Cross-language interactions during concurrent comprehension and production: Evidence from simultaneous interpreters [dataset]

It has been established that bilinguals activate both languages simultaneously even when only one language is being used. However, little is known about how the two languages are co-activated during simultaneous interpreting, a demanding task involving the explicit use of both languages and concurrent operation of comprehension and production. This study investigated (1) the effect of task on cross-language co-activation and (2) the time-course of co-activations triggered by form and meaning. Thirty-one professional interpreters were recruited to complete a cross-language task (English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting) and a within-language task (English-to-English shadowing) while their eye movements were tracked. Participants heard English passages which contained critical spoken words, each paired with a visual display of four Chinese words. One of the words in visual display was a competitor that resembled the translation equivalent of the spoken word in either form or meaning, and the other three were unrelated distractors. We found that participants directed more visual attention on word-form competitors compared to distractors at two stages: an early stage immediately after spoken word onset and a late one prior to (or during) production. Activation of semantic information, as indicted by more looks to semantic competitors, appeared only after spoken word offset. Our findings suggest that the time lag between input and output modulated the time-course of co-activation, providing implications for the serial versus parallel account of the cognitive processes underlying interpreting.

已有研究证实，双语使用者即便仅使用单一语言，也会同时激活两种语言。然而，针对同声传译（Simultaneous Interpreting）过程中两种语言的共激活机制，目前仍缺乏系统性认知——同声传译是一项需同时明确使用两种语言，并并行开展理解与语言产出的高难度任务。本研究旨在探究两大问题：（1）任务类型对跨语言共激活（Cross-language Co-activation）的影响；（2）由语言形式与语义触发的共激活时间进程。我们招募了31名专业译员，在眼动追踪（Eye Movement Tracking）范式下，让其完成两项实验任务：跨语言任务（英译汉同声传译）与单语言任务（英语跟读（Shadowing））。实验过程中，参与者聆听包含关键口语词汇的英语语篇，同时视觉呈现四张中文词语画面。视觉呈现的词语中，有一个为竞争词：该词要么在形式上、要么在语义上与该口语词汇的对等译语（Translation Equivalent）高度相似，其余三个则为无关干扰项。研究结果显示：在两个阶段中，参与者对形式类竞争词的视觉关注程度均显著高于干扰项——分别为口语词汇出现伊始后的早期阶段，以及产出前（或产出过程中）的晚期阶段。而语义类竞争词的激活，以对其更多的注视次数为表征，仅出现在口语词汇结束呈现之后。本研究结果表明，输入与输出之间的时间差会调控共激活的时间进程，这为阐释同声传译背后认知过程的序列式与并行式理论之争提供了重要的理论启示。