Word reading and translation in bilinguals: the impact of formal and informal translation expertise

Studies on bilingual word reading and translation have examined the effects of lexical variables (e.g., concreteness, cognate status) by comparing groups of non-translators with varying levels of L2 proficiency. However, little attention has been paid to another relevant factor: translation expertise (TI). To explore this issue, we administered word reading and translation tasks to two groups of non-translators possessing different levels of informal TI (Experiment 1), and to three groups of bilinguals possessing different levels of translation training (Experiment 2). Reaction-time recordings showed that in all groups reading was faster than translation and unaffected by concreteness and cognate effects. Conversely, in both experiments, all groups translated concrete and cognate words faster than abstract and non-cognate words, respectively. Notably, an advantage of backward over forward translation was observed only for low-proficiency non-translators (in Experiment 1). Also, in Experiment 2, the modifications induced by translation expertise were more marked in the early than in the late stages of training and practice. The results suggest that TI contributes to modulating inter-equivalent connections in bilingual memory.Fil: García, Adolfo Martín. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe; Colombia. Australian Research Council; Australia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Huepe, David. Universidad Diego Portales; ChileFil: Houck, Alexander L.. University of Tennessee; Estados UnidosFil: Michon, Maeva. Universidad Diego Portales; ChileFil: Gelormini Lezama, Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Chadha, Sumeer. Universidad Diego Portales; ChileFil: Rivera Rei, Álvaro. Universidad Diego Portales; Chil

Attempto - From Specifications in Controlled Natural Language towards Executable Specifications

Deriving formal specifications from informal requirements is difficult since one has to take into account the disparate conceptual worlds of the application domain and of software development. To bridge the conceptual gap we propose controlled natural language as a textual view on formal specifications in logic. The specification language Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a subset of natural language that can be accurately and efficiently processed by a computer, but is expressive enough to allow natural usage. The Attempto system translates specifications in ACE into discourse representation structures and into Prolog. The resulting knowledge base can be queried in ACE for verification, and it can be executed for simulation, prototyping and validation of the specification.Comment: 15 pages, compressed, uuencoded Postscript, to be presented at EMISA Workshop 'Naturlichsprachlicher Entwurf von Informationssystemen - Grundlagen, Methoden, Werkzeuge, Anwendungen', May 28-30, 1996, Ev. Akademie Tutzin