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Part of
Translation in Transition: Human and machine intelligence
Edited by Isabel Lacruz
[American Translators Association Scholarly Monograph Series XX] 2023
► pp. 183–202

Chapter 9
The translation ambiguity disadvantage in language processing

The influence of proficiency

| University of Pittsburgh

Many words can be translated in more than one way across languages. For example, the German word Kiefer can be translated into English as both pine and jaw. This mis-mapping of translations across languages, known as translation ambiguity, causes difficulty in language processing and language learning. Here, I discuss how translation ambiguity affects language processing in bilinguals of various proficiencies, including individuals who were raised bilingual. I further describe an analysis aimed at understanding how the disadvantage associated with translation ambiguity changes with increased second language proficiency.

Keywords: translation ambiguity, second language proficiency, dominant translation, non-dominant translation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Measuring translation ambiguity
  • Moderately proficient bilinguals
  • Analysis of the translation-ambiguity disadvantage with proficiency
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xx.09tok
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