The Influence of Complete and Partial Shared Translation in the First Language on Semantic Processing in the Second Language

This study investigated (a) whether L2 semantic processing is modulated by automatic activation of L1 translations, (b) whether L1 translation activation involves both phonological and orthographic representations, and (c) whether these phonological and orthographic representations of L1 translations are accessed along a similar time course. To this end, 48 Hebrew–English bilinguals and 48 native English speakers with no Hebrew knowledge performed a semantic relatedness judgment task in English. Critical prime–target pairs (n = 96) were semantically unrelated, but their translations in Hebrew could include form overlap. Specifically, complete translation-overlap pairs shared both a phonological and an orthographic lexical form (e.g., “beak” and “source” = מקור /makor/), whereas partial translation-overlap pairs shared either a phonological form (e.g., “skin” and “light” = /or/) or an orthographic form (e.g., “book” and “barber” ספר = ) in Hebrew. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of the prime–target L2-English words was further manipulated to reveal the time course of phonological and orthographic translation activation. Results showed that complete overlap in the translation lead Hebrew–English bilinguals, but not native English speakers, to judge semantically unrelated pairs as related in meaning and to do so more quickly irrespective of SOA. For partial translation overlap in phonology, the percentage of “yes” responses was affected only in the short SOA (300 ms), and under partial translation overlap in orthography, only in the long SOA (750 ms). These findings suggest that L1 translation activation during L2 word processing spreads to both phonological and orthographic representations but at different time points along processing.