Exploring grammatical gender in L2 Spanish: is a transparent gender system easy to use for Russian-speaking students?

• Autores: Anastasiia Ogneva
• Localización: Sintagma: Revista de lingüística, ISSN 0214-9141, Vol. 34, 2022, págs. 81-101
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.21001/sintagma.2022.34.05
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Explorar el gènere gramatical en L2 espanyol: és un transparent sistema de gènerefácil d’emprar per a estudiants russoparlants?
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• Resumen
  • català

    El present estudi pilot investiga l’assignació del gènere gramatical a substantius transparents i opacs en castellà per a parlants nadius de rus amb un nivell intermig-avançat de castellà. 29 parlants nadius de rus i 28 parlants nadius de castellà van completar tres tasques d’assignació de gènere. Els participants havien d’assignar el gènere gramatical correcte a substantius reals inanimats amb terminació transparent (-o, -a) i opaca (-e, consonants) i també a substantius inventats amb terminació transparent (-o, -a) o opaca. Els resultats revelen que, malgrat que les puntuacions obtingudes pel grup d’aprenents d’L2 són altes, existeixen diferències significatives en comparació amb el grup dels nadius d’espanyol. Així mateix, s’ha observat l’efecte de la transparència del sistema de gènere gramatical en L2 i l’efecte de la llengua nadiua dels aprenents d’L2. En concret, el grup d’L2 assigna el gènere gramatical significativament millor als substantius transparents que als opacs. A més a més, els aprenents d’L2 utilitzen el gènere gramatical amb els substantius opacs significativament millor quan aquests noms tenen el mateix gènere gramatical en la seva llengua nadiua.

  • English

    This paper reports on the results of a pilot study investigating grammatical gender assignment to transparent and opaque inanimate Spanish nouns by Russian-speaking learners with an intermediate-advanced level in L2. 29 Russian natives and 28 native speakers of Spanish completed three gender assignment tasks. Participants had to assign correct gender to inanimate real nouns with transparent (-o, -a) and opaque (-e, consonants) endings, and to nonce words with transparent (-o, -a) or opaque endings. The results revealed that, although the L2 group obtained high accuracy scores in gender assignment tasks, there were significant differences compared to the native speakers. The effects of transparency of the L2 gender system and of the native language of L2 students were also found. Specifically, the L2 students used transparent nouns significantly better than opaque nouns. Furthermore, the L2 group assigned grammatical gender to opaque nouns significantly better when these nouns have the same gender in Russian.

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