Two aspects of translation were investigated: (1) factors that affect translation quality, and (2) how equivalence between source and target versions can be evaluated. The variables of language, content, and difficulty were studied through an analysis of variance design. Ninety-four bilinguals from the University of Guam, representing ten languages, translated or back-translated six essays incorporating three content areas and two levels of difficulty. The five criteria for equivalence were based on comparisons of meaning or predictions of similar responses to original or translated versions. The factors of content, difficulty, language and content-language interaction were significant, and the five equivalence criteria proved workable. Conclusions are that translation quality can be predicted, and that a functionally equivalent translation can be demonstrated when responses to the original and target versions are studied.

Back-Translation for Cross-Cultural Research

This text explores the relationship between second language teaching practice and what is known about the process of second language acquisition and summarizes the current state of second language acquisition theory.-- Draws general conclusions about the application of theory to methods and materials and describes the characteristics that effective materials should include.-- Concludes that language acquisition occurs best when language is used for the purpose for which it was designed: communication.

http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf

Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a general theoretical framework of human memory and describes the results of a number of experiments designed to test specific models that can be derived from the overall theory. This general theoretical framework categorizes the memory system along two major dimensions. The first categorization distinguishes permanent, structural features of the system from control processes that can be readily modified or reprogrammed at the will of the subject. The second categorization divides memory into three structural components: the sensory register, the short-term store, and the long-term store. Incoming sensory information first enters the sensory register, where it resides for a very brief period of time, then decays and is lost. The short-term store is the subject's working memory; it receives selected inputs from the sensory register and also from long-term store. The chapter also discusses the control processes associated with the sensory register. The term control process refers to those processes that are not permanent features of memory, but are instead transient phenomena under the control of the subject; their appearance depends on several factors such as instructional set, the experimental task, and the past history of the subject.

Human memory ; A proposed system and its control processes

The hypothesis is offered that mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus object enhances his attitude toward it. By \"mere\" exposure is meant a condition making the stimulus accessible to the individual's perception. Support for the hypothesis consists of 4 types of evidence, presented and reviewed: (a) the correlation between affective connotation of words and word frequency; (b) the effect of experimentally manipulated frequency of exposure upon the affective connotation of nonsense words and symbols; (c) the correlation between word frequency and the attitude to their referents j (d) the effects of experimentally manipulated frequency of exposure on attitude. The relevance for the exposure-attitude hypothesis of the exploration theory and of the semantic satiation findings were examined.

/pdf/attitudinal-effects-of-mere-exposure-12e5gwrysc.pdf

Attitudinal effects of mere exposure.

The literature on interference in the Stroop Color-Word Task, covering over 50 years and some 400 studies, is organized and reviewed. In so doing, a set of 18 reliable empirical finding is isolated that must be captured by any successful theory of the Stroop effect. Existing theoretical positions are summarized and evaluated in view of this critical evidence and the 2 major candidate theories ―relative speed of processing and automaticity of reading― are found to be wanting. It is concluded that recent theories placing the explanatory weight on parallel processing of the irrelevant and the relevant dimensions are likely to be more sucessful than are earlier theories attempting to locate a single bottleneck in attention

/pdf/half-a-century-of-research-on-the-stroop-effect-an-31uxjoznng.pdf

Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: an integrative review.

The term 'additive bilingualism' to refer to the situation where an individual's first language is a societally dominant and prestigious one. It has typically been associated with positive social and cognitive characteristics of bilinguals, while subtractive bilingualism has typically been associated with negative social and cognitive characteristics. This chapter considers certain linguistic outcomes of French immersion education in an attempt to show how truly 'additive' the program has been. It examines aspects of immersion student's first language performance that indicate an enhancement of linguistic skills over those of unilingual English students. Four different measures of French proficiency were calculated for such features as verb, prepositional, and syntactic accuracy, lexical diversity and lexical uniqueness, accent, fluency, and discourse and strategic performance. The opinion essay was scored for number of words written, non homophonous grammatical errors, and a global judgement of 'good' writing involving two dimensions: complexity of sentence structure and phrasing, and incidence of spelling, grammatical, and syntactic errors.

Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning

1 During the summer of 2005, I discovered that there was not a copy of my dissertation available from the library at McGill University. I was, however, able to obtain a copy of it on microfilm from another university that had initially obtained it on interlibrary loan. I am most grateful to Vicki Galbraith who typed this version from that copy, which except for some minor variations due to differences in type size and margins (plus this footnote, of course) is identical to that on the microfilm. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 The writer is grateful to Dr. J. T. McIlhone, Associate General Director in Charge of English Classes of the Montreal Catholic School Board, for his kind cooperation in making subjects available, and to the Principals and French teachers of each high school for their assistance and cooperation during the testing programs. advice on the statistical analysis. In addition, the writer would like to express his appreciation to Mr. K. Tunstall for his assistance in the difficult task of interviewing the parents of each student. Finally, the writer would like to express his gratitude to Janet W. Gardner for her invaluable assistance in all phases of the research program.

/pdf/motivational-variables-in-second-language-acquisition-3b0n88yo69.pdf

Motivational variables in second-language acquisition

The relation of bilingualism to intelligence.

Regarding language as an identifying feature of a national or cultural group, English and French students were asked to evaluate English-speaking and French-speaking speakers. Bilinguists were used who recorded passages in both French and English. Ss rated on the basis of traits related to desirabil

Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.

This chapter examines bilingualism from a social-psychological perspective, one characterized not only by its interest in the reactions of the bilingual as an individual but also by the attention given to the social influences that affect the bilingual's behaviour and to the social repercussions that follow from his behaviour. Several of the studies have been conducted since 1958 in greater Montreal, where the conflict between English- and French-speaking Canadians is currently so sharp that some French Canadian (FC) political leaders in the Province of Quebec talk seriously about separating the Province from the rest of Canada, comprising a majority of English Canadians (ECs). The reactions to Continental French (CF) speakers are generally more favourable although less marked. The EC judges appear to be less concerned about European French people in general than they are about the local French people; the European French are neither downgraded nor taken as potential social models to any great extent.

/pdf/a-social-psychology-of-bilingualism-mn8eiiadqz.pdf

Wallace E. Lambert

Papers

Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning

Motivational variables in second-language acquisition

The relation of bilingualism to intelligence.

Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.

A Social Psychology of Bilingualism