Investigating the Role of Prior Foreign Language Knowledge: Translating from an Unknown into a Known Foreign Language

Abstract

The motivation for our study is the assumption that foreign language learners browse through the lexicon/s of their different languages when reading, listening to, writing or speaking a specific target language, not only searching the mental lexicon/s of their L1(s) but also — to an even higher degree — their other foreign and second languages (see Jessner and Wei, this volume). As part of a larger project, the present study aims to highlight different stages and aspects of the foreign and second language production process. While some researchers believe (and find support for in their respective theoretical and methodological frameworks) that there is no salient or noticable difference between bilingual and multilingual learners with regard to the production of target language lexical elements (see for instance Dijkstra, this volume) others have found evidence that the L2 learner differs substantially from the L3 or Lx (x > 3) learner when perceiving and producing a second/foreign language (see for instance articles in Cenoz & Genesee, 1998a, Cenoz & Jessner, 2000, Cenoz, Hufeisen & Jessner, 2001a and 2001b).