L2 grammatical gender in a complex morphological system: The case of German

Spinner, Patti; Juffs, Alan

doi:10.1515/iral.2008.014

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Unsworth (2008) found that learners were not successful at marking gender agreement with Dutch nouns with a morphophonological cue to gender: the diminutive suffix. Spinner and Juffs (2008) similarly found that two learners of German had no greater success marking agreement with nouns with an -e ending, which indicates feminine gender, than with nouns with no morphophonological information regarding gender. On the other hand, learners appeared to attend to semantic information; they were more successful at marking agreement with natural gender nouns.…”

Section: Morphophonological and Semantic Information About Gendermentioning

confidence: 90%

“…However, similar morphology may be less useful to learners of Dutch; Unsworth (2008) found that L2 learners were not more successful at marking nouns with a diminutive suffix, even though it also makes gender transparent. In a similar contrast, although Franceschina (2005) showed that L2 learners of Spanish were more successful at marking gender on nouns with the endings -o and -a, Spinner and Juffs (2008) found that two L2 learners of German were no more successful at marking nouns with an -e ending that cues feminine gender. Thus it appears that it is not simply the type of information that is important, but rather the language-specific features of the input that learners receive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The acquisition of grammatical gender is well known to be problematic for second language learners (e.g., Spinner & Juffs 2008). One characteristic of the grammatical gender feature that makes it difficult is that it cannot be observed directly, but rather has to be inferred through distributional information: syntactic, semantic and morphophonological information in the input.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The best way to learn what factors make this information more accessible is to study learners' behavior with a variety of linguistic systems. However, virtually all the research in this area to date has been conducted with European languages, specifically Spanish (Alarcón 2006;Andersen 1984;Cain et al 1987;Fernández-García 1999;Finnemann 1992;Franceschina 2001Franceschina , 2005Schlig 2003), French (Carroll 1999;Hardison 1992; Holmes and de la Batie 1999; Holmes and Segui 2006), and German (Bordag et al 2006;Delisle 1985;Spinner and Juffs 2008). Note that the gender systems in these languages share certain properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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L2 learners' sensitivity to semantic and morphophonological information on Swahili nouns

Spinner

Thomas

2014

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

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Previous research demonstrates that L2 learners are sensitive to morphophonological and semantic information regarding grammatical gender in European languages (e.g., Spinner & Juffs, 2008). In this study we examine the use of morphophonological and semantic information by two groups of Englishspeaking learners acquiring Swahili gender (noun class). The results of an oral agreement-marking task, a written gender assignment task, and interviews indicate that learners are sensitive to morphophonological information regarding gender in Swahili. The findings for semantic information are more complex; learners appear to be sensitive to animacy but not to other "minor" semantic information such as tree or active body part. We propose the Semantic Core Hypothesis, which suggests that core semantic principles such as biological sex, animacy and humanness may be more easily accessible to L2 learners than other semantic principles.

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Section: Morphophonological and Semantic Information About Gendermentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

L2 learners' sensitivity to semantic and morphophonological information on Swahili nouns

Spinner

Thomas

2014

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

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“…Professor Patti Spinner is investigating how learners use phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic information to acquire different types of gender and number systems. Her first work examined gender and number in German (Spinner & Juffs 2008) and now she is breaking new ground with her research on the same topic in Swahili, a language with about 16 gender classes (Spinner & Thomas 2008). Jamie Thomas is further examining how L2 Swahili learners process morphemes in inflected and derived words.…”

Section: Research Themesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research in second language studies at Michigan State University

White¹,

Fei²,

Russell³

2009

Lang. Teach.

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The Second Language Studies (SLS) Program was established in 2005 with the express purpose of providing ‘a firm foundation in the field of Second Language Acquisition and its application to current second language research and teaching’ (http://sls.msu.edu). Under the leadership of Professor Susan Gass, the program has grown to include 12 core faculty members and 27 Ph.D. students. As an interdisciplinary program, linkages across the university exist with the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages; the Department of French, Classics, and Italian; the Department of Spanish and Portuguese; the Arabic Language Instruction Flagship; the M.A. TESOL Program; the Center for Language Education and Research; the English Language Center; the Center for the Support of Language Teaching; the Department of Psychology; and the College of Education.

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Second language acquisition

Juffs

2010

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Second language acquisition (SLA) is a field that investigates child and adult SLA from a variety of theoretical perspectives. This article provides a survey of some key areas of concern including formal generative theory and emergentist theory in the areas of morpho-syntax and phonology. The review details the theoretical stance of the two different approaches to the nature of language: generative linguistics and general cognitive approaches. Some results of key acquisition studies from the two theoretical frameworks are discussed. From a generative perspective, constraints on wh-movement, feature geometry and syllable structure, and morphological development are highlighted. From a general cognitive point of view, the emergence of tense and aspect marking from a prototype account of inherent lexical aspect is reviewed. Reference is made to general cognitive learning theories and to sociocultural theory. The article also reviews individual differences research, specifically debate on the critical period in adult language acquisition, motivation, and memory. Finally, the article discusses the relationship between SLA research and second language pedagogy. Suggestions for further reading from recent handbooks on SLA are provided. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 277-286 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.106 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

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L2 grammatical gender in a complex morphological system: The case of German

Cited by 13 publications

References 26 publications

L2 learners' sensitivity to semantic and morphophonological information on Swahili nouns

L2 learners' sensitivity to semantic and morphophonological information on Swahili nouns

Research in second language studies at Michigan State University

Second language acquisition

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