or higher were
considered correct and included in the analysis. Comprehension accuracy for this experiment was (79%).1 The
1
Given that the error rate for this experiment was high (close to 21%),
we decided to perform ANOVA with frequency and task as within
participants variable on the accuracy data. The results of these analyses
indicated that none of the main effects or the interaction reached
significance by participants or by items with all p > .10.
494
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
mean reading times for correctly understood sentences
within each condition was estimated for each participant
or item and treated as a single observation. Reading times
that were 2.5 standard deviations above the participant’s
mean for the critical word were replaced with the participant’s mean for that word (1.7% of the data; see for
Miyake et al., 1994, for a similar approach). Data from
one participant were excluded from the analysis because
he failed to correctly produce more than 60% of the
sentences.
Fig. 1 presents the mean reading times for the critical
words in Experiment 1 as a function of type of task and
type of word (High/Low frequency). The effect of type of
task (reading for repetition/reading for translation) was
significant by participants, F1(1, 14) = 6.12, MSE =
268,414, p < .03, and by items, F2(1, 91) = 47.54,
MSE = 87,488, p < .0001. Thus, reading for translation
was significantly slower (1560 ms) than reading for repetition (1229 ms). The effect of lexical frequency (Low/High)
was significant by participants, F1(1, 14) = 5.36, MSE =
15,871, p < .04, and by items, F2(1, 91) = 23.91, MSE =
119,399, p < .0001. Response times for the low frequency
words were longer (1432 ms) than for the high frequency
words (1357 ms). Interestingly, the type of task · lexical
frequency interaction was significant by participants,
F1(1, 14) = 4.79, MSE = 16,837, p < .05, and by items,
F2(1, 91) = 35.16, MSE = 73,217, p < .001. This interaction
indicated that the effect of lexical frequency of the English
translation of the presented Spanish words depended on
the goal of reading (see Fig. 1). In this way, analyses of simple effects showed that lexical frequency was significant
when the goal was to translate the sentences, F1(1, 14) =
8.37, MSE = 19,796, p < .01, F2(1, 91) = 83.75, MSE =
64,785, p < .0001, but it was not when the goal was to
repeat them, F1(1, 14) < 1, F2(1, 91) < 1. This pattern of
results suggests that reading for translation is different
from reading in a monolingual context since they indicate
that when participants are reading for translation, they
start activating lexical candidates in the TL.
In order to explore the possible time course of the TL
lexical activation in translation, we examined frequency
effects at the initial and final portion of the sentences in
the translation condition (see Fig. 2). Note that this type
of analysis is possible because for each sentence with a
low frequency word at the beginning (LH sentences) there
was an identical sentence with a high frequency word at
this same position (HL sentences). Similarly, for each sentence with a low frequency word at the final portion of the
sentence (HL sentences) there was an identical sentence
with a high frequency word at this same position (LH sentences). The results of the ANOVA performed on data of
the translation condition indicated that the interaction
between frequency and position was significant by participants, F1(1, 14) = 5.99, MSE = 42,846, p < .03, and marginally significant by items, F1(1, 91) = 3.6, MSE =
415,855, p = .06. Planned comparison of the reading times
for high and low frequency words at the beginning of the
sentence showed that English frequency did not have an
effect at this position, F1(1, 14) = 0.20, MSE = 12,100,
p > .66, F2(1, 91) = 0.00, MSE = 149,111, p > .99. In contrast, comparison of the reading times for high and low
frequency words placed at the final portion of the sentences
2400
2400
Low
2200
Low
2200
High
High
2000
Reading Times (ms)
Reading Times (ms).
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
1000
800
800
600
600
Repetition
Translation
Type of Reading
Fig. 1. Reading times as a function of type of reading (reading for
repetition and reading for translation) and target language lexical
frequency (low and high) in Experiment 1. The bars indicate standard
errors.
Initial
Final
Sentence Position
Fig. 2. Reading times in the reading for translation condition of
Experiment 1 as a function of target language lexical frequency (low
and high) and position of the critical word in the sentence (initial or final).
The bars indicate standard errors.
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
indicated that the frequency effect was significant,
F1(1, 14) = 8.33, MSE = 70,339, p < .01, F2(1, 91) = 4.28,
MSE = 703,105, p < .04.
Therefore, the overall pattern of results indicated that
the lexical frequency of the TL affects reading times
depending on the type of reading and the position of the
critical word. Only in the translation task, high frequency
words placed at the end of sentence were read faster than
low frequency words. This frequency effect was not found
for words placed at the beginning of sentence. This pattern
of results replicates that of Macizo and Bajo (2006) with
cognate words. Thus, Macizo and Bajo found that cognate
effects were present only when participants had to translate
the sentences and when the critical word was in the final
portion of the sentence.
The pattern of results found in this experiment clearly
supports horizontal/parallel approaches to translation.
First, comparisons of the overall reading times for the
repeat and translate conditions of the experiment indicated
that when participants were asked to translate, reading
times were slower than when they were asked to understand and repeat the sentences. The slower reading times
in the translation condition may indicate that when
instructed to translate, participants engaged in additional
processes needed for translation. In translation, beside
the cognitive resources required for comprehension of the
input, additional resources are needed for activating and
switching between the two languages (Gile, 1997; Grosjean,
1997); the need for this additional resources slowed down
the reading process. Second, the TL frequency effect in
the translation condition provides direct evidence of lexical
activation of the TL when participants read for translating.
The frequency effect has been clearly located at the lexical
level (e.g., Balota & Chumbley, 1984; Seidenberg, 1995)
and, therefore, results of this experiment extend the findings of Macizo and Bajo (2006) to non-cognate words
and clearly show the lexical nature of the effect. It is important to note that the frequency of the presented Spanish
words (SL) was held constant and that, therefore, the
observed frequency effect can only be due to the parallel
activation of the target language. In addition, since the frequency effect was not found when participants were asked
to read and repeat the sentences, it cannot be argued that
the obtained effects were due to particular uncontrolled
features of the materials. In both reading for repetition
and reading for translation conditions, participants were
exposed to the same reading materials and to the same
reading situations, since repeating or translating was only
performed after the reading and understanding processes
had ended.
These results rule out theories of translation that assume
that comprehension and code-switching proceed in a serial
manner. The presence of facilitation at the end of the sentences and its absence at the beginning of them cannot be
interpreted as indicating that comprehension and codeswitching proceed in a serial manner since the effect
appeared on-line, that is, when the critical word was being
495
read. Rather, this pattern might suggest that TL activation
has a specific time course, but this interpretation will be
discussed further later.
3. Experiment 2
As mentioned, the purpose of Experiment 2 was to
explore whether there is syntactic activation of the TL during a reading for translation task. With this purpose in
mind, our professional translators were asked again to read
sentences and either repeat or translate them. We manipulated the congruency of the syntactic structure between the
presented Spanish sentence and the equivalent translation
in English. This manipulation was achieved by varying
the order in which adjective–noun forms were presented
and by including (or not) the pronoun that constituted
the subject of a verbal form of a relative clause embedded
in the sentence. Thus, in the congruent version of the sentences the adjective was presented before the noun and the
pronoun/subject accompanied the verb (see Table 3 for an
example). If understanding for later translation involves
syntactic activation of the TL, we would expect to find syntactic congruency effects when participants are asked to
translate the sentences, otherwise the effects would be
absent in both reading conditions.
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Participants and design
The type of reading (reading for repetition vs. reading
for translation) and the type of syntactic structure (congruent versus incongruent Spanish/English structure) were
manipulated within-participants. The same sixteen professional translators that participated in Experiment 1 were
called again for participation in Experiment 2 (see Table
1 for details about participants’ characteristics).
3.1.2. Materials
A set of 100 sentences was constructed. All the sentences
were composed of 10–12 Spanish words arranged in three
critical regions: initial (noun accompanied by an adjective),
medium (verbal form embedded in a relative clause), and
Table 3
Example of the type of experimental materials used in Experiment 2
Version
Sentence
Congruent
La bonita casa que yo alquilé este verano tenı´a un verde
jardı´ n. (The nice house that I rented this summer had a
green garden.)
La casa bonita que alquilé este verano tenı´a un jardı´ n
verde. (The nice house that I rented this summer had a
green garden.)
Este verano la casa era verde. (This summer the house
was green.) (yes/no)
Incongruent
Verification
sentence
Note: Sentences were presented in Spanish. The critical fragments in each
sentence are in italics. Approximate English translations are given in
brackets.
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
final (noun accompanied by an adjective). For each sentence, two versions were constructed. In the English congruent version the adjective (e.g., bonita, -nice-) was
always presented before the noun form (e.g., casa, -house-)
(e.g., bonita casa) and the personal pronoun (the subject)
was presented next to the verbal form. In the English
incongruent version, the adjective was always presented
after the noun (e.g., casa bonita) and the personal pronoun
(the subject) was omitted (see Table 3 for examples). Note
that in Spanish the adjective can appear both before and
after the noun and the syntactic subject can be absent or
present, while in English the adjective should appear before
the noun and the subject is always present.
In order to make sure that both versions of the sentences
were equally difficult to understand, thirty psychology students were asked to judge the comprehensibility of the sentences in a scale from 1 (easy to understand) to 5 (difficult
to understand). The mean ratings for the congruent and
incongruent sentences was 2.40 (SD = 0.51) and 2.36
(SD = 0.60) respectively. A t-test performed on the ratings
indicated that both type of sentences were equated in comprehensibility, t(99) = .68, p > .49.
As in Experiment 1, one hundred additional sentences
were constructed to be used in the sentence verification task
(see Table 3).
3.1.3. Procedure
Each participant received two blocks of 50 sentences.
Each block contained 25 congruent sentences and 25 incongruent sentences. In one block participants were instructed
to read for understanding each Spanish sentence and to
repeat it after finishing reading; in the other, they were
instructed to read and understand and then to translate
(from Spanish to English). Instructions to repeat or to
translate were displayed at the beginning of the block.
The order of the blocks was balanced across participants.
The order of the sentences within each block was randomised for each participant. All other details of the procedure
were identical to those in Experiment 1.
3.2. Results and discussion
For the analyses performed on the reading times, the
mean reading times for the critical words in the correctly
comprehended and produced sentences were averaged
and introduced in two ANOVAs (by participants and by
items) with type of reading (reading for repetition vs. reading for translation) and type of sentence (congruent vs.
incongruent) as independent variables. Note that the critical words in this experiment were the adjective and the
noun at the beginning and end of the sentence and the verb
of the relative clause (see italic words in Table 3). Thus the
critical words in the congruent and incongruent condition
were identical. Global accuracy for this experiment (accuracy on the verification task and production accuracy)
was 90%. As in Experiment 1, reading times that were 2.5
standard deviations above the participant’s mean for the
critical word were replaced with the participant’s mean
for that word (1.8% of the data).
Fig. 3 shows the mean reading times for sentences in
Experiment 2 as a function of type of task and type of sentence. The results of the ANOVAs performed on the reading times indicated that the effect of type of reading was
significant by participants and by items, F1(1, 15) = 9.47,
MSE = 75,509, p < .007, and F2(1, 98) = 239.33, MSE =
22,500, p < .0001. Participants were slower when they were
reading for translation (757 ms) than when they were reading for repetition (546 ms). The type of sentence was also
significant by participants and by items, F1(1, 15) = 6.49,
MSE = 6997, p < .02, and F2(1, 98) = 10.23, MSE =
25,089, p < .001. Congruent sentences were read faster than
incongruent sentences (625 ms and 678 ms, respectively).
The type of task · type of structure interaction was also
significant by items, F1(1, 15) = 2.73, MSE = 8235,
p > .11, and F2(1, 98) = 4.78, MSE = 27,829, p < .03, indicating that the effect of the type of sentence depended on
the task to be performed after reading. Thus, when participants were instructed to read and translate the sentences,
congruent sentences were read faster (734 ms) than
incongruent sentences (822 ms), F1(1, 15) = 4.48, MSE =
14,680, p < .05, and F2(1, 98) = 8.34, MSE = 45,503,
p < .004. However, when participants were instructed
to read and repeat the sentences, the type of sentence
structure did not show an effect, F1(1, 15) = 3.62,
1200
Incongruent
1100
Congruent
1000
Reading Times (ms)
496
900
800
700
600
500
400
Repetition
Translation
Type of Reading
Fig. 3. Reading times as a function of type of reading (reading for
repetition and reading for translation) and syntactic congruency between
the source language and the target language structures (congruent and
incongruent) in Experiment 2. The bars indicate standard errors.
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
MSE = 552, p > .07, and F2(1, 98) = 1.35, MSE = 7414,
p > .24.
As in Experiment 1, in order to explore the time course
in which activation of the TL syntactic structures is initiated in translation, we performed analyses by regions in
the sentences for this task. Additional ANOVAs on the
reading times data in the translation task were made by
averaging the reading times for each critical word in each
of the critical regions of the sentence (initial, medium,
and the final regions) for the congruent and incongruent
conditions (see Fig. 4). Planned comparison of the reading
times for the congruent and incongruent conditions at each
region of the sentence indicated that when participants
read the initial region of the sentence, the effect of the structure was close to significant by participants and items,
F1(1, 15) = 3.97, MSE = 10,935, p < .06, F2(1, 98) = 2.99,
MSE = 68,824, p < .08. When participants read the medium region of the sentence, the effect of the type of
structure was significant by participants and items,
F1(1, 15) = 7.69, MSE = 21,433, p < .01, F2(1, 98) =
11.17, MSE = 80,367, p < .001. Finally, when the participants read the final region of the sentences, the effect of
the structure did not reach significance, F1(1, 15) = 0.003,
MSE = 26,640, p > .85, F2(1, 98) = 0.29, MSE = 127,413,
p > .58.
In summary, reading times were affected by the congruency between the Spanish and English syntactic structures
of the presented sentences when participants were asked to
1200
Incongruent
1100
Congruent
Reading Times (ms)
1000
900
497
read the sentences and then translate them. The presentation of sentences, which were syntactically congruent with
their English translations facilitates reading relative to sentences, which are incongruent, but this facilitation effect
was only produced when participants were asked to translate the sentences and not when participants had to read in
a monolingual context. In support of horizontal/parallel
approaches to translation, these results suggest that
within-language reading and reading for translation differ.
Thus, the facilitation produced by presenting congruent
syntactic structures seem to indicate that reading for translation involves activation and search for TL syntactic structures and these processes do not seem to be involved in
within-language reading. It could be argued that this facilitation may have been due to the congruent sentences being
more marked and distinctive than the incongruent ones
(although the adjective in Spanish can go either before or
after the noun, it appears more frequently after the noun).
However there are two reasons against this argument: (1)
comprehensibility ratings were equivalent for congruent
and incongruent sentences and (2) the effect was not present in the reading for repetition condition as it should have
been if the effect was due to the marked character of the
sentence. Hence, our results suggest that in contrast to
the predictions of serial models of translation, the reformulation processes involved in translations are initiated before
the end of SL comprehension.
Differently to Experiment 1, results of Experiment 2
indicate that when participants are reading for translation,
the TL is accessed from the very beginning of the reading
processes. Thus, congruency effects appeared at the initial
and medium parts of the sentences. This may indicate that
the time course of syntactic activation is different than the
time course of lexical activation.
Summarising, the results of Experiment 2 provide additional support to the horizontal/parallel approach by finding parallel processing of the languages involved. More
importantly, they show that activation of the TL occurs
not only at the lexical level but also at the syntactic level.
800
4. General discussion
700
The purpose of the present study was to determine
whether lexical and syntactic activation of the TL take
place during comprehension in translation. There are two
theoretical contrasting approaches to this question. The
vertical/serial view proposes that during understanding,
the linguistic form of the input is lost and an abstract representation of the message is constructed from which the
translator will give lexical expression to the message in
the TL. According to this view, there are no direct codeto-code links between the two languages involved in the
task. On the contrary, the horizontal/parallel view defends
that comprehension in translation differs from comprehension in a monolingual context, since the translator activates
and searches for possible linguistics matches in the TL
while perceiving the SL. Hence, this view assumes that
600
500
400
Initial
Medium
Final
Sentence Position
Fig. 4. Reading times in the reading for translation condition of
Experiment 2 as a function of syntactic congruency between the source
language and the target language (congruent and incongruent) and
position of the critical fragments in the sentence (initial, medium and
final). The bars indicate standard errors.
498
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
there are direct code-to-code links that are activated during
SL comprehension. As we indicated, between these two
more extreme positions, a third view proposes that both
serial and parallel reformulation processes are possible in
translation, but that code-to-code activation is more probable for less experienced translators and for conditions in
which the message is continuously present.
In the experiments reported here we contrasted these
approaches by having experienced translators read sentences word-by-word with instructions to read and repeat
them or to read and translate them. Activation of the TL
during sentence comprehension was studied by manipulating the lexical frequency of the TL translation of some critical words (Experiment 1) and by varying the syntactic
congruency between the Spanish presented sentence and
its English translation (Experiment 2). The results of the
two experiments consistently showed that the two comprehension conditions (reading for repetition and reading for
translation) differ since the manipulation of TL lexical frequency and SL/TL syntactic congruency had only effects
when the participants were instructed to read and translate.
This pattern suggests that, in accordance with the horizontal/parallel view, comprehension in translation differ from
comprehension in monolingual contexts, since SL understanding co-occurs with activation of the TL lexical and
syntactic entries. Thus, both languages seem to be concurrently active during SL comprehension, and they may influence each other.
This pattern of results and interpretation is consistent
with the results obtained by Macizo and Bajo (2006, Experiment 2). In their experiment they showed that the cognate
status of critical words in sentences influence reading times
when participants were instructed to read and translate the
sentences, but not when they had to read and repeat them.
Our results extend their findings by showing a similar pattern of facilitation when non-cognate words varying in TL
frequency were used. This finding is important because, as
we mentioned, cognate words are sometimes assumed to
have a special status in the bilingual mental lexicon (shared
lexical store) and to share semantic as well as lexical features with the TL (De Groot, 1992; De Groot & Nas,
1991). However, the effect of lexical frequency has clearly
been associated to the lexical level of linguistic processing.
In addition, the results of Experiment 2 also extend the
finding of Macizo and Bajo (2006) by showing that activation of the TL is restricted not only to the lexical level, but
also to the syntactic one. Thus, reading times for the presented Spanish sentences were facilitated when there was
congruency between the syntactic forms in the source and
target languages, and this facilitation was only present
when participants were asked to read and translate the sentences, indicating that comprehension for translation also
involves looking for syntactic matches in the TL. When
the source and target language share these structures, comprehension is facilitated. These results are congruent with
those obtained by Hartsuiker et al. (2004) indicating that
syntactic processing in one language influences syntactic
processing in another. Their results showed that untrained
bilingual participants tended to use the same syntactic
structure that they previously heard in Spanish when
describing pictures in English.
Hence, results of Experiments 1 and 2 support parallel
theories of translation. It is important to note that the conditions in our experiments are very different from those
proposed by authors holding a mixed parallel/serial view
to favour horizontal/parallel strategies. According to this
view, horizontal, code-to-code, translation will be more
probable in amateur translators (Seleskovitch, 1976) or in
conditions where performance temporarily breaks down
(Paradis, 1994). It is also more probable in text-to-text
translation than in interpretation because the presented
SL linguistic forms are continuously present in translation
whereas those forms are transient in interpretation (Seleskovitch, 1976). In contrast, our experiment showed evidence of code-to-code lexical and syntactic searches with
trained experienced translators and in a task very similar
to consecutive translation. Since the words were presented
one-by-one on the computer screen and participants were
asked to translate at the end of the sentence (consecutive
interpretation), the linguistic form of the SL was also transient and not present. Hence, our data suggest that parallel
processing occurs also in conditions where some have
thought it unlikely.
Although lexical frequency and syntactic congruency
were similar in being present in reading for translation
and absent in reading for repetition, they did not behave
exactly the same as their time courses seem to differ. Thus,
TL lexical frequency seems to have its effects toward the
end of the sentence (Experiment 1), whereas syntactic congruency has its effect in the initial part of the sentence
(Experiment 2). The results from Experiment 1 are similar
to those obtained by Macizo and Bajo (2006) with cognate
words, which might indicate that although comprehension
and code-switching processes co-occur, a minimum unit of
information has to be processed before planning the translation output (Goldman-Eisler, 1972). Note, however, that
the absence of lexical effects at the beginning of the sentence does not mean that comprehension and code-switching proceed in a serial manner since the effect appeared online, that is, when the critical word was being read. More
importantly, results from Experiment 2 clearly shows that
code-switching starts from the very beginning of the sentence, but that activation of the TL is restricted to the syntactic level.
Although speculative at the moment, this might suggest
that lexical and syntactic activation of the TL follow different time courses with TL syntactic searches starting before
than searches for TL lexical entries. This will be consistent
with some current theories of language production (e.g.,
Dell & O’Seaghdha, 1992) that propose different level of
processing acting with different temporal parameters.
When producing a unit of information, semantic, syntactic
and lexical entries are activated. Although the activation of
these entries overlaps in time, a temporal sequence of
C. Ruiz et al. / Acta Psychologica 128 (2008) 490–500
semantic, syntactic and lexical peaks of activation can be
locally observed. However, this conclusion is at the
moment speculative since it can also be argued that different regions of the sentence differ in the demand that they
impose on WM (e.g.,the final part of the sentence is specially demanding since integration processes occur at this
time), so that the obtained differences may be due to the
influence of WM load on the activation of the TL lexical
and syntactic properties. Further research should address
this issue.
The absence of TL lexical frequency (Experiment1) and
syntactic congruency (Experiment 2) when participants
were asked to read and repeat the sentences and translation
was not involved indicate that these effects may depend on
the context, the goal, and/or the resources available for the
reading task (Macizo & Bajo, 2006). This result contrasts
with experiments in bilingual word recognition showing
that lexical properties of the non-presented language (e.g.,
cognate status) affect recognition times. This result has been
interpreted as indicating that lexical access in bilinguals is
not language selective (e.g., Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 1998;
see Dijkstra, 2005, for a review). In contrast, results of the
read and repeat condition of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate
that properties of the unintended language do not always
have an effect on reading times. Recently, Kroll, Bobb,
and Wodniecka (2006) have suggested that language selection in production may depend on a set of factors such as
the demands of the task or the experience of the bilinguals.
Similarly, lexical and syntactic access in comprehension by
bilingual participants may also depend on similar factors.
For example, some experiments have shown that the semantic context may restrict language activation (Schwartz,
2003; Schwartz & Kroll, 2006; Van Hell, 1998). For example, in Schwartz’s study, bilingual participants were presented sentences with the instruction to name the word
printed in red. These red words consisted of cognates, interlingual homographs and controls and they were embedded
in high constraint or low constraint sentences (the critical
word was more or less contextually probable within the sentence). The results indicated that cognate effects disappeared when semantically constrained sentences were
presented and when participants had high comprehension
skills. This may indicate that when the context provides sufficient semantic information and the reader has enough processing resources, the meaning of the sentences can be
integrated and the presence of cognates is no longer important. Hence, the richness of the semantic context and the
readers’ comprehension skills may be two factors constraining selectivity. Similarly, it is possible that the rich semantic
context and the high WM demands of our reading for repetition condition (the participants had to maintain the sentence in memory to be able to reproduce it) induced
language selectivity. It is possible that if our participants
were not asked to repeat the sentences but only to read them
for comprehension, frequency effect would have also
appeared in the only reading conditions. Further research
on bilingual comprehension should investigate this issue.
499
In conclusion, Experiments 1 and 2 favoured horizontal/
parallel theories of translation. Reading in monolingual
contexts seems to differ from reading for later translation.
Reading for translation involves the parallel activation of
TL lexical and syntactic entries. Thus, lexical and syntactic
TL properties had an effect when participants were asked
to read and then translate, but they did not when they were
not asked to translate. This parallel activation seems, however, to take place at different points in the sentence
depending on whether lexical or syntactic properties are
manipulated. This may indicate that activation of lexical
and syntactic properties may follow different time courses,
but very importantly they also suggest that TL activation
can occur at early stages of sentence processing.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants (BS02002-00159
and SEJ2005-00842) to M.T. Bajo, and by the research
program ‘‘Ramón y Cajal’’ and grant SEJ2006-05728/
PSIC, to P. Macizo.
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