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Interpretation of uncertainty expressions : a cross-national study / Timothy S. Doupnik and Martin Richter. [Universität Potsdam, Lehrstuhl für Rechnungswesen und Wirtschaftsprüfung]
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attributed to differences in language-culture, and not to translation.

To test Hypothesis 3(translation effect), the responses from the WP/English and WP/German groups were compared. Means are significantly different for four expression-pairs (see Table 3, Column 9). The four German expressions in these pairs are the two extreme high probabilities(Gewissheit 96.73% andso gut wie sicher 91.87%) and the two lowest probabilities(Wahrscheinlichkeit ausserst gering 1.46% andsehr zweifelhaft 13.05%). In all four cases, the German expression is assigned a probability that is more extreme than the English expression it translates.

To further test for a translation effect, the WPs responses to Part 1(German expressions) and to Part 2(English expressions) of questionnaire GE2 were compared for those individuals who responded to both parts.(A total of 33 responded to both parts, but two were eliminated because of inconsistent responses in Part 1.) The results of paired samples t-tests reported in Table 4 indicates eight expression-pairs with significant differences. The four extreme(two highest and two lowest) expression-pairs were again different, with the German expression having the more extreme probability. In addition, significant differences were found for the two translations of the wordprobable(wahrscheinlich andhinreichend wahrscheinlich), the translation ofnot probable(nicht wahrscheinlich), and one of the translations ofno longer

probable(nicht mehr wahrscheinlich). In each of these cases, the WPs assigned a more

extreme probability to the German expression than to its English equivalent.

significant differences in Column 8.