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Lexical selection is a key process in any language-based communicative event, but in translation it occurs in the semantic network activated by two languages. The question asked in this article is how the direction in which translation proceeds affects the process and outcome of lexical selection by experienced bidirectional translators. The prediction from the available empirical evidence that lexical selection when translating into the translator’s L2 (learned language) is more cognitively demanding than when working into L1 (native language) is tested in an experimental study with translators who regularly translate into their L1 (Polish) and L2 (English). The participants performed verbal fluency tasks and translated two texts (a product description text and a film review) into their L1 and L2 (four texts in total). The entire process was recorded by key-logging, eye-tracking and screen capture programs. The results confirm that lexical selection is more demanding and less successful in L1"L2 translation, thus confirming the L2 cognitive disadvantage. Equipping translation students with effective error-preventing strategies and encouraging collaboration between translators and proofreaders could optimise lexical selection in L1"L2 translation.

Lexical selection is a key process in any language-based communicative event, but in translation it occurs in the semantic network activated by two languages. The question asked in this article is how the direction in which translation proceeds affects the process and outcome of lexical selection by experienced bidirectional translators. The prediction from the available empirical evidence that lexical selection when translating into the translator's L2 (learned language) is more cognitively demanding than when working into L1 (native language) is tested in an experimental study with translators who regularly translate into their L1 (Polish) and L2 (English). The participants performed verbal fluency tasks and translated two texts (a product description text and a film review) into their L1 and L2 (four texts in total). The entire process was recorded by key-logging, eye-tracking and screen capture programs. The results confirm that lexical selection is more demanding and less successful in L1→L2 translation, thus confirming the L2 cognitive disadvantage. Equipping translation students with effective error-preventing strategies and encouraging collaboration between translators and proofreaders could optimise lexical selection in L1→L2 translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade there has developed an acute awareness of the need to introduce abstraction and mathematical rigor into the programming process. This increased formality allows for the automatic manipulation of software, increasing productivity, and, even more importantly, the manageability of complex systems. Along these lines, attribute grammars constitute a formal mechanism for specifying translations between languages; from a formal description of the translation a translator can be automatically constructed. In this paper we consider taking this process one step further: given an attribute grammar specifying the translation from language L1 to language L2, we address the question of whether the inverse attribute grammar specifying the inverse translation from L2 to L1 can be automatically generated. We show how to solve this problem for a restricted subset of attribute grammars. This inversion process allows for compatible two-way translators to be generated from a single description. To show the practical feasibility of attribute grammar inversion, we relate our experience in inverting an attribute grammar used as an interface for a formal database accessing language, SQL. The attribute grammar is used to paraphrase SQL database queries in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]