MT syntactic priming effects on L2 English speakers

摘要

In this paper, we tested 20 Brazilian Portuguese speakers at intermediate and advanced English proficiency levels to investigate the influence of Google Translate's MT system on the mental processing of English as a second language. To this end, we employed a syntactic priming experimental paradigm using a pretest-priming design which allowed us to compare participants' linguistic behaviour before and after a translation task using Google Translate. Results show that, after performing a translation task with Google Translate, participants more frequently described images in English using the syntactic alternative previously seen in the output of Google Translate, compared to the translation task with no prior influence of the MT output. Results also show that this syntactic priming effect is modulated by English proficiency levels.