Lexical Gender Research Articles

The role of differential cross-linguistic influence and other constraints in predictive L2 gender processing

Previous studies on the use of morphosyntactic gender cues for linguistic prediction show that non-native speakers’ use of grammatical gender information is influenced by various factors. In the present study, we examined the influence of differential cross-linguistic influence (DCLI), knowledge of L2 lexical gender, gender congruency, and L2 fluency. To this end, we investigated L1 Oromo L2 Amharic speakers as well as L1 Amharic speakers, using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) and supplementary offline experiments. We investigated two groups of L2 Amharic speakers, i.e., L1 Eastern Oromo L2 Amharic and L1 Western Oromo L2 Amharic speakers. The Eastern Oromo dialect patterns with Amharic in terms of gender agreement unlike the Western Oromo dialect which does not have grammatical gender. Analyses of the participants’ proportion of eye fixations show that early exposure to the gendered Eastern Oromo dialect facilitates predictive L2 gender processing. L2 fluency, the speakers’ knowledge of L2 lexical gender, and specific properties of the gender cues modulate predictive L2 gender processing. However, there is no significant influence of lexical gender congruency. The study has ecological significance as it presents empirical data from understudied languages.

Cross-linguistic effects in grammatical gender assignment and predictive processing in L1 Greek, L1 Russian, and L1 Turkish speakers of Norwegian as a second language

The present study examines grammatical gender knowledge in offline production (gender marking on indefinite articles) and online gender processing (visual world paradigm) in adult second language (L2) learners of Norwegian with three different first languages (L1s): Greek, Russian, and Turkish. In particular, it investigates the role of the following factors: (1) presence vs. absence of grammatical gender in L1 (Norwegian, Greek and Russian have gender, whereas Turkish does not), (2) lexical gender congruency, (3) structural similarity between L1 and L2 in the realization of gender, and (4) proficiency in L2. In offline production, no difference was found between the three L2 groups: they all overused the default gender (masculine). However, L1 effects were observed in the eye-tracking task, where the high-proficiency L1 Greek and L1 Russian speakers showed earlier and more prominent signs of predictive gender processing compared to the high-proficiency L1 Turkish speakers. There were no effects of lexical gender congruency or structural similarity. This suggests that, when it comes to predictive gender processing, what matters is proficiency and the presence vs. absence of grammatical gender in the L1. We interpret the findings in the context of current approaches to predictive processing emphasizing the role of cue reliability and utility.

The effect of asymmetric grammatical gender systems on second language processing: Evidence from ERPs

Aims and objectives: This study examined the effect of the first language (L1) grammatical gender (GG) system on the second language (L2) gender agreement processing, particularly when L1 and L2 are asymmetric in their number of gender values such as in Spanish and German languages. Methodology: Behavioral and brain responses (ERPs) were registered while German native-speakers (16) and Spanish-German bilinguals (24) read sentences for comprehension. We manipulated gender agreement between the determiner and the noun: Der/*die Ring, “themasc/*thefem ringmasc.” The nouns were either of similar or opposite gender across languages or unique in L2 (neuter gender). Data and analysis: Behavioral responses measured participants’ ability to discriminate grammatical from ungrammatical sentences. For ERPs, N400 and P600 components were analyzed by means of a linear mixed-effect model. Findings/conclusion: Behavioral data showed that German native-speakers discriminated gender agreement violations better than Spanish-German bilinguals, irrespective of lexical gender overlap across languages. Native speakers showed a P600 effect to gender agreement violations, whereas bilinguals showed an N400-like effect to gender mismatches that involved same-gender nouns across languages and neuter gender nouns. Interestingly, opposite gender nouns between L1 and L2 that agreed in gender with the determiner were processed as incorrect for the bilinguals. These results suggest transfer effects from L2 learners’ L1 GG system that facilitate L2 gender agreement processing for similar and neuter gender nouns or hinder it for opposite gender nouns across languages. Originality: This study used ERPs to demonstrate how asymmetries in terms of the number of lexical gender categories between L1 and L2 GG systems can affect L2 learners’ ability to process L2 gender agreement in a native-like manner. Significance/implications: These findings elucidate the challenges L2 learners face when learning a three-gender value system in L2, including a great number of gender incongruences between L1 and L2 nouns and a new neuter gender category.

Gender Agreement Given Correct Assignment: The Case of L2 Spanish Learners

Abstract: The current study contributes to the argument regarding whether L2 learners up to advanced levels make agreement errors on grammatical gender. It reports gender agreement accuracy on a written Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) and an Elicited Oral Production Task (PDT) on known nouns assigned the correct gender by participants on a vocabulary test. Participants were 15 intermediate and 15 advanced second language Spanish learners (first language English), and 15 native Spanish speakers. Overall results found that intermediate learner agreement scores differed significantly from those of native speakers on the GJT and PDT, but advanced learner scores did not differ from those of native Spanish speakers on either task. Findings for advanced learners demonstrate that once these learners know the meaning of a noun and can correctly assign its gender, gender agreement is relatively unproblematic. Results of the present study reinforce the importance of focusing learner attention on gender assignment while teaching noun meanings at least through intermediate levels, to aid in gender agreement accuracy by strengthening co-occurrence relations between nouns and their modifiers. Findings are discussed in terms of the lexical gender learning hypothesis (Grüter et al. 2012), which focuses on the relationship of input and experience to gender acquisition.

Gender agreement with common nouns

The paper examines the distribution of gender agreement patterns with common gender nouns and the factors influencing the choice of a particular agreement pattern in Russian. After conducting a series of sentence completion and acceptability judgement experiments, we argue that referential agreement is the most preferable agreement model. Mismatch with a male referent is unacceptable; for the female referent it is marginal and dependent on the type of construction, but the acceptability and sentence completion data come into conflict. Mixed agreement is unacceptable. I show that common gender nouns do not possess lexical gender, and mismatch occurs due to agreement with default masculine gender

De dynamiek van geslachtsmarkering in de Noord-Brabantse dialecten

Abstract The present paper discusses gender marking, i.e. the morphological marking of masculine, feminine and neuter lexical gender in the adnominal domain, in Brabantish dialects spoken in the southern Dutch province North-Brabant. Gender markers belong to the most salient features of North-Brabantish, but with a process of dialect levelling well on its way for at least fifty years, knowledge of lexical gender is fading away. This study delves into these variation patterns. The results of a quantitative analysis of written questionnaires (mainly filled out by elderly dialect speakers, N=700) triggered us to conduct a small in-depth study of speech data from adolescents in the Eindhoven region (N=15). Based on these data, we argue that there is a high level of heterogeneity when it comes to adnominal gender marking. In this paper, we aim at describing and categorizing the various types of variation. The data includes omissions of the traditional Brabantish masculine gender marking, indicating that speakers are converging towards Standard Dutch. However, the data also reveals that in 30% of all utterances speakers apply gender marking in multiple ways. We find three types of variation: 1) masculine gender marking is only partly applied in comparison to the traditional rules of dialect grammar (compromise-constructions), 2) masculine gender markers appear in noun groups where they should not appear according to the dialect grammar (e.g. feminine, neuter, plural), so-called hyperdialectisms, and 3) speakers use innovative gender marking constructions: accumulate forms with two masculine suffixes, so-called hypermarkings. Based on previous research, we argue that typical dialect features, such as gender markers, are part of a regional speech style and play an important role in identity formation. As shibboleths of such a speech style, gender markers are over-generalized by speakers who want to profile themselves as ‘genuinely’ Brabantish. Also, individual patterns of gender marking indicate that salience in non-canonical sentence structures (e.g. focus) might be an important factor when it comes to emphasizing a deviation from the standard language, in line with (regional) identity construction through the use of shibboleths. Future research is necessary to validate these initial findings.

Sexist Expressions in Nyakyusa

The way people use language determines and (or) reflects their experience in their social context; the use of everyday language becomes a lens through which people behave and see their world and at other time it is the social practices that influence certain choices of language used by community members. For that reason research on how languages affect women’s image in different speech communities is highly needed for the sake of saving women’s face. This brought to the attention the concept of language and gender in applied linguistics whose focus is on how language use and labelling is associated with gender differences. And those language forms that show gender bias are known as sexist expressions. Drawing on the above scenario, the present study explores sexist expressions in Nyakyusa language using data collected from four Nyakyusa speaking people as key informants through mobile phone interviews. Data were analysed thematically in which I generated themes from coded and categorised data. Findings show that Nyakyusa exhibits elements of sexism through five forms of sexist expressions namely referential gender, social gender, lexical gender, proverbs and idioms and agreements. The researcher calls for creation of awareness among Nyakyusa speech communities for reformation of sexist expressions.

Indexing gender, culture, and cognition

In their inaugural Editorial for the Journal of Language and Discrimination, van der Bom, Mills and Peterson observed that language plays a key role in discriminatory acts. I quote their words: ‘Discrimination is manifest (and can be traced and challenged) discursively; ideological stances and beliefs are produced, reproduced and legitimised through discourse, meaning that language is intertwined with people’s beliefs and ideologies’ (2017:3). This special issue targets the role of gendered language structures in sustaining gender ideologies that reinforce sexism. Contributions in the issue address the following questions: What is the relationship between grammatical and lexical gender, and the construction of social gender? Do gendered terms generate inferences about the social gender order and mediate speakers’ thinking of the social world? Can we explore conceptualisations of gender at the level of discourse? What is the cognitive effect of the generic use of the masculine gender, and what are the cognitive mechanisms underlying gender inequality? The debate on the role of language in producing and stabilising the social gender order can be traced to the early work of feminist linguists in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. Lakoff (1975) treated language as a medium that reflects women’s subordination and men’s domination at the social level, and Spender (1980) focused on the role of language in constructing and reproducing a man-made worldview that silences female difference. Early feminist linguistic work (e.g. Baron 1986; Bodine 1975; Eakins and Eakins 1978; Graham 1975; Miller and Swift 1976; Schulz 1975) examined gendered forms, for which the semantic distinction of sex is grammaticised or lexically specified, and their role in encoding and reproducing social gender inequality. However, questions about structural features of language were downplayed or neglected in the following years due to the performativity turn in gender studies (see Motschenbacher 2016 for a critical approach). The latest developments in language and gender research have criticised the binary and static view of gender, foregrounded variation within the categories of ‘women’ and ‘men’, and showed that language does not relate to gender in a straightforward way (general overviews of research on language and gender are found in Bucholtz 2014 and Cameron 2005). In recent years there has been revived interest in the role of gendered language structures in constructing and challenging the binary gender order and heteronormativity (see, e.g., Abbou and Baider 2016; Bing and Bergvall 1996; Hellinger and Busmann 2001–2002–2003; Hellinger and Motschenbacher 2015; Livia and Hall 1997; Motschenbacher 2010). Researchers claiming that language constructs social gender and maintains gender inequality often tacitly presuppose or imply that language has a cognitive role, namely, that language mediates the way in which speakers interpret experience. However, cognition is rarely addressed explicitly in language and gender research. The past few years have seen new data on the relation between grammatical and lexical gender, and cognition from studies in psychology (Garnham et al. 2016), typology (Aikhenvald 2016) and talk-in-interaction (Alvanoudi 2014). Despite a number of in-depth works on the relation between gendered language structures and social gender, there has been no attempt to offer a systematic account of the cognitive aspects of this relation. This special issue is intended to partly fill this gap by exploring the complex interface between indexing gender, culture and cognition across different languages, namely Croatian, English, Greek and Italian. The sections ‘Indexing gender’, ‘Indexing gender and culture’ and ‘Indexing gender and cognition’ outline some theoretical preliminaries for the contributions included in this special

Looking up improves performance in verbal tasks

ABSTRACTEarlier research suggested that gaze direction has an impact on cognitive processing. It is likely that horizontal gaze direction increases activation in specific areas of the contralateral cerebral hemisphere. Consistent with the lateralization of memory functions, we previously showed that shifting gaze to the left improves visuo-spatial short-term memory. In the current study, we investigated the effect of unilateral gaze on verbal processing. We expected better performance with gaze directed to the right because language is lateralized in the left hemisphere. Also, an advantage of gaze directed upward was expected because local processing and object recognition are facilitated in the upper visual field. Observers directed their gaze at one of the corners of the computer screen while they performed lexical decision, grammatical gender and semantic discrimination tasks. Contrary to expectations, we did not observe performance differences between gaze directed to the left or right, which is consistent with the inconsistent literature on horizontal asymmetries with verbal tasks. However, RTs were shorter when observers looked at words in the upper compared to the lower part of the screen, suggesting that looking upwards enhances verbal processing.

Sadutettu sanasto: puhutun kielen leksikaalinen diversiteetti arviointikohteena


 
 
 This study analyses lexical diversity (sums of probabilities) in spoken narratives of L1 and L2 school age children (n = 99) and compares the results to the lexical diversity of written narratives of the group of comparison. The key research questions are: a) does the lexical diversity of the spoken narratives systematically differ from the lexical diversity of written narratives and b) does the lexical diversity of spoken narratives systematically differ depending on five individual variables: lexical skills, language proficiency, L1 , gender and age of the speaker? All the narratives are produced in Finnish in storytelling events during the spring semester of the 2d and 3rd school year. Sums of probabilities is an index of lexical diversity. It is based on widely used D (Malvern & Richards ) and can be used with texts that differ in length and genre.
 The results reveal a weak but significant difference between the lexical diversity of spoken and written narratives and weak but complex correlations between the lexical diversity of spoken narratives and the proficiency level as well as the lexical skills of the child. However, there is no correlation or other appreciable connection between the lexical diversity and language background (L1 /L2 ), gender or the school grade of the child. In addition, in L2 group there is no connection between the lexical diversity and the length of residence in Finnish speaking environment or, between the lexical diversity and the specific language difficulties observed by their teacher, either. The results are discussed and compared with the individual differences in turns and turn-taking during the storytelling event tentatively.
 
 

A corpus-based analysis of pronoun choice in German relative clauses

AbstractThis paper investigates the conditions that govern the choice between the German neuter singular relative pronounsdas‘that’ andwas‘what’. We show thatdasrequires a lexical head noun, while in all other caseswasis usually the preferred option; therefore, the distribution ofdasandwasis most successfully captured by an approach that does not treatwasas an exception but analyzes it as the elsewhere case that applies when the relativizer fails to pick up a lexical gender feature from the head noun. We furthermore show how the non-uniform behavior of different types of nominalized adjectives (positives allow both options, while superlatives triggerwas) can be attributed to semantic differences rooted in syntactic structure. In particular, we argue that superlatives selectwasdue to the presence of a silent counterpart of the quantifieralles‘all’ that is part of the superlative structure.

Anders, of toch niet?

Samenvatting Both in Dutch and to a lesser extent in German, pronouns can agree with a noun’s lexical gender or be chosen on semantic grounds. It is well-known that for non-human antecedents, Dutch seems to be shifting towards a more semantic system, via a process labelled ‘hersemantisering’, in which gender marking on the pronoun increasingly depends on the degree of individuation of the antecedent. This article presents a psycholinguistic investigation on how German learners of Dutch as a foreign language (NVT), who distinguish between three nominal genders in their native language, handle the Dutch gender system, which has largely lost its three-way nominal gender, and in which resemanticisation has progressed significantly. More specifically, a speeded grammaticality judgement task (GJ) was used in conjunction with a sentence completion task to examine the German NVT-learners’ perception as well as the production of pronominal gender in the L2 (in this case Dutch). It was found that German learners of Dutch judge more combinations of pronouns and their antecedents to be grammatical than they actually use. However, unlike in Flanders and the Netherlands, grammatical gender still trumps semantic gender, which we explain as a L1 transfer effect. In addition, the role of participants’ proficiency in Dutch is discussed.

Gender constraint in L1 and L2 reflexive pronoun resolution by Chinese-English bilinguals

Abstract Previous behavioral research indicates that native speakers of Chinese are not very sensitive to lexical gender information, and one question that remains is how the rule of gender constraint functions in L1 and L2 reflexive pronoun resolution by Chinese-English bilinguals. To answer the question, the present study conducted two ERP experiments in which participants' ERP responses to L1 and L2 reflexive pronouns that were either congruent or incongruent with their antecedents were recorded and analyzed. Gender incongruity effect was observed in the L1 in the form of left anterior negativity effect (LAN) within 350–450 ms, but in the L2 in the form of midline enhanced positivity within 300–500 ms. Then, within a later time window of 500–800 ms, the P600 component was observed for gender incongruity in both the L1 and the L2. However, large variance was observed in the participants' behavioral performance in the non-native language, and the amplitude of the P600 effect decreased linearly with the participants’ inability to detect gender incongruity. The above findings demonstrate that the rule of gender constraint functions similarly in L1 and L2 reflexive pronoun resolution by Chinese-English bilinguals, but nevertheless the exact mechanism employed for the L1 and the L2 was not the same, with an LAN-P600 pattern for the L1 but an Earlier Positivity-P600 pattern for the L2. Moreover, the large variance in L2 processing should be taken into consideration in future research on L2 reflexive pronoun resolution.

Word order denotes relevance differences: The case of conjoined phrases with lexical gender.

This work explores the order of linguistic references to the two genders (e.g., men and women vs. women and men). It argues that a gender is more likely to be mentioned first when it is perceived to have higher relevance in a context rather than lower relevance, and audiences assign stronger relevance to a party when the party is mentioned first rather than second. Studies 1-3 document the current prevalence of male-first conjoined phrases in the public (but not family) domain and link the pattern to historical changes in women's public presence over the 20th century. Study 4 shows that contextual relevance cues affect the odds of first mention, such that people are more likely to refer to a woman before a man, when the two are in a primary school classroom rather than a corporate office. At the same time, Studies 4 and 5 find that people often choose to reproduce collectively preferred word order patterns (e.g., men and women). Studies 6 and 7 show that these choices matter because people assign more relevance to a party when it comes first rather than second in a conjoined phrase. Overall, this work offers theoretical grounding and empirical evidence for word order as a means of expressing and perpetuating gender stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Diachrony of Semantic Gender Agreement: Findings from Middle Dutch

This paper presents the results of a corpus study of pronominal gender agreement in Middle Dutch. In present-day Dutch and in several other Germanic varieties, pronouns show semantic gender agreement that is based on the degree of individuation of the referent. Dutch pronouns show variation between this type of agreement and lexical gender agreement. This study investigates how old semantic agreement based on individuation is. In particular, it aims to answer the question of whether semantic agreement has developed in response to the change from the Germanic three-gender system to a two-gender system or dates back to before this change. The results show that agreement based on individuation already existed in Middle Dutch, when the original three-gender system was still in place. This shows that this type of agreement did not develop in response to the change from three to two nominal genders. The semantic interpretation of the genders along the lines of individuation apparently existed already and could be an old Germanic, possibly Indo-European, feature. What seems to have changed over time is the proportion of semantic to lexical agreement, as semantic agreement appears to occur more frequently in present-day Dutch than in Middle Dutch. This shift in agreement preference may be due to the loss of adnominal gender marking and the resulting reduced visibility of lexical gender in the noun phrase.

The role of language similarity in processing second language morphosyntax: Evidence from ERPs

This study investigated the role of L1–L2 morphosyntactic similarity in L2 learners of French. In two experiments, we manipulated the grammatical gender agreement between an adjective and noun in a sentence context. The noun either shared lexical gender across Spanish and French (Experiment 1) or did not (Experiment 2). ERPs were collected from beginner Spanish-speaking learners of French and native French speakers while they read sentences in French. The results for the native speakers revealed a P600 effect on gender agreement violations irrespective of lexical gender overlap across languages. L2 learners exhibited a negativity in the N400 time window in response to gender agreement violations that involved nouns with the same gender in their L1 and L2 (Experiments 1 and 2), whereas no difference was observed to gender agreement violations that involved nouns with contradictory gender across languages (Experiment 2). These results suggest that L2 learners at low levels of L2 proficiency rely on their L1 lexical gender system to detect gender agreement errors in L2, but engage different neurocognitive mechanisms to process similar L2 morphosyntactic knowledge.

Supplemental Material for Word Order Denotes Relevance Differences: The Case of Conjoined Phrases With Lexical Gender

Supplemental Material for Word Order Denotes Relevance Differences: The Case of Conjoined Phrases With Lexical Gender

Learning (not) to predict: Grammatical gender processing in second language acquisition

In two experiments, this article investigates the predictive processing of gender agreement in adult second language (L2) acquisition. We test (1) whether instruction on lexical gender can lead to target predictive agreement processing and (2) how variability in lexical gender representations moderates L2 gender agreement processing. In a pretest–posttest design, Experiment 1 trained 34 intermediate first language (L1) English learners of German on gender assignment. After training, the L2 group showed predictive gender processing; yet, performance correlated with accuracy in gender assignment. Experiment 1 suggests that target knowledge of lexical gender in the L2 lexicon is a prerequisite for predictive use of gender agreement in L2 syntax: Non-target gender assignment would lead to partially erroneous gender prediction such that use of gender agreement is costly for the parser and therefore abandoned. To test this account, Experiment 2 investigated predictive processing in 42 German native speakers who have target-like gender assignment and agreement. In a between-group design, one group received target input and the other received filler items with non-target gender assignment. The latter group subsequently stopped using gender agreement predictively in all experimental trials. Hence, L2 problems with gender agreement can be emulated in native processing. Taken together, the experiments suggest that variability of lexical gender assignment affects processing of gender agreement in natives and non-natives. We interpret the findings in the context of current probabilistic theories of implicit learning and processing adaptation.

Gendering selves, gendering others – in (Greek) interaction

Until quite recently, research on gender and interaction revolved primarily around the use of gendered categories and third person reference in the English language. Based on data from Greek talk-in-interaction, the aim of this paper is to point to some non-referential aspects of gendering. More specifically, adopting a conversation analytic perspective, instances of collective and individual self-reference – in itself not gendered in Greek – are analysed and shown to acquire gendered meanings in the specific context, without the deployment of terms or categories marked by grammatical or lexical gender. Such self-genderings impact on the gendering of recipients via the reflexivity of participants’ roles in interaction. Gendering oneself and others thus emerges as a dynamic process that fully exploits the inherent features of interaction, in interplay with the specific means that a language makes available to its users.

L2 multiple nominal feature agreement in German: the acquisition of grammatical gender in a formal environment

AbstractThis work reports on accuracy in grammatical gender marking by Italian adults learning German in a formal environment. It aims at investigating whether adult speakers of a [+gender] language who are acquiring a [+gender] L2 language can master a complex gender agreement system given the crucial role played either by other morphosyntactic features in the L2 nominal inflection. Moreover, it explores the role that L2 input (formal instruction; access to the L2 outside classroom activities) may (not) have in this particular domain of language acquisition. Findings indicate that L1 transfer – the fact that [gender] is morphologically realized in both languages although the Italian system is not congruent to the German one – and formal instruction do not play a crucial role in the population investigated for this study. Overall, results show that acquiring lexical gender seems to be possible from early on, whereas mastering more complex agreement configurations where multiple morphosyntactic factors interact on gender marking on nominal elements is problematic even if the category gender is present in the L1.