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Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words

We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating t...

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Autores principales: Wen, Yun, van Heuven, Walter J. B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429370/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27325164
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0761-x
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author Wen, Yun
van Heuven, Walter J. B.
author_facet Wen, Yun
van Heuven, Walter J. B.
author_sort Wen, Yun
collection PubMed
description We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0761-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-54293702017-05-30 Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words Wen, Yun van Heuven, Walter J. B. Behav Res Methods Article We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0761-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2016-06-20 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5429370/ /pubmed/27325164 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0761-x Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Wen, Yun
van Heuven, Walter J. B.
Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title_full Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title_fullStr Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title_full_unstemmed Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title_short Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words
title_sort chinese translation norms for 1,429 english words
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429370/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27325164
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0761-x
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