'Don't forget to close the light!': ERP evidence for the facilitation of typical translation equivalents in bilingual processing

Many erroneous literal translations, often produced by low-proficiency bilinguals, can be attributed to a tendency to favor typical translation equivalents; however, the underlying neural mechanism remains poorly understood. This study investigated this typicality effect in real-Time translation with the event-related brain potential (ERP) technique. Mandarin Chinese-English bilinguals were presented with a Chinese verb phrase (e.g., kA i chuA nghù "open the window"or kA i diànnA o "turn on the computer") followed by an English verb (e.g., open (a typical translation) or turn on (an atypical translation)) and judged whether the English verb was an appropriate/congruent translation of the verb in the Chinese verb phrase previously presented (e.g., kA i). Compared to typical translation equivalents, atypical equivalents elicited an N400, indicating retrieval difficulty, and an f-PNP in congruent trials, reflecting the effort to inhibit typical translations and integrate atypical ones. This pattern may arise from differences in resting-level activation between typical and atypical equivalents.