Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment
Whereas Standard Dutch only distinguishes between two adnominal grammatical genders, substandard varieties of Belgian Dutch distinguish between three such genders. German, too, distinguishes between three genders. Nevertheless, when assigning gender to German nouns with Dutch cognates, speakers of B...
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Department of English Studies Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts Adam Mickiewicz University
2019-06-01
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Online Access: | https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt/article/view/12135 |
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doaj-ad89a2bd415a41ce8111fa17f9915f4a2020-11-25T00:20:24ZengDepartment of English Studies Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts Adam Mickiewicz UniversityStudies in Second Language Learning and Teaching2083-52052084-19652019-06-019239741910.14746/ssllt.2019.9.2.7Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignmentJan Vanhove0University of Fribourg Switzerland Whereas Standard Dutch only distinguishes between two adnominal grammatical genders, substandard varieties of Belgian Dutch distinguish between three such genders. German, too, distinguishes between three genders. Nevertheless, when assigning gender to German nouns with Dutch cognates, speakers of Belgian Dutch are strongly influenced by Standard Dutch gender but to a much lesser degree (if at all) by substandard gender. On the hypothesis that a lack of metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender decreases its use as a source for transfer, I experimentally manipulated the metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender of 45 speakers of substandard Belgian Dutch varieties. I then assessed how strongly this manipulation affected the participants’ reliance on substandard gender distinctions when they assigned gender to L2 German nouns with Dutch cognates. Results confirm the strong influence of Standard Dutch, hint at a weak influence of substandard Dutch, and show no appreciable effect of the experimental manipulation.https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt/article/view/12135crosslinguistic influenceDutchGermangrammatical gendermetalinguistic knowledgesubstandard variety |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Jan Vanhove |
spellingShingle |
Jan Vanhove Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching crosslinguistic influence Dutch German grammatical gender metalinguistic knowledge substandard variety |
author_facet |
Jan Vanhove |
author_sort |
Jan Vanhove |
title |
Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
title_short |
Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
title_full |
Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
title_fullStr |
Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
title_sort |
metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment |
publisher |
Department of English Studies Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts Adam Mickiewicz University |
series |
Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching |
issn |
2083-5205 2084-1965 |
publishDate |
2019-06-01 |
description |
Whereas Standard Dutch only distinguishes between two adnominal grammatical genders, substandard varieties of Belgian Dutch distinguish between three such genders. German, too, distinguishes between three genders. Nevertheless, when assigning gender to German nouns with Dutch cognates, speakers of Belgian Dutch are strongly influenced by Standard Dutch gender but to a much lesser degree (if at all) by substandard gender. On the hypothesis that a lack of metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender decreases its use as a source for transfer, I experimentally manipulated the metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender of 45 speakers of substandard Belgian Dutch varieties. I then assessed how strongly this manipulation affected the participants’ reliance on substandard gender distinctions when they assigned gender to L2 German nouns with Dutch cognates. Results confirm the strong influence of Standard Dutch, hint at a weak influence of substandard Dutch, and show no appreciable effect of the experimental manipulation. |
topic |
crosslinguistic influence Dutch German grammatical gender metalinguistic knowledge substandard variety |
url |
https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt/article/view/12135 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT janvanhove metalinguisticknowledgeaboutthenativelanguageandlanguagetransferingenderassignment |
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