Number-of-translation norms for Dutch-English translation pairs: A new tool for examining language production

Abstract

We collected number-of-translation norms on 562 Dutch-English translation pairs from several previous studies of cross-language processing. Participants were highly proficient Dutch-English bilinguals. Form and semantic similarity ratings were collected on the 1,003 possible translation pairs. Approximately 40% of the translations were rated as being similar across languages with respect to spelling/sound (i.e., they were cognates). Approximately 45% of the translations were rated as being highly semantically similar across languages. At least 25% of the words in each direction of translation had more than one translation. The form similarity ratings were found to be highly reliable even when obtained with different bilinguals and modified rating procedures. Number of translations and meaning factors significantly predicted the semantic similarity of translation pairs. In future research, these norms may be used to determine the number of translations of words to control for or study this factor. These norms are available at http://www.talkbank.org/norms/tokowicz/.