Web-based experiments in mediated receptive multilingualism

Abstract

The article focuses on phenomena of cross-lingual comprehension mediated by a bridge language. In a web-based experiment, German speaking subjects – without any previous knowledge of Bulgarian – translate written Bulgarian stimuli relying on some knowledge of Russian. We investigate the importance of the selected individual and linguistic factors for success in mediated receptive multilingualism. Proficiency in reading in Russian and orthographic distance between Russian and Bulgarian cognates are the most important predictors.