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Factors influencing L2 gender processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2007

DENISA BORDAG  and
THOMAS PECHMANN
DENISA BORDAG
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
THOMAS PECHMANN
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
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Abstract

In four experiments we explored processes underlying L2 gender retrieval. We focused on L1 interference and on the influence of the L2 noun's termination. In Experiments 1 and 2 we tried to manipulate the intensity of L1 interference. We found that L2 speakers cannot eliminate or substantially reduce the interlingual interference neither when they know the response language long in advance in a situation in which code-switching is required (Experiment 1), nor when they are close to the monolingual mode (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 yielded evidence that gender typicality of the L2 noun's termination also exerts an influence on L2 processing, both in production and comprehension. L2 gender thus does not seem to be stored as a fixed feature as it is assumed for L1. Rather, our data support the assumption that it is computed anew each time when needed for processing. Further implications for modeling are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 299 - 314
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2007

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Footnotes

The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council, DFG Pe/357-9). We thank Jana Hrachovcová, Nataša Ukropcová, Andreas Opitz and Michael Welt for their help with preparing and running the experiments as well as Dirk Janssen for his help with statistical analyses and Peter Ecke for his comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.