The Acquisition of Gender

Crosslinguistic perspectives

Editor

Dalila Ayoun | University of Arizona

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027210098 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027258397 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

Gender as a morphosyntactic feature is arguably “an endlessly fascinating linguistic category” (Corbett 2014: 1). One may even say it is among “the most puzzling of the grammatical categories” (Corbett 1991: 1) that has raised probing questions from various theoretical and applied perspectives. Most languages display semantic and/or formal gender systems with various degrees of opacity and complexity, and even closely related languages present distinct differences, creating difficulties for second language learners. The first three chapters of this volume present critical reviews in three different areas – gender assignment in mixed noun phrases, subtle gentle biases and the gender acquisition in child and adult heritage speakers of Spanish – while the next six chapters present new empirical evidence in the acquisition of gender by bilingual children, adult L2/L3 learners and heritage speakers of various languages such as Italian, German, Dutch or Mandarin-Italian.

[Studies in Bilingualism, 63] 2022. xi, 282 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.63

Table of Contents

About the contributors | pp. vii–xii

Chapter 1. Introduction: Gender, geslag, Geschlecht, γένος, ਲਿੰਗ, 性別

Dalila Ayoun | pp. 1–10

Part I. Review chapters

Chapter 2. Gender assignment in mixed noun phrases: State of the art

Kate Bellamy and M. Carmen Parafita Couto | pp. 13–48

Chapter 3. Empirical evidence for subtle gender biases in language

Yulia Esaulova and Lisa von Stockhausen | pp. 49–70

Chapter 4. The acquisition of grammatical gender in child and adult heritage speakers of Spanish: Beyond the source of differences

Alejandro Cuza and Liliana Sánchez | pp. 71–94

Part II. Child, adult and heritage speakers

Chapter 5. The second language acquisition of grammatical gender and number in Italian

Dalila Ayoun and Stefano Maranzana | pp. 97–126

Chapter 6. Grammatical gender and article use in beginning learners of German

Peter Ecke | pp. 127–156

Chapter 7. The non-default gender category in additional-language French

Amanda Edmonds, Aarnes Gudmestad and Thomas Metzger | pp. 157–182

Chapter 8. Investigating grammatical gender agreement in Spanish: A methodological exploration of eye tracking

LeAnne Spino | pp. 183–208

Chapter 9. Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual grammars: Evidence from gender assignment in unilingual Dutch and mixed speech

Brechje van Osch, Ivo Boers, Janet Grijzenhout, M. Carmen Parafita Couto, Bo Sterken and Deniz Tat | pp. 209–242

Chapter 10. Prediction on the basis of gender and number in Mandarin-Italian bilingual children

Jasmijn E. Bosch, Mathilde Chailleux, Jia’en Yee, Maria Teresa Guasti and Fabrizio Arosio | pp. 243–272

Language index | pp. 273–274

Name index | pp. 275–280

Subject index | pp. 281–282

“This timely volume reflects the vitality of current research on gender, including both critical reviews and novel empirical studies. Topics include gender acquisition by bilingual children, issues of adult learners – both L2 and L3 – and heritage speakers of very different languages. The variety in subject matter is matched by the choice of research methods; these range from corpus work, semi-guided interviews and picture narration, through to eye-tracking. An interesting feature is the way in which gender serves both as the research topic and the means to address other research questions. As a result, the volume appeals to a wide range of readers.”

Greville G. Corbett, Surrey Morphology Group

Subjects