The influence of the phonological form on the L1 and L2 gender production

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The influence of the phonological form on the L1 and

L2 gender production

University of Leipzig / Germany

Andreas Opitz

Denisa Bordag & Thomas Pechmann

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Gender processing in L1

Is there an interaction between the levels of phonological and grammatical encoding?

An interaction implies that phonological forms may exhibit influence on gender selection.

contra influence: - Levelt’s model

pro influence: - Dell’s Interactive Activation Model - Caramazza’s Independent Network Model

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empirical evidence is equivocal pro-influence:

Tucker, Lambert, and Rigault (1977) (French)

Bates et al. (1995) (Italian) MacWhinney et al. (1989)

contra-influence: Badecker et al. (1995) (Italian) Taraban and Kempe (1999) (Russian) Gollan and Frost (2001) (Hebrew)

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Most studies find that L2 learners are sensitive to gender cues, especially word terminations: Taraban and Roark (1996) (L2 French) Taraban and Kempe (1999) (L2 Russian) Oliphant (1998) (L2 Italian) Bordag (2004) (L2 Czech)

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We focused on: speech comprehension and

speech production L1 and L2 processing German / (English)

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Gender in German

German is a gender marked language(masculine, feminine and neuter nouns)

phonological gender cues for monomorphemic German nouns:

feminine nouns end usually with a schwa –e e.g. die Kerze – ‘the candle’ typical

masculine and neuter nouns with a consonante.g. der Baum – ‘the tree’ or das Buch – ‘the book’ ambiguous

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Gender in German

a small number of monomorphemic feminine nouns end with a consonant (e.g. die Burg – the castle)

vice versa a small number of masculine and neuter nouns end with an –e (e.g. der Käse – ‘the cheese’ or das Ende – ‘the end’) atypical

(cf. Köpcke & Zubin, 1983; Mills, 1986)

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Hypothesis

If phonological cues are used for gender processing, then one should expect faster and smoother processing when a noun’s termination is in congruence with its gender.

On the other hand, one would expect processing difficulties when a noun has an ambiguous or even atypical termination for its gender.

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Items 1

Three different groups:

- A: gender typical termination (f): -e (Nase ‘nose’)

- B: ambiguous termination (m/n): -C (Hut ‘hat’ / Brot ‘bread’)

- C: gender atypical termination (m/n): -e (Käse ‘cheese’ / Auge ‘eye’) (f): -C (Hand ‘hand’)

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Selection of items

criteria: monomorphemic and concrete no natural gender (sexus) from basic vocabulary easily depictable

the groups A, B, C were balanced regarding: frequency length degree of similarity between German-English

translation equivalents (degree of cognateness)* familiarity to L2 learners*

(* based on pre-test ratings)

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Experiment 1 - L1 picture naming Subjects

18 participants German native speakers age ranged from 21 to 36 (24 on

average) students at the University of Leipzig

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Experiment 1 - L1 picture naming

Materials

48 critical items in the groups A, B, C 16 typical 16 ambiguous 16 atypical

10 practice/filler items

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Experiment 1 - L1 picture naming Procedure

picture naming 2 conditions:

Short: naming with a bare noun (Baum) Long: naming with adj. + noun (großer

Baum)* agreement between the noun and the modifying adjective (clearly gender-marked)* adjectives used: groß & klein (‘big’ & ‘small’)

2 main versions: 1. short condition – long condition 2. long condition – short condition

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Experiment 1 - L1 picture naming Example - short condition

Tasse (cup)

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Experiment 1 - L1 picture naming Example – long condition

kleine Tasse (small cup)

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Results of Experiment 1 (L1 picture naming)

‘length’ F1: p < 0.01F2: p < 0.01

‘group’: F1: p = 0.14 F2: p = 0.67

‘length x group’F1: p = 0.63F2: p = 0.86

mean naming latencies in Experiment 1

729713

730

668 663 672

600

650

700

750

800

typical ambiguous atypical

RT

in

ms

adj + noun

bare noun

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Results of Experiment 1(L1 picture naming)

‘length’ F1: p = 0.21 F2: p = 0.71

‘group’: F1: p = 0.10 F2: p = 0.20

‘length x group’F1: p = 0.13 F2: p = 0.72

error rates in experiment 1

2023

29

14

23

30

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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typical ambiguous atypical

adj + noun

bare noun

The results did not bring evidence that L1 gender processing is affected by the phonological form of the noun.

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Experiment 2 L1 grammaticality judgment Noun phrases of the form:

demonstrative pronoun + noun

e.g. dieser Baum

* dieses Blume

had to be judged as wrong or right.

All critical items were combined with a pronoun that mismatched with their gender.

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Experiment 2 - L1 gramm. decision Subjects

same as in Experiment 1 Materials

48 critical items from Experiment 1 combined with pronouns that mismatched their gender (NO-answer), but corresponded to the gender which could be expected according to their terminatione.g. *diese(f) Käse(m) ‘this cheese’

*dieses(n) Burg(f) ‘this castle’ 120 fillers were added to balance the experiment

with respect to yes- no-answers and number of M, F, N

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Experiment 2 - L1 gramm. decision Procedure

stimuli appeared on a computer screen participants had to decide whether a

presented noun phrase was grammatically correct by pressing a YES- or NO-button

the items were equally distributed in four blocks

participants’ reaction times and correctness were recorded

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Results of Experiment 2(L1 grammatical decision )

‘group’: F1: p = 0.30 F2: p = 0.49

mean response times in Experiment 2

895 900918

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

1000

A (typical) B (ambiguous) C (atypical)

RT in ms

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Results of Experiment 2(L1 grammatical decision)

‘group’: F1: p = 0.17F2: p = 0.28


27 26

16

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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number of errors

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Discussion of Experiments 1 and 2

Reaction times and the error rates were statistically identical for nouns with a gender typical, ambiguous, and atypical termination.

There were no effects observed that would support the hypothesis of an influence of phonological forms on gender retrieval.

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Experiment 3 – L2 picture naming Subjects

18 participants English native speakers intermediate to low advanced

knowledge of German age ranged from 19 to 42 (27 on

average)

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Experiment 3 - L2 picture naming Material, Procedure

… were the same as in Experiment 1 (L1 picture naming)

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‘length’ F1: p < 0.01F2: p < 0.01

‘group’: F1: p < 0.01 F2: p < 0.05

Scheffé test:F1: (A, B) x C F2: A x (B, C)

‘length x group’F1: p = 0.02F2: p = 0.17

mean naming latencies in Experiment 3

1042 10741146

834 841 847

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

1200

A (typical) B(ambiguous)

C (atypical)

adj + noun

bare noun

• ‘group’: only long condition significant:

F1: p < 0.01; F2: p < 0.05• Scheffé-test: (A,B) x C

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‘length’ F1: p < 0.01F2: p < 0.01

‘group’: F1: p < 0.01 F2: p = 0.01

Scheffé-test:(F1&F2): A x (B,C)

‘length x group’F1: p < 0.01 F2: p < 0.01

error rates in Experiment 3

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75

87

23 27 30

0

20

40

60

80

100


adj +noun

bare noun

gender – errors:group A: 1group B: 50group C: 49

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Results of Experiment 3(L2 picture naming) Both the analyses of reaction times and

error rates revealed clear differences between the three groups:

Group A Group B Group C(typical) (ambiguous)(atypical)

faster slowerless errors more errors

The effect was obtained only in the long condition.

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Experiment 4 – L2 gramm. decision

Subjects … were the same as Experiment 3

Material, Procedure … were the same as in Experiment 2

(L1 grammatical decision)

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‘group’: F1: p = 0.02 F2: p = 0.70

post hoc Scheffé test insignificant in both F1 and F2

mean response times in experiment 4

1302 1308

1335

1200

1250

1300

1350

1400


RT in ms

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‘group’: F1: p < 0.01 F2: p < 0.01

post hoc Scheffé test:F1: A x B x C F2: A x (B, C)


81

110

138

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160


errors

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Results of Experiment 4(L2 grammatical decision )

Why did RTs in F2 failed to reach significance? extremely high error rates (almost 50% in the Group C).


RT Errors RT Errors RT Errors

1302

81 (28,1%)

1308

110 (38.2%)

1335

138 (48%)

Mean response times in ms and error rates in Experiment 4

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General discussion

We found: no differences between processing of

gender typical, ambiguous and atypical nouns in L1 German

L2 German speakers had least difficulties with processing of typically gender marked nouns and most difficulties with nouns showing an atypical marking for their gender.

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General discussion

Two possible hypotheses which can account for the different patterns of results in L1 & L2: An essential difference in L1 and L2

processing: In L1 there is an independent retrieval of grammatical and phonological information, in L2 these two interact

No clear-cut difference between gender processing in L1 and L2, but the results reflect different levels of gender processing skills

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General discussion

Two possible hypotheses which can account for the different patterns of results in L1 & L2: An essential difference in L1 and L2

processing: In L1 there is an independent retrieval of grammatical and phonological information, in L2 these two interact

No clear-cut difference between gender processing in L1 and L2, but the results reflect different levels of gender processing skills

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General discussion

further evidence for the second hypothesis: connectionist simulations that correlate gender

competence with frequency of exposure (Taraban and Kempe, 1999)

L1 acquisition: children experience similar difficulties with opaquely gender marked nouns (for German: Mills, 1986; for Czech: Henzel, 1975)

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General discussion

Implications for the modeling of speech processing: Serial, modular models (e.g. Levelt, 1989) can

account only for processing in adult L1 while interactive models (e.g. Dell, 1986) can

explain the effects found for L2 processing as well.

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References 1

Badecker, W., Miozzo, M., & Zanuttini, R. (1995). The two-stage model of lexical retrieval: evidence from a case of anomia with selective preservation of grammatical gender. Cognition, 57, 193-216.

Bates, E., Devescovi, A., &Pizzaniglio, L. (1995). Gender and lexical access in Italian. Perception and Psychophysics, 57 (6), 847-862.

Caramazza, A. (1997). How many levels of processing are there in lexical access? Cognitive Neuropsychology, 14, 177-208.

Dell, G.S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. Psychological Review, 93, 283-321.

Gollan T., & Frost, R. (2001). The syntactic route to grammatical gender. Journal Of Psycholinguistic Research, 30, 627-651.

Henzel, V. M. (1975). Acquisition of grammatical gender in Czech. Reports on Child Language Development, 10, 188-200.

Köpcke, K.M., & Zubin, D. (1983). Die kognitive Organisation der Genuszuweisung zu den einsilbigen Nomen der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, 11, 166-182.

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References 2

Levelt, W.J.M. (1989). Speaking. From intention to articulation. Cambridge, Mass.

MacWhinney, B., Leinbach, J., Taraban, R., McDonald, J.L. (1989). Language learning: Cues or rules? Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 255-277.

Oliphant, K. (1998). Acquisition of Grammatical Gender in Italian as a Foreign Language. Canadian Modern Language Review, 54, 2.

Taraban, R., & Kempe, V. (1999). Gender processing in native and non-native Russian -speakers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 119-148.

Taraban, R., & Roark, B. (1996). Competition in learning language-based categories. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 125-148.

Tucker, G.R., W.E. Lambert, & A.A. Rigault (1977). The French Speaker's Skill with Grammatical Gender: An Example of Rule-Governed Behaviour. The Hague: Mouton.

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Thank you!

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Selection of items

gender transparency

German is L2 L1

Group A 5.43 4.23

Group B 3.5 3.49

Group C 2.05 3.09

the three groups did not differ regarding similarity

between L1 and L2 translations, familiarity,frequency and length

the three groups differed in the degreeof gender-transparency:

Andreas Opitz

kann diese Folie weg?

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Experiment 2 - L1 gramm. judgm examples of items that should easily be

detected as gender-mismatched: ‘diese Stuhl’ – this(f) chair(m) typical ‘dieses Blume’ – this(n) flower(f) typical

examples of items that should not as easily be detected as gender-mismatched:

(pseudo-congruence on phonological level) ‘diese Käse’ - this(f) cheese(m) atypical ‘dieses Burg’ – this(n) castle(f) atypical

Documents

The influence of the phonological form on the L1 and L2 gender production