language processes Liz Temple
3. L2 learners of German and gender assignment
of the formal gender indicators and to account for the prevailing teaching modality of large learner groups typical for foreign language classes at Japanese universities.
Procedure
The students were tested individually in a quiet room on campus and the instructions were read aloud in Japanese by a native speaker6. The items were presented one by one and at random on the screen of a Toshiba J–3100GT laptop computer. The students’ task was to indicate the gender of the nouns by naming the nominative definite article (der, die, das) as quickly and as accurately as possible. Since gender knowledge was defined as a function of accuracy and speed of access, latencies were measured with the help of a voicekey connected to the computer.
3.2. Results and discussion 3.2.1. Overall accuracy rates
The overall accuracy rates for the single items are displayed in Table 2.
The overview shows that gender assignment even in the early stages of GFL acquisition is by no means an adhoc decision which would have yielded accuracy rates of ±33 % at least for the items unknown to the stu-dents. The good results for some of the unknown items (as e.g.
Danborenker [nonce word], Bürger [citizen], Reike [nonce word]) as well as the poor accuracy rates for some of the known nouns (e.g. such as Gemüse [vegetables], Bar [bar], Tee [tea]) furthermore reveal that gender knowledge neither seems to depend solely on individually memorized article + noun pairs. It is rather obvious that the students have already extracted a number of formal cues relevant for gender assignment from the input.
Interestingly enough, the 1st year students generally performed better on the gender assignment task than the 2nd year students, although the lat-ter group had received more than twice as many German lessons. Accuracy rates for all items amount 46.53 % for the 1st year and to 41.25 % for the 2nd year; for known items: 50.9 % (1st year) vs. 43.3 % (2nd year), and for unknown items: 42.2 % (1st year) vs. 39.1 % (2nd year). This result may well be explained by the fact that the B-University (1st year students) is one of the traditional elite institutions in Japan, whereas the ranking of A-University (2nd year students) is located in the lower middle. While other factors such as branches of studies, first foreign language (English), age of
Table 2. Accuracy rates for the individual items – Study 1
76.9 % Foto [photo] 48.4 % Bein* [leg] 34.1 % Rad** [wheel]
75.8 % Danborenker** [n.w.] 48.4 % Dilo** [nonce word] 34.1 % Rindersteak [steak]
71.4 % Frau [woman] 46.2 % Supermarkt* 33.0 % Pila** [n.w.]
[supermarket]
71.4 % Stecker [plug] 46.2 % Näseperkeit** [n.w.] 31.9 % Klapptus** [n.w.]
70.3 % Mine [cartridge] 46.2 % Butter [butter] 30.8 % Film [movie]
69.2 % Kugelschreiber 45.1 % Turm** [tower] 30.8 % Brötchen
[ball-pen] [breakfast roll]
69.2 % Bürger** [citizen] 44.0 % Brief* [letter] 30.8 % Käse [cheese]
68.1 % Batterie [battery] 44.0 % Bitzefisch** [n.w.] 29.7 % Kuh** [cow]
67.0 % Reike** [n.w.] 44.0 % Kindergarten* 29.7 % Huhn** [chicken]
[kindergarten]
67.0 % Glühbirne [bulb] 42.9 % Krap** [n.w.] 29.7 % Medikament*
[medicine]
65.9 % Langeweile** 42.9 % Löffel [spoon] 29.7 % Bibliothek [library]
[boredom]
65.9 % Reiseführer** 42.9 % Schnupfen* [cold] 28.6 % Pläckchen** [n.w.]
[travel guide]
64.8 % Grippe* [flu] 42.9 % Lett** [n.w.] 28.6 % Jubiläum**
[anniversary]
63.7 % Herr [gentleman, Mr.] 41.8 % Wasserhahn [water tap] 28.6 % Sosch** [n.w.]
60.4 % Lehrer [teacher] 41.8 % Büro* [office] 27.5 % Kartoffel [potato]
60.4 % Fähre** [ferry] 40.7 % Buch [book] 26.4 % Brathähnchen [fried chicken]
59.3 % Kopf* [head] 40.7 % Brot [bread] 26.4 % Bank [bench, bank]
59.3 % Eis [ice] 39.6 % Gabel [fork] 25.3 % Tee [tea]
59.3 % Wote** [n.w.] 38.5 % Zahl [number] 25.3 % Faltonbar** [n.w.]
58.2 % Nänter** [n.w.] 37.4 % Waschbecken [sink] 25.3 % Bar [bar]
57.1 % Freundin* 37.4 % Hand* [hand] 25.3 % Besserung*
[female friend] [improvement]
57.1 % Vater* [father] 36.3 % Wasser [water] 24.2 % Information**
[information]
56.0 % Spaziergang [walk] 36.3 % Kaktus** [cactus] 24.2 % Lebensmittel**
[foodstuffs]
56.0 % Haltestelle* [bus stop] 36.3 % Tür* [door] 24.2 % Grielung** [n.w.]
54.9 % Topf [pot] 36.3 % Mosat** [n.w.] 23.1 % Skifahren* [skiing]
52.7 % Donnerstag [Thursday] 36.3 % Tinkerbrot** [n.w.] 22.0 % Spiel* [game]
50.5 % Ärztin [female doctor] 35.2 % Essen [food] 22.0 % Gemüse [vegetables]
50.5 % Campingurlaub** 34.1 % Weg** [way] 20.9 % Technik** [technique]
[camping trip]
50.5 % Motto** [motto] 34.1 % Gesicht* [face] 20.9 % Schenpalarum** [n.w.]
49.5 % Kind [child] 34.1 % Zentrum** [center] 16.5 % Wahl** [choice]
Notes: * items unknown to the first-year-students (n = 36); ** items unknown to all subjects (n = 91).
subjects, status of German as second foreign language, German teacher, and classroom materials are comparable for both groups, students need to achieve much higher scores in the central university entrance exam to be accepted at University. It is thus quite possible that the students from B-University (1st year) are equipped with more effective mechanisms for cognitive processing of information relevant for academic learning which also enable them to extract gender indicating cues from the nominal input more quickly.7
3.2.2. Types of gender regularities (and exceptions)
In order to assess the types of gender regularities the students have already established in their L2 grammar, the 90 nouns were subsumed under the following gender indicators (cf. Hoberg 1999; Meinert 1989; Wegera 1997).
Since more than one gender regularity can be applied to some of the nouns, these items will be assigned to all suitable gender regularities. Der Herr (gentleman, Mr.) e.g. is classed with semantic regularities as well as with monosyllables.
– semantic regularities (Sem. reg.), such as der Lehrer [male teacher], die Ärztin [female doctor]
– formal regularities (Formal reg.)8, such as der Stecker [plug], die Glüh-birne [bulb], das Foto [photo]
– monosyllabic nouns (Monosyll.), such as der Kopf [head]9
– nominalized verb infinitives (Nomin. verbs), such as das Skifahren [skiing]
– analogies (Analogies), such as der Donnerstag [Thursday], die Faltonbar [nonce word], das Lett [nonce word] [das Bett [bed]10
– exceptions to formal regularities11 (Excep. formal), such as der Käse [cheese], die Gabel [fork], das Wasser [water]
– exceptions to the tendency of monosyllabic nouns to take masculine gender (Excep. monosyll), such as die Bank [bench, bank], das Brot [bread]
– nouns without specific regularities concerning their gender assignment (No specific reg.), such as der Campingurlaub [camping trip], die Bibliothek [library], das Rindersteak [steak]
Figure 1 depicts the percentage of correct assignments for these types of gender regularities. The best results are obtained for items with semantic gender indication (60.3%) followed by nouns with formal gender indicators (48.4%) and monosyllables (42.9%). Nominalized verb infinitives (29.1%) and nouns with gender assignments in conflict with formal gender regulari-ties (31.6%), in contrast, yield the poorest results. Subsequent t-tests show that the results for the semantic (t (90) = 8.1; p < 0.000) and formal regu-larities (t (90) = 4.46; p < 0.000) deviate significantly from the accuracy rate of 43.2% for all items over all subjects, whereas the correct gender assignments for nominalized verb infinitives (t (90) = –3.93; p < 0.000), analogies (t (90) = –2.59; p = 0.011), formal exceptions (t (90) = – 6.17; p <
0.000), and exceptions to the monosyllables masc. tendency (t (90) = – 4.4;
p < 0.000) lead to results significantly below the average score12.
Figure 1. Types of gender regularities (and exceptions) – Study 1
These results illustrate that the subjects are obviously capable of applying semantic and formal gender regularities extracted from previous input. The top ranking of the results for nouns with semantic gender indication sup-ports Mills (1986) hypothesis, according to which the principle of natural gender plays a more important role than could be assumed considering its relatively limited range of application in the nominal lexicon of speakers.
The rather poor results for the exceptions to formal gender regularities (note that all these nouns were known to the subjects) furthermore reveal that gender assignment based upon a learner-internal system of regularities
% correct
Seman. reg.
Formal reg.
Monosyll.
Nomin. verbs Analogies
Excep. formal
Excep. monosyll.
No specific reg.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
strongly competes with memorized forms even in the early stages of lan-guage acquisition.
3.2.3. Formal gender regularities
We will now take a closer look at the type of formal gender regularities.
Following the proposition of Altmann and Raettig (1973) and Strong (1976), the formal regularities are not further differentiated into deriva-tional-morphological and phonological gender assignment principles, but are rather classified according to the graphematic regularities compiled by Meinert (1989: 59):
-a fem e.g.: die Pila [nonce word]
-at neu e.g.: das Mosat [nonce word]
-chen neu e.g.: das Brötchen [breakfast roll]
-e fem e.g.: die Langeweile [boredom]
-el masc e.g.: der Löffel [spoon]
-en masc e.g.: der Schnupfen [cold]
-er masc e.g.: der Nänter [nonce word]
Ge- neu e.g.: das Gesicht [face]
-ik fem e.g.: die Technik [technique]
-in fem e.g.: die Freundin [female friend]
-keit fem e.g.: die Näseperkeit [nonce word]
-ment neu e.g.: das Medikament [medicine]
-o neu e.g.: das Büro [office]
-tion fem e.g.: die Information [information]
-um neu e.g.: das Zentrum [center]
-ung fem e.g.: die Besserung [improvement]
-us masc e.g.: der Kaktus [cactus]
Ex-e exception to -e fem e.g.: das Gemüse [vegetables]
Ex-el exception to -el masc e.g.: die Gabel [fork]
Ex-en exception to -en masc e.g.: das Waschbecken [sink]
Ex-er exception to -er masc e.g.: die Butter [butter]
Figure 2 reveals major differences for the extend to which the students have established internal associations between noun endings (respectively beginning letters in the case of Ge-) and a certain gender class. The graph shows that these beginning students of GFL have already quite well estab-lished the word final gender indicators -er (65.9 %), -e (64.3 %), -o (54.5 %),
and -in (53.8 %), whereas the highly reliable or even categorical gender in-dicating word endings -ik (20.9 %), -tion (24.2 %), -ung (24.7 %), and -chen (26.8 %) have not yet been acquired at all. As for the items with gender assignment in conflict to formal gender indicators, the exceptions to the -e fem tendency (26 %) appear to be especially difficult. In order to investigate the statistical significance of the data, the result for each formal gender regularity was tested against (a) the chance value of 33.3 % and (b) the accuracy rate for all items over all subjects (42.3 %). T-tests yielded signifi-cant deviations for the items ending in -e (t (90) = 11.63; p < 0.000 for a and t (90) = 7.92; p < 0.000 for b), -er (t (90) = 12.96; p < 0.000 for a and t (90) = 9.03; p < 0.000 for b), -in (t (90) = 4.86; p < 0.000 for a and t (90) = 2.52; p = 0.013 for b), -o (t (90) = 7.05; p < 0.000 for a and t (90) = 3.74; p
< 0.000 for b), whereas the results for -ik (t (90) = -2.9; p = 0.05 for a and t (90) = -5.21; p < 0.000 for b). -tion (t (90) = -2.02; p = 0.046 for a and t (90) = -4.22; p < 0.000 for b), -ung (t (90) = -2.65; p = 0.012 for a and t (90) = -5.52; p < 0.000 for b), and for Ex-e (t (90) = -2.48; p = 0.015 for a and t (90) = -5.85; p < 0.000 for b) are significantly lower than both test values13.
These figures show that existing formal gender indicating regularities on German nouns have been established by the students with varying success.
The good results for -e point to a close relation between input frequency and establishment of gender regularities, as -e is one of the most frequent – albeit not entirely reliable – gender indicators in German14. The items ending in -er and -in might also have profited from the fact that quite a number of
-a -at
-chen -e
-el -en
-er
Ge--ik -in
-keit -ment
-o -tion
-um -ung
-us Ex-e Ex-el
Ex-en Ex-er
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
% correct
Figure 2. Formal gender regularities – Study 1
these nouns refer to professions with male-female gender differentiation (e.g. der Lehrer – die Lehrerin [male resp. female teacher]) and are thus associated with the natural gender principle. In the case of -o, one has to take the perceptual salience of the final full vowel into account which is untypical for German and could very well lead to an early establishment of this gender regularity. The extraordinary poor results for chen, tion, and -ung are surprising, considering the fact that these suffixes categorically indicate the gender of the respective noun, and will lead to a closer look at the input frequencies of nouns with respective formal gender indicators the subjects had been exposed to.
4. The role of the input