Acceptance and Online Interpretation of "Gender-Neutral Pronouns": Performance Asymmetry by Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learners.

Zheng Ma,Shiying Xu,Shiyu Wu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.765777

Abstract

The present study (N = 109) set out to examine the role of cross-linguistic differences as a source of potential difficulty in the acceptance and online interpretation of the English singular they by Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners across two levels of second-language proficiency. Experiment 1 operationalized performance through an untimed acceptability judgment test and Experiment 2 through a self-paced reading task. Statistical analyses yielded an asymmetric pattern of results. Experiment 1 indicated that unlike native English speakers who generally accepted the singular they with all antecedent types, two Chinese EFL groups consisting of English majors (higher level) and non-English majors (lower level) both rated it as the least acceptable pronoun regardless of their proficiency level. In contrast, Experiment 2 demonstrated that like native English speakers, both Chinese EFL groups were not disrupted in their reading by the use of the singular they most of the time, although its online interpretation was modulated by L2 proficiency levels of the participants. While the English majors were not affected by the use of the singular they, the non-English majors spent a significantly longer time reading the latter region of the sentences where the singular they was used. In short, the results of the two experiments seem to indicate that under no time constraint, L2 speakers showed a heightened degree of grammar sensitivity, whereas when there was a time constraint, their grammatical sensitivity was reduced by a greater need to focus on meaning. The difficulty for Chinese EFL learners to acquire the singular they may be located at the restructuring of their existing knowledge of the plural feature of they [−PLURAL] in their mental lexicon and the adaptation to the sociocultural norms of the target language. The pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

Highlights

It has been well documented that cross-linguistic factors exert a significant influence on the learning of a target feature in a second language (L2; Odlin, 2003; Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008)
In Mandarin, no counterpart pronoun can be found. Given these cross-linguistic differences, a question arises: Can Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) attain a native-like performance level in their use of the singular they? To answer this question, the present study aims to identify the possible sources of difficulty for Chinese EFL learners in acquiring the singular they by focusing on the influence of both internal and external L1-related factors
To determine how the three groups of participants differed in their ratings of the use of the different pronouns among the different antecedent types, we fitted a generalized mixedeffects model with Poisson regression via the glmer function in the lme4 R package (Bates et al, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

It has been well documented that cross-linguistic factors exert a significant influence on the learning of a target feature in a second language (L2; Odlin, 2003; Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008). While in English, they is the only third-person plural form, there are two third-person plural forms in Mandarin They are homophones derived by adding the plural marker [mén] to the two separate singular third-person pronouns, namely, [ta—he] and [ta—she] (Qiu, 2013). In Mandarin, no counterpart pronoun can be found Given these cross-linguistic differences, a question arises: Can Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) attain a native-like performance level in their use of the singular they? The present study aims to identify the possible sources of difficulty for Chinese EFL learners in acquiring the singular they by focusing on the influence of both internal and external L1-related factors Given these cross-linguistic differences, a question arises: Can Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) attain a native-like performance level in their use of the singular they? To answer this question, the present study aims to identify the possible sources of difficulty for Chinese EFL learners in acquiring the singular they by focusing on the influence of both internal and external L1-related factors

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion