Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system.
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| Title: | Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system. |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Sabourin, Laura1 sabourin@uoregon.edu, Stowe, Laurie A.1, De Haan, Ger J.1 |
| Source: | Second Language Research. Jan2006, Vol. 22 Issue 1, p1-29. 29p. 2 Charts, 5 Graphs. |
| Subject Terms: | *Second language acquisition, *Language acquisition, *Comparative grammar, *Gender, Dutch language |
| Abstract: | In this article second language (L2) knowledge of Dutch grammatical gender is investigated. Adult speakers of German, English and a Romance language (French, Italian or Spanish) were investigated to explore the role of transfer in learning the Dutch grammatical gender system. In the first language (L1) systems, German is the most similar to Dutch coming from a historically similar system. The Romance languages have grammatical gender; however, the system is not congruent to the Dutch system. English does not have grammatical gender (although semantic gender is marked in the pronoun system). Experiment 1, a simple gender assignment task, showed that all L2 participants tested could assign the correct gender to Dutch nouns (all L2 groups performing on average above 80%), although having gender in the L1 did correlate with higher accuracy, particularly when the gender systems were very similar. Effects of noun familiarity and a default gender strategy were found for all participants. In Experiment 2 agreement between the noun and the relative pronoun was investigated. In this task a distinct performance hierarchy was found with the German group performing the best (though significantly worse than native speakers), the Romance group performing well above chance (though not as well as the German group), and the English group performing at chance. These results show that L2 acquisition of grammatical gender is affected more by the morphological similarity of gender marking in the L1 and L2 than by the presence of abstract syntactic gender features in the L1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Copyright of Second Language Research is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) | |
| Database: | Education Research Complete |
| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Text: Availability: 0 |
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| Header | DbId: ehh DbLabel: Education Research Complete An: 19417395 AccessLevel: 6 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system. – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Sabourin%2C+Laura%22">Sabourin, Laura</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><i> sabourin@uoregon.edu</i><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Stowe%2C+Laurie+A%2E%22">Stowe, Laurie A.</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22De+Haan%2C+Ger+J%2E%22">De Haan, Ger J.</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Second+Language+Research%22">Second Language Research</searchLink>. Jan2006, Vol. 22 Issue 1, p1-29. 29p. 2 Charts, 5 Graphs. – Name: Subject Label: Subject Terms Group: Su Data: *<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Second+language+acquisition%22">Second language acquisition</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+acquisition%22">Language acquisition</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Comparative+grammar%22">Comparative grammar</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Gender%22">Gender</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Dutch+language%22">Dutch language</searchLink> – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: In this article second language (L2) knowledge of Dutch grammatical gender is investigated. Adult speakers of German, English and a Romance language (French, Italian or Spanish) were investigated to explore the role of transfer in learning the Dutch grammatical gender system. In the first language (L1) systems, German is the most similar to Dutch coming from a historically similar system. The Romance languages have grammatical gender; however, the system is not congruent to the Dutch system. English does not have grammatical gender (although semantic gender is marked in the pronoun system). Experiment 1, a simple gender assignment task, showed that all L2 participants tested could assign the correct gender to Dutch nouns (all L2 groups performing on average above 80%), although having gender in the L1 did correlate with higher accuracy, particularly when the gender systems were very similar. Effects of noun familiarity and a default gender strategy were found for all participants. In Experiment 2 agreement between the noun and the relative pronoun was investigated. In this task a distinct performance hierarchy was found with the German group performing the best (though significantly worse than native speakers), the Romance group performing well above chance (though not as well as the German group), and the English group performing at chance. These results show that L2 acquisition of grammatical gender is affected more by the morphological similarity of gender marking in the L1 and L2 than by the presence of abstract syntactic gender features in the L1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] – Name: AbstractSuppliedCopyright Label: Group: Ab Data: <i>Copyright of Second Language Research is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1191/0267658306sr259oa Languages: – Code: eng Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 29 StartPage: 1 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Second language acquisition Type: general – SubjectFull: Language acquisition Type: general – SubjectFull: Comparative grammar Type: general – SubjectFull: Gender Type: general – SubjectFull: Dutch language Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system. Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Sabourin, Laura – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Stowe, Laurie A. – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: De Haan, Ger J. IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Text: Jan2006 Type: published Y: 2006 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 02676583 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 22 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: Second Language Research Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
