EFL Learners’ Knowledge and Use of Gender Stereotypes: Evidence from Arabic Native Speakers

Nawal Alzahrani,Shelia M Kennison

doi:10.22158/selt.v5n4p632

Abstract

<p><em>The research explored EFL learners’ knowledge and use of gender stereotypes of common English nouns (e.g., doctor and nurse). In the study, we compared how EFL learners living in Saudi Arabia and native English speakers rated 24 nouns that can be used to refer to either males or females and how they interpreted sentences containing the gender-specific pronouns his and her preceded by one of the three types of these nouns (i.e., male stereotyped, female stereotyped, or gender neutral). The results showed that performance for EFL learners differed from native speakers’ in both tasks. EFL learners rated nouns as generally referring to males more often than did native English speakers. EFL learners were also significantly less likely to interpret her and his as referring to the preceding noun than were native English speakers. The results suggest that in EFL courses, learners are likely to benefit from explicit coverage of gender ambiguous English nouns and the topic of gender stereotyping as an important aspect of vocabulary knowledge.</em></p>

Highlights

For those learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), mastering the use of some English nouns is complicated by the fact that they can be used to refer to males or females, and some of these nouns are associated with gender stereotypes
In all analyses reported in this paper, type of participant was the between subjects variable, having two levels (i.e., EFL vs. native English speaker), noun type was the within subjects variable, having three levels
The results showed that EFL learners perceived nouns as generally referring to males more often than did native English speakers

Summary

Introduction

For those learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), mastering the use of some English nouns is complicated by the fact that they can be used to refer to males or females (i.e., are gender ambiguous), and some of these nouns are associated with gender stereotypes. Vol 5, No 4, 2017 learners acquire and use knowledge about the gender stereotypes for specific English nouns. In this brief report, we aimed to explore the extent to which the knowledge and use of gender stereotypes of ambiguous English nouns differ for EFL learners whose first language was Arabic from native English speakers living in the United States. When used to refer to a female, the noun would end with –a and be modified by la, as in 1b and 1c. Carreiras et al (1996) showed that native speakers of Spanish took longer to read the noun phrase when the gender stereotype of the noun differed from the gender marking of the noun

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