scholarly journals Gender Agreement in Online Versus Classroom Students of First-Semester Spanish

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana María Díaz Collazos ◽  
David Vásquez Hurtado
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Delivery Mode ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Online Students ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Blended Course

AbstractThe goal of this paper is to compare the learning outcomes of beginning online students (n=14) of Spanish with classroom students engaged in a hybrid or blended course (n=19). All students were native speakers of English. Some studies show that online students perform better than classroom students, while other studies show no significant differences. All previous studies use general measurements of proficiency or scoring instead of examining particular differences within specific linguistic elements. This paper focuses on gender agreement and gathers acquisitionist research on the matter to weight the factors that affect its learning in online and classroom students. We extracted 2777 tokens from writing tasks and performed multivariate analysis using Rbrul (Johnson) to test gender accuracy against delivery mode and linguistic factors such as animacy, morphological endings and gender assignment of the noun, as well as the grammatical category of the agreeing word. Results suggest that the delivery mode does not play a role in the overall performance of online versus classroom students. However, classroom students perform better with animate nouns, while online students do so in a non-significant manner. Physical presence of people may favor the learning of gender agreement with animate referents.

Morphosyntactic processing in advanced second language (L2) learners: An event-related potential investigation of the effects of L1–L2 similarity and structural distance

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Robert Fiorentino ◽  
Alison Gabriele
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Structural Distance ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Syntactic Dependencies

Different theoretical accounts of second language (L2) acquisition differ with respect to whether or not advanced learners are predicted to show native-like processing for features not instantiated in the native language (L1). We examined how native speakers of English, a language with number but not gender agreement, process number and gender agreement in Spanish. We compare agreement within a determiner phrase ( órgano muy complejo ‘[DP organ-MASC-SG very complex-MASC-SG]’) and across a verb phrase ( cuadro es auténtico ‘painting-MASC-SG [VP is authentic-MASC-SG]’) in order to investigate whether native-like processing is limited to local domains (e.g. within the phrase), in line with Clahsen and Felser (2006). We also examine whether morphological differences in how the L1 and L2 realize a shared feature impact processing by comparing number agreement between nouns and adjectives, where only Spanish instantiates agreement, and between demonstratives and nouns, where English also instantiates agreement. Similar to Spanish natives, advanced learners showed a P600 for both number and gender violations overall, in line with the Full Transfer / Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996), which predicts that learners can show native-like processing for novel features. Results also show that learners can establish syntactic dependencies outside of local domains, as suggested by the presence of a P600 for both within and across-phrase violations. Moreover, similar to native speakers, learners were impacted by the structural distance (number of intervening phrases) between the agreeing elements, as suggested by the more positive waveforms for within-phrase than across-phrase agreement overall. These results are consistent with the proposal that learners are sensitive to hierarchical structure.

scholarly journals Semantic Categories and Gender Assignment in Contact Spanish: Type of Code-Switching and its Relevance to Linguistic Outcomes

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osmer Balam
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Semantic Domains

The present study examines two aspects of determiner phrases (dps) that have been previously investigated in Spanish/English code-switching; namely, the openness of semantic domains to non-native nouns and gender assignment in monolingual versus code-switched speech. The quantitative analysis of naturalistic, oral production data from 62 native speakers of Northern Belizean Spanish revealed both similarities and notable differences vis-à-vis previous findings for varieties of Spanish/English code-switching in theu.s. Hispanophone context. Semantic domains that favoured non-native nouns in Spanish/Englishdps included academia, technology, work/money-related terms, abstract concepts, linguistics/language terms and everyday items. In relation to gender assignation, assignment patterns in monolingualdps were canonical whereas an overwhelming preference for the masculine default gender was attested in mixeddps. Biological gender was not found to be deterministic in switcheddps. The analysis highlights the important role that type of code-switching has on contact outcomes in bi/multilingual communities, as speech patterns are reflective of the status and resourcefulness that code-switching is afforded at a societal and idiolectal level.

scholarly journals Gender assignment and gender agreement in advanced French interlanguage: a cross-sectional study

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Dewaele ◽  
Daniel Véronique
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Psycholinguistic Variables ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Accuracy Rates

An analysis of 519 gender errors (out of 9,378 modifiers) in the advanced French interlanguage of 27 Dutch L1 speakers confirms earlier findings that gender assignment and/or agreement remain problematic for learners at all levels. A hypothesis derived from Pienemann's Processability Theory (1998a) that accuracy rates would be higher for gender agreement in structures involving no exchange of grammatical information between constituents was not confirmed. The analysis of interindividual and intra-individual variation in gender accuracy rates revealed effects from avoidance and generalisation strategies, from linguistic variables, sociobiographical variables and psycholinguistic variables. We argue that gender errors can originate at the lemma level, at the gender node level, or at the lexeme level. Different psycholinguistic scenarios are presented to account for intra-individual variation in gender assignment and agreement.

scholarly journals Early and late bilingual processing of Spanish gender, morphology and gender congruency

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-208
Author(s):  
Irma Alarcón
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Distinct Advantage ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Late Bilinguals

The present study investigates whether advanced proficiency-matched early and late bilinguals display gender agreement processing quantitatively and qualitatively similar to that of native speakers of Spanish. To address this issue, a timed grammaticality judgment task was used to analyze the effects on accuracy and reaction times of grammatical gender, morphology, and gender congruency of the article and adjective within a noun phrase. Overall results indicated no significant statistical differences between the native speakers and the two bilingual groups. Both early and late bilinguals displayed similar grammatical gender knowledge in their underlying grammars. A detailed examination of the congruency effect, however, revealed that the native speakers, not the bilinguals, displayed sensitivity to gender agreement violations. Moreover, the native and heritage speakers pattern together in accuracy and directionality of gender agreement processing: both were less accurate with incongruent articles than with incongruent adjectives, while the second language learners were equally accurate in both agreement domains. Despite having internalized gender in their implicit grammars, the late bilinguals did not show native-like patterns in real time processing. The present findings suggest that, for high proficiency speakers, there is a distinct advantage for early over late bilinguals in achieving native-like gender lexical access and retrieval. Therefore, age of acquisition, in conjunction with learning context, might be the best predictor of native-like gender agreement processing at advanced and near-native proficiency levels.

The role of experience in the acquisition and production of diminutives and gender in Spanish: Evidence from L2 learners and heritage speakers

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvina Montrul ◽  
Israel de la Fuente ◽  
Justin Davidson ◽  
Rebecca Foote
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Advanced Proficiency

This study examined whether type of early language experience provides advantages to heritage speakers over second language (L2) learners with morphology, and investigated knowledge of gender agreement and its interaction with diminutive formation. Diminutives are a hallmark of Child Directed Speech in early language development and a highly productive morphological mechanism that facilitates the acquisition of declensional noun endings in many languages (Savickienė and Dressler, 2007). In Spanish, diminutives regularize gender marking in nouns with a non-canonical ending. Twenty-four Spanish native speakers, 29 heritage speakers and 37 L2 learners with intermediate to advanced proficiency completed two picture-naming tasks and an elicited production task. Results showed that the heritage speakers were more accurate than the L2 learners with gender agreement in general, and with non-canonical ending nouns in particular. This study confirms that early language experience and the type of input received confer some advantages to heritage speakers over L2 learners with early-acquired aspects of language, especially in oral production.

The Acquisition of Spanish Gender Marking in the Writing of Heritage and Second Language Learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-267
Author(s):  
Antonio Pérez-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Nonlinear Process ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Written Production ◽  
And Gender

This study aims to expand on previous research on the acquisition of gender marking by examining the longitudinal written production of second language (L2) and heritage language (HL) learners. The written production of 24 participants (L2, n = 12; HL, n = 12) enrolled in the same course was traced over four weeks and all cases of canonical and non-canonical gender marking (i.e., gender assignment and gender agreement) were coded. The group results indicated that the HL learners were significantly more accurate than their L2 counterparts with both canonical and non-canonical ending nouns; however, close inspection of the participants’ individual accuracy patterns revealed a nonlinear process that was subject to great instability in their performance over time. Findings are discussed in light of interlanguage development and implications for research in second language acquisition are presented.

Effects of speech rate, phonetic background and gender on vowel reduction in the speech of nonnative speakers of English

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogna Brzezicha ◽  
Małgorzata Kul
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThe paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim was to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesized that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels; (ii) they speak slower than native speakers; (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree; (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it; (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones. In order to realize these aims, an acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hrs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were di-vided into an experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and a control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training. The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts on whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.

The production of gender agreement in native and L2 Spanish: The role of morphophonological form

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Foote
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
And Gender

In native speakers of gender-marking languages, mechanisms of gender production appear to be affected by the morphophonological cues to gender present in the noun phrase. This influence is manifested in higher levels of production accuracy when more transparent cues to gender are present in comparison to when they are not. The goal of the present study was to examine the role of morphophonological cues to gender in the production of gender agreement in native speakers and second language learners of Spanish in light of the Marking and Morphing account of agreement (Eberhard et al., 2005). Participants repeated and completed complex subject noun phrases with head nouns that varied in gender and gender-marking transparency. Analyses of accuracy rates along with Marking and Morphing model simulations of the results indicated that, contrary to previous findings, native speakers were not affected by gender-marking transparency. However, based on model simulations, second language (L2) learners were affected by the morphophonological form of the head noun.

scholarly journals Gender assignment and gender agreement in adult bilinguals and second language learners of French

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Kupisch ◽  
Deniz Akpinar ◽  
Antje Stöhr
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Language Context

This paper is concerned with gender marking in adult French. Four groups of subjects are compared: German-French simultaneous bilinguals (2L1ers) who grew up in France, German-French 2L1ers who grew up in Germany, advanced second language learners (L2ers) who are resident either in France or in Germany at the time of testing. The major goal of the study is to investigate whether differences in input conditions (acquisition in a minority vs. a majority language context) and differences in age of onset affect gender assignment and gender agreement in the same way or differently. Furthermore, we investigate whether successful acquisition of gender is dependent on influence from German. Two experiments, an acceptability judgment task and an elicited production task, are carried out. Results show successful acquisition of agreement in all groups. By contrast, gender assignment may be mildly affected if French is acquired in a minority language context or as an L2.

scholarly journals Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy. Extrapolating a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in English

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-22
Author(s):  
Grisel Salmaso
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Groups

The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of makingthe generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) more flexible within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL); (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso 2009, 2010 a, 2010 b, 2012 a , 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family (‘recounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘anecdotes’, ‘exempla’ and ‘observations’) (Plum 2004, Martin and Rose 2008); (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of one of the story genres: ‘anecdote’.To this end, nine instances of ‘anecdotes’ wereanalyzed. All of the ‘anecdotes’ are written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). The examples are analyzed following Salmaso (2010, 2014) and comparisons are drawn between some aspects of the analysis presented herein withthe analyses done following Plum’s (2004) and Martin and Rose’s (2008) taxonomies. Results show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy of story genres in Spanish to English, in particular with respect to the genre ‘anecdote’ which is the focus of this article. Furthermore, this taxonomy enriches the analysis of ‘anecdotes’ andmay be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, such as teaching.

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