Abstract
Gender has been extensively studied in Spanish heritage speakers. However, lexical frequency effects have yet to be explored in depth. This study aimed to uncover the extent to which lexical frequency affects the acquisition of gender assignment and gender agreement and to account for possible factors behind heritage language variability. Thirty-nine English-dominant heritage speakers of Spanish completed a lexical knowledge screening task (Multilingual Naming Test (MiNT)) along with an elicited production task (EPT), a forced choice task (FCT), and a self-rating lexical frequency task (SRLFT). Heritage speakers performed more successfully with high-frequency lexical items in both the EPT and the FCT, which examined their acquisition of gender assignment and gender agreement, respectively. Noun canonicity also affected their performance in both tasks. However, heritage speakers presented differences between tasks—we found an overextension of the masculine as well as productive vocabulary knowledge effects in the EPT, whereas the FCT showed an overextension of the feminine and no productive vocabulary knowledge effects. We suggest that lexical frequency, determined by the SRLFT, and productive vocabulary knowledge, as measured by the MiNT, account for the variability in the acquisition of gender assignment but not on gender agreement, supporting previous claims that production is more challenging than comprehension for bilinguals.
Highlights
Heritage speakers (HS) have been shown to exhibit an unstable knowledge of gender agreement.Their data evidence more difficulty with feminine nouns in comparison with masculine nouns and with non-canonical rather than canonical noun endings (Montrul et al 2008, 2013, 2014)
We suggest that lexical frequency, determined by the self-rating lexical frequency task (SRLFT), and productive vocabulary knowledge, as measured by the Multilingual Naming Test (MiNT), account for the variability in the acquisition of gender assignment but not on gender agreement, supporting previous claims that production is more challenging than comprehension for bilinguals
Our results show that productive vocabulary knowledge applied to gender assignment tested by the elicited production task (EPT), but it did not extend to gender agreement
Summary
Heritage speakers (HS) have been shown to exhibit an unstable knowledge of gender agreement. Their data evidence more difficulty with feminine nouns in comparison with masculine nouns and with non-canonical rather than canonical noun endings (Montrul et al 2008, 2013, 2014). Instability has been found in other areas of heritage grammars in close relationship to lexical frequency in the input (Giancaspro 2017; Hur 2020). Putnam and Sánchez (2013) suggest that instead of focusing on quantity or quality of input, the focus should be on frequency of activation (processing for comprehension and production that results in intake of the heritage language), a crucial factor in heritage language acquisition and maintenance.
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