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Part of
Language Acquisition Beyond Parameters: Studies in honour of Juana M. Liceras
Edited by Anahí Alba de la Fuente, Elena Valenzuela and Cristina Martínez Sanz
[Studies in Bilingualism 51] 2016
► pp. 73–98

When masculine as default supercedes L1 transfer

Bilingual speakers of languages with asymmetric gender systems

| University of Ottawa

Previous research has shown that L2 gender use strategies vary according to the bilingual’s L1, with native speakers of languages without grammatical gender (such as English) tending to use masculine as a default while native speakers of languages with a gender feature (such as Spanish) opt for transfer of the L1 gender value. In this study we examine L1 Spanish-L2 German bilinguals’ use of gender in the L2 through an analysis of errors in oral production value. The results showed that, contrary to what has previously been found for L1 speakers of languages with grammatical gender, these bilinguals tended to use masculine as a default strategy. We argue that the difference in L2 gender use strategy is due to the unique representation of the Spanish and German gender systems.

Keywords: grammatical gender, asymmetric gender systems, masculine as default, L1 transfer
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Grammatical gender in Spanish and German
  • 3.Previous research
    • 3.1Representation of gender systems in the bilingual mental lexicon
    • 3.2L1 transfer in L2 gender
    • 3.3Masculine as default in L2
    • 3.4Gender use in code-switched DPs
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Design
    • 4.3Materials
    • 4.4Procedure
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Data
    • 5.2General results
    • 5.3Error analysis
    • 5.4Accuracy rates
    • 5.5Reaction times (RTs)
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.51.04kla
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