Discussion

The results from Experiment 1 show that participants were influenced by the grammatical structure of the source sentence while choosing a structure for its translation, with significantly more PO translations for PO source sentences than for otherwise identical DO source sentences. In this respect, our results are in line with those from Maier et al. (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017), who, in their study on bilinguals without any explicit translation training, also found an effect of source-structure influence.

Interestingly, the effect of source-structure influence in our study interacted with the degree of translation competence, with a weaker effect of the source structure in translators with higher translation competence. This finding is in line with the claim that translators gradually move away from literal translations with increasing translation training. Note that this result is also corroborated by a comparison of the numerical size of the effect in Maier et al. (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017) on bilinguals without any translation training and our results: While both studies found evidence for source-structure influence, this effect was numerically weaker in our translators-in-training (18%) than in Maier et al.’s untrained bilinguals (31% for L1 German and 39% for L1 English speakers).

The observed effect of source-structure influence is consistent with Maier’s key claim that shining-through effects in translations are based on cross-linguistic structural priming. The interaction between source structure influence and translation competence, in contrast, is not explicitly predicted by Maier’s account. If shining-through effects in translation are based on the automatic activation of a syntactic structure during processing of the source sentence, which remains active during subsequent formulation of the translation, this automatic process should not be influenced by a higher level individual property such as translation competence. That said, there is at least some evidence that cross-linguistic priming can be affected by individual properties and abilities, such as L2 proficiency (e.g., Bernolet, Hartsuiker and Pickering, Reference Bernolet, Hartsuiker and Pickering2013). In this respect, while the observed interaction is not explicitly predicted by Maier’s account, it is also not fundamentally inconsistent with the claim that source-structure influence is caused by cross-linguistic structural priming. For instance, one possibility to account for the observed interaction is to assume that translation competence only comes into play relatively late in the translation process, after an initial candidate translation has been computed. This account assumes that source-structure influence in principle occurs in all participants irrespective of individual translation competence, and that cross-linguistic priming causes participants to initially formulate candidate translations which resemble the structure of the source sentence. Only after that, participants with higher translation competence may adjust their translations as part of a monitoring process before producing the translation and may occasionally decide to abandon the initial candidate translation. Indeed, theoretical accounts of translation typically assume the existence of a monitor, which may adjust initial candidate translations before they are produced (e.g., Oster, Reference Oster, Hansen-Schirra, Czulo and Hofmann2017; Schaeffer and Carl, Reference Schaeffer and Carl2017; Schaeffer, Halverson, and Hansen-Schirra, Reference Schaeffer, Halverson and Hansen-Schirra2019). It is conceivable that the monitor is affected by the individual degree of translation competence, with highly competent translators adjusting candidate sentences and moving away from literal translations, which would reduce shining-through effects in translation output.

Alternatively, however, it is also possible that Maier et al.’s (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017) claim that shining-through effects in translation are caused by cross-linguistic structural priming is not correct. In Experiment 2, we thus investigate to what extent source-language influence involves cross-linguistic structural priming.

Discussion

The key goal of our experiments was to investigate to what extent translation by trained translators involves cross-linguistic structural priming. Indeed, the results for the translation task show that the structure of the translated sentences produced by the participants was influenced by the structure of the source sentence, with significantly more PO targets produced for PO source sentences than for otherwise identical DO source sentences. In isolation, this finding is consistent with Maier et al’s (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017) claim that cross-linguistic structural priming plays a key role in translation. However, such an effect does not necessarily have to be based on structural priming, but could instead also be caused by either strategic decisions based on meta-linguistic knowledge or by superficial word-by-word translations. In order to distinguish between these accounts, we conducted a classical cross-linguistic structural priming experiment based on a target-completion task using the source sentences from Experiment 1 as primes. Interestingly, despite the fact that prime sentences were matched between the two experiments, the participants did not show any priming at all in the completion task. A cross-experiment comparison revealed a significant interaction between priming and task, with significant effect of prime structure in the translation task, but no effect in the completion task. If the effects observed for the translation task were due to cross-linguistic structural priming, we should have observed a significant priming effect in the completion task as well. Thus, the results for Experiment 2, and especially the significant interaction in the cross-experiment comparison, are inconsistent with the claim that source sentence influence in translation is caused by cross-linguistic structural priming.

At first glance, the results from Experiment 2 may be considered inconsistent with the findings from previous psycholinguistic studies investigating cross-linguistic structural priming in bilinguals. Cross-linguistic structural priming generally constitutes a highly robust and replicable effect. This is especially the case for the dative alternation investigated in the present study: For other structural alternations, particularly for structures that require a different constituent order in the two languages involved, it is still controversially discussed whether cross-linguistic priming can occur or not (e.g., Bernolet, Hartsuiker & Pickering, Reference Bernolet, Hartsuiker and Pickering2007; Kidd, Tennant, & Nitschke, Reference Kidd, Tennant and Nitschke2015; Jacob et al., Reference Jacob, Katsika, Family and Allen2017). For the PO and DO structures investigated in the present study, however, the required constituent order is the same in English and German. In this respect, the structural alternation we investigated represents a particularly straightforward case, for which essentially any theoretical account of structural priming (Loebell & Bock, Reference Loebell and Bock2003; Hartsuiker et al., Reference Hartsuiker, Pickering and Veltkamp2004; Hartsuiker & Pickering, Reference Hartsuiker and Pickering2008; Jacob et al., Reference Jacob, Katsika, Family and Allen2017) predicts a robust cross-linguistic priming effect. Indeed, cross-linguistic priming for the dative alternation between English and German (or other language pairs that require the same constituent order for these structures) has been demonstrated in a considerable number of previous studies (see Loebell & Bock, Reference Loebell and Bock2003, and much subsequent work). In this respect, it may seem somewhat unusual that the translators in our experiment did not show any such priming effect in the completion task at all. Recall, however, that the prime sentences in Experiment 2 were not specifically designed for a cross-linguistic priming experiment of this kind, but were used to allow for a direct comparison with Experiment 1, as well as previous research on source structure influence in translation. Indeed, the materials from Maier et al. (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017), on which the experimental materials in the present study are based, possess several properties which may cause readers to focus less on the grammatical structure of the sentence, and more on lexico-semantic properties: In particular, the sentences contain words that, in natural texts, only very rarely occur together (e.g. “The writer rents the bag to the hero.’). As a result, the sentences are actually highly unusual with respect to their meaning. (For instance, a bag is not typically rented, and the action of renting is not among the actions typically associated with a hero.) The unusual semantics may have drawn attention away from the syntactic structure of the sentence, reducing structural priming. Also, participants may have refrained from computing a full analysis of the syntactic structure while processing the prime sentences and may have instead resorted to good-enough processing, assigning thematic roles to the constituents directly without a detailed prior syntactic analysis (e.g. Ferreira, Reference Ferreira2003; Ferreira & Patson, Reference Ferreira and Patson2007; and much subsequent work). In any case, the fact that these particular sentences are able to cause effects of source-structure influence in translation, but unable to cause cross-linguistic structural priming effects in a classical priming experiment, is inconsistent with the claim that shining-through effects in translation are based on cross-linguistic structural priming.

Before discussing theoretical implications of our findings, an important unavoidable limitation of our study design deserves to be addressed. The key conclusion that the effects of source-structure influence in Experiment 1 are not caused by cross-linguistic priming crucially depends on the comparison between the findings from Experiments 1 and 2. This rationale assumes that the tasks in our two experiments are comparable, particularly with regard to how the prime sentences are initially processed in the translation and completion tasks. When designing the study, we tried to keep the procedure and task in Experiments 1 and 2 as comparable as possible. However, for obvious reasons, Experiment 1 necessarily required a translation task, while Experiment 2 required a priming task which does not involve any sort of translation. The resulting unavoidable differences may have had consequences for how the prime sentences in Experiments 1 and 2 were initially processed. For instance, the translation task in Experiment 1 may have theoretically led to deeper processing of the grammatical structure of the prime sentences, and thus to stronger effects than the completion task in Experiment 2, where the prime sentences only had to be read aloud. Note, however, that a number of previous priming studies which have relied on the same type of completion task as in our Experiment 2 have consistently found significant structural priming effects for the dative alternation (e.g. Pickering and Branigan, Reference Pickering and Branigan1998; Branigan et al., Reference Branigan, Pickering and Cleland1999; van Gompel et al., Reference van Gompel, Pickering, Pearson and Jacob2006; Jacob et al., Reference Jacob, Katsika, Family and Allen2017). This suggests that processing of the prime sentences in such a completion paradigm is deep enough for structural priming effects to emerge. As a result, if the shining-through effects in Experiment 1 were based on structural priming, we should have at least found some priming in Experiment 2 as well (even if this effect may well be smaller than in Experiment 1, due to the difference between the translation and completion tasks).

If cross-linguistic priming is not responsible for shining-through effects in translation, what else might be driving the effect of source-structure influence observed in Experiment 1? Perhaps the most straightforward alternative explanation for the data pattern is that a translator’s decision to produce a particular structure in a target sentence might be based mainly on metalinguistic knowledge about structural similarities between particular source language and target language structures (such as between a German and an English PO structure). This account would assume that source-structure influence in translation constitutes a late, strategic effect, with translators making a conscious decision to produce a particular structure based on metalinguistic knowledge. Indeed, this account could explain why we observed an effect of source-structure influence in Experiment 1, but no structural priming effect in Experiment 2. However, this explanation implicitly assumes that shining-through effects should mainly occur when translators have enough time to utilize their metalinguistic knowledge, and should at least be considerably reduced when translations are performed under severe time constraints. However, effects of source-language influence are well-known to also occur, and are possibly even enhanced, in extemporaneous translation or simultaneous interpreting (e.g. Chmiel, Janikowski, and Cieślewicz, Reference Chmiel, Janikowski and Cieślewicz2020). In simultaneous interpreting, transcoding (i.e., word-for-word translation) is even taught as an emergency strategy to be used when cognitive load exceeds available resources (Gile, 1995: 199; Donato, Reference Donato2003). Also, the account is inconsistent with the finding that literal translations are particularly easy to produce (e.g., Carl & Schaeffer, Reference Carl and Schaeffer2017) and assumed to constitute the first candidate for a translation (e.g., Toury, Reference Toury1995; Tirkkonen-Condit, Reference Tirkkonen-Condit2005; Tirkkonen-Condit, Mäkisalo, and Immonen, Reference Tirkkonen-Condit, Mäkisalo and Immonen2008; Schaeffer and Carl, Reference Schaeffer and Carl2013; Halverson, Reference Halverson2019), which is then evaluated and potentially adjusted at a later stage of processing.

If source-language influence is not based on co-activation at the level of grammatical representations (as expressed by cross-linguistic structural priming), it may instead be caused by co-activation at a different level of language processing. A key phenomenon from psycholinguistic research on bilingualism which constitutes a possible foundation for an account which can explain our findings is lexical co-activation. Theoretical accounts of bilingual lexical processing largely assume a single, integrated Mental Lexicon, in which lexical entries are connected to entries for their translation equivalents (e.g. Kroll and Stewart, Reference Kroll and Stewart1994; Dijkstra & van Heuven, Reference Dijkstra and van Heuven2002; Dijkstra, Wahl, Buytenhuijs, van Halem, Al-Jibouri, de Korte, and Rekké, Reference Dijkstra, Wahl, Buytenhuijs, van Halem, Al-Jibouri, de Korte and Rekké2019). Evidence from a considerable number of lexical translation priming studies (e.g. de Groot & Nas, Reference de Groot and Nas1991; Dimitropoulou, Duñabeitia, & Carreiras, Reference Dimitropoulou, Duñabeitia and Carreiras2011) suggests that, during lexical word recognition in bilinguals, the associations between translation equivalents lead to the automatic activation of the translation equivalent(s) for the word currently processed. The fact that translation priming effects also occur in masked priming, i.e., when the prime word is masked and presented for such a short time that it cannot be consciously perceived (see Wen & van Heuven, Reference Wen and van Heuven2017, for a review), suggests that lexical co-activation occurs at an early, automatic stage of lexical access. The effect is also not restricted to bilinguals with low L2 proficiency, but also occurs in highly proficient simultaneous bilinguals (e.g. Duñabeitia, Perea, and Carreiras, Reference Duñabeitia, Perea and Carreiras2009; Duñabeitia, Dimitropoulou, Uribe-Etxebarria, Laka, & Carreiras, Reference Duñabeitia, Dimitropoulou, Uribe-Etxebarria, Laka and Carreiras2010; Chaouch-Orozco, González Alonso, Duñabeitia, and Rothman, Reference Chaouch-Orozco, González Alonso, Duñabeitia and Rothman2023). Finally, lexical co-activation is not specific to contexts where words are presented in isolation, but has also been found in sentence context (e.g. Schwartz and Kroll, Reference Schwartz and Kroll2006; Schwartz and van Hell, Reference Schwartz, van Hell and Adelman2012; Hopp, Reference Hopp2017).

If we assume that serial lexical co-activation occurs for all words within a source sentence while the sentence is processed by the translator, this leads to the activation of a string of target-language words, which constitutes a potential initial candidate for a translation. As already mentioned, existing translation process models (e.g. Tirkkonen-Condit, Reference Tirkkonen-Condit2005; Hansen-Schirra, Nitzke, and Oster, Reference Hansen-Schirra, Nitzke, Oster, Hansen-Schirra, Czulo and Hofmann2017) assume a monitor process which checks an initial candidate sentence for grammaticality and appropriateness, and can modify it accordingly if necessary. If the respective language pair is structurally closely related, the word string activated through serial lexical co-activation may already constitute a grammatically correct translation, and may thus be produced, leading to substantial shining-through effects. Even if source and target language are not as closely related and the word string does not constitute a grammatically correct sentence in the target language, the monitor may be able to modify it (for instance by adding articles or inflectional affixes to the constituents) so that the resulting sentence meets the grammatical requirements of the target language.

The account sketched above can explain the differential data pattern we observed in the two experiments, and also offers an explanation for the mediating effect of translation competence we observed in the additional analysis for the translation data from Experiment 1: While serial lexical co-activation should occur in highly skilled and relatively less-skilled translators alike, highly competent translators likely possess sophisticated metalinguistic knowledge, which may cause the monitor to move away from the initial candidate for the translation, leading to freer, less literal translations. For example, with respect to the translation of an English PO source sentence into German, the monitor may be aware that the German dative alternation is strongly biased toward the DO structure. In translators with high competence scores, the monitor may thus move away from the initial PO candidate translation and decide to instead produce a DO translation, reducing shining-through effects in highly skilled translators.

To what extent can an account based on serial lexical co-activation also explain the findings from Maier et al.’s (Reference Maier, Pickering and Hartsuiker2017) previous study on source-structure influence in untrained translators? Recall that, in their Experiment 1, Maier and colleagues found a similar, but numerically stronger, effect of source structure influence as in our study. This finding is consistent with the claim that all translators, irrespective of translation training, activate a literal translation based on serial lexical co-activation as an initial candidate for a target sentence. While untrained translators largely stick to this initial candidate, the monitor in trained translators may take into account linguistic properties of the target language (such as the frequency of the respective structure) and, at least occasionally, move away from the initial candidate sentence, preferring a non-literal translation. As a result, trained translators should still show a degree of source-structure influence, but less so than individuals without any translation training. In their Experiment 2, Maier and colleagues found that source sentences with a German shifted DO structure showed an increased number of English PO translations (relative to a control condition with otherwise identical non-shifted DO sentences). The account sketched above offers a straightforward explanation for this finding: For German sentences with a shifted DO structure, the English word string activated through serial lexical co-activation does not form a grammatically correct English sentence (e.g. *The boy gave the bag the man.). The monitor subsequently checks this initial candidate translation for grammaticality, notices that the word string does not fulfill the requirements of English grammar, and tries to implement minimal corrections which turn the word string into a grammatically correct sentence. Arguably the simplest way to achieve this is to add the preposition to to the recipient complement, which leads to the production of a PO translation.

The proposed account is largely consistent with a number of key claims made by current translation process models. For instance, recall that the models proposed by Tirkkonen-Condit and colleagues (2005, 2008) and Schaeffer and Carl (Reference Schaeffer and Carl2013) assume that the processor initially activates a literal translation, which serves as the initial candidate for the to-be-produced target utterance. Our account provides an explanation for how this initial candidate for a translation emerges during processing of the source sentence. The second main component of our account, the monitor, is also a key part of these translation process models.

Finally, while our study shows that effects of source structure influence in translation are affected by translation competence as measured by the TICQ (Schaeffer et al Reference Schaeffer, Huepe, Hansen-Schirra, Hofmann, Muñoz, Kogan, Herrera, Ibáñez and García2020), it is not entirely clear to what extent this is also the case for translation experience in bilinguals without explicit translation training. Given that bilinguals often engage in translation tasks in their daily lives, it is possible that individuals with a high degree of practical translation experience show a similar effect of reduced source structure influence as our trained participants. We consider this a valuable field for future research.