The Effect of Lexical Frequency in Modulating Translation Asymmetries on L2 Learners

The study examinedresponse time in Chinese-English two-way translation in order to explore the role ofword frequency in modulating translation asymmetries between forward and backwardtranslation. 23 Chinese learners of English at two different proficiency levels performed aword translation task of 90 concrete nouns, one-syllable in English words and twocharacters in Chinese words. The results showed that there were asymmetries betweenthe two translation directions, with backward translation taking significantly longer timethan forward translation. Word frequency played a role in modulating the asymmetriesin that translating high-frequency items, regardless of direction, took significantly shortertime than the mid- and low-frequency items. But backward translation displayed largermagnitude of sensitivity to the variation of frequency than forward translation. It wassuggested that both forward and backward translation were conceptually-mediated withdiffering strength in the linking between the lexical items and their conceptualrepresentations, being stronger with high-frequency items than mid- and low-frequencyitems. Conceptual activation is easier for high frequency items.