Bassetti, B. (2014) Is grammatical gender considered arbitrary or semantically motivated? Evidence from monolinguals, second language learners and early bilinguals. British Journal of Psychology 105(2), 273-294. DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12037 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Aims and Objectives / Purpose / Research questions: This article explores the connotations that emergent bilinguals attach to grammatical gender and discusses the difficulties adults experience when learning a second grammatical gender system. The results from a study of emergent bilinguals with French as a second language suggest that these difficulties can be partly explained by gender connotations associated with the grammatical gender of the lexical item in the bilingual’s first language. The paper also discusses the dynamic side of these gender-linked connotations by asking if they are modified when learning the grammatical gender of the lexical items in a second language. Design / Methodology / Approach: In the study, we surveyed 282 adult French L2 learners who were studying at two university language centers. Participants performed a voice attribution task, followed by a French grammatical gender production task. Data and Analysis: We analysed answers to the voice attribution task using a generalized linear mixed model. Findings / Conclusions: The results reveal a strong influence of the objects’ L1 grammatical gender, while we found no effects of L2 French grammatical gender on voice attribution. We did, however, observe an effect of the grammatical gender participants assigned to objects in the French grammatical gender production task. It appears that L2 grammatical gender has an influence on the voice attribution task, but that the effects are related to the participant’s own L2 French gender assignment, rather than to the correct French grammatical gender of the object. Originality: This research investigates the difficulties experienced by adults learning a second grammatical gender system by tasks used in studies on grammatical gender and (bilingual) cognition. Significance / Implications: The results exposed in this paper permit to discuss and precise the effects of grammatical gender on (bilingual) cognition by its focus on L2 grammatical gender learning.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2013
We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated with the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male-dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype-based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which...
The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 2008
We used a non-linguistic gender attribution task to determine how French and Spanish grammatical gender affects bilinguals' conceptual gender. French-English and Spanish-English bilingual, as well as English monolingual adults were asked to assign a male or female voice to 32 color drawings depicting people, animals, and common objects. French-English and Spanish-English bilinguals classified items according to French and Spanish grammatical gender respectively. This effect was replicated for French-English bilinguals on those items whose grammatical gender was opposite in French and Spanish. Unexpectedly, Spanish gender similarly affected classifications by Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals, as well as English monolinguals. We discuss how grammatical gender, possible covariates, and the order of L1 and L2 acquisition, affect conceptual gender as well as implications for decision making.
The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 2008
We used a non-linguistic gender attribution task to determine how French and Spanish grammatical gender affects bilinguals' conceptual gender. French-English and Spanish-English bilingual, as well as English monolingual adults were asked to assign a male or female voice to 32 color drawings depicting people, animals, and common objects. French-English and Spanish-English bilinguals classified items according to French and Spanish grammatical gender respectively. This effect was replicated for French-English bilinguals on those items whose grammatical gender was opposite in French and Spanish. Unexpectedly, Spanish gender similarly affected classifications by Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals, as well as English monolinguals. We discuss how grammatical gender, possible covariates, and the order of L1 and L2 acquisition, affect conceptual gender as well as implications for decision making.
Experimental research on grammatical gender and cognition provides evidence for grammatical gender effects on various aspects of speakers' cognition. Some researchers argue that such effects are limited to languages with a two-gender system. Other studies, however, find that the grammatical category of gender impacts on cognition also in languages with a three-gender system. Based on a sex attribution task, the present paper examines the relationship between grammatical gender and cognition in two languages with a three-gender system, Greek and German, and aligns with the second group of studies. The overall results are discussed in the light of previous research from a critical perspective.
Grammatical and conceptual forces in the attribution of gender by English and Spanish speakers
Cognitive Development, 1994
We compared the assignment of gender to masculine and feminine pictured objects-as classified by the Spanish grammar-by English-and Spanish-speaking children and adults in three experiments. Across all three studies, subjects participated in one of two conditions. In one condition, pictures alone were presented; in the other condition, pictures were shown and labeled. We found that speakers of Spanish began to classify the objects according to the grammatical gender of the Spanish language in the second grade, unlike speakers of English. The effect of grammatical gender was more pronounced for speakers of Spanish when the objects were labeled, pointing specifically to the role of language in their classifications. We also found that English speakers were consistent in their judgments, often classifying artificial objects as male-like and natural objects as female-like. Spanish speakers were also sensitive to the naturalfemale/artificial-male conceptual division. Finally, we found that the artificialmale/natural-female link was an earlier force in classification for speakers of English than grammatical gender was for speakers of Spanish, suggesting that grammatical classifications are superimposed on conceptual ones in development.
Conceptualizations of Gender in Language
Abstract Previous research has shown that speakers of gendered languages think about and categorize nouns in accordance with the noun's grammatical gender. Past studies have often used languages that do not mark grammatical gender as “genderless” control languages. We examine whether this characterization of non-gendered languages is in fact correct, by examining whether native speakers attribute gender to English nouns and adjectives.
Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions This article reviews recent research on how speaking a language that marks gender gramatically might affect thinking, and on the relationship between grammatical gender knowledge of more than one language, and thinking, in both early and emergent bilinguals. Design/Methodology/Approach The paper provides a comprehensive review of previous research, as well as an introduction to, and an evaluation of, the articles in this special issue. Findings/Conclusions Several themes emerge in the research on grammatical gender and thinking in bilinguals. First, knowledge of more than one language could reduce the effects of grammatical gender on thinking. Second, these effects may depend on the combination of languages being acquired. Third, researchers are starting to identify other variables that might affect when and how grammatical gender influences thinking, including proficiency and the choice of tasks. Originality This manuscript synthesizes the previously scattered research on grammatical gender and thinking in bilinguals. Significance/Implications This is the first full-length overview paper about the relationship between grammatical gender and thinking in speakers of more than one language.
Can language affect our cognition? The case of grammatical and conceptual gender
The present study investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. To this end, two experiments were designed. In the first experiment, German and Arabic native speakers' perceptions of similarity between objects and people were compared via picture matching tasks in which the participants were asked to match a series of people's pictures to pictures of a series of inanimate objects along with body parts. The pictures chosen were of opposite grammatical gender in German and Arabic (none of the chosen pictures was neuter in German). The results indicated that there was a significant difference between both groups' choice pattern, i.e., each group had a tendency to match the pictures based on their mother tongues' grammatical gender. Further, to investigate the effects of grammatical gender on concepts of objects in bilingual speakers of two languages that assign opposite gender to the same object, the second experiment was implemented. In experiment two, similar to experiment one, picture matching tasks were carried out by Spanish native speakers and Persian-Spanish bilinguals as experimental groups and Persian native speakers as control group. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between Spanish native speakers and Persian native speakers' performances. However, the inferential analysis did not show any significant difference between Persian-Spanish bilinguals' performance with those of the other two groups. The overall findings showed that mother tongue significantly affects the cognition of the speakers while second language does not have such salience in affecting the cognition.
Grammatical gender processing in bilinguals: An analytic review
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2019
In this review article, we analyze how grammatical gender is represented and processed in the bilingual mind. To that end, we review the data from 13 existing behavioral studies of mainly late second language (L2) learners on the so-called gender congruency (GC) effect (facilitated processing for translation equivalents with the same gender, in comparison to those with a different gender) in L2 production and comprehension. The majority of the results showed a GC effect, regardless of the type of language involved. However, the state of cognateness of the target nouns, as well as the similarity between the gender systems of the bilingual speakers and their L2 proficiency, modulated the results. Interestingly, a gender agreement context is not required in order to observe gender effects, in that they are also observed with bare nouns. Overall, the findings support an integrative view of bilingual gender representation, with competitive and inhibitory processes at different levels of language processing underlying cross-language GC effects.