Age of Acquisition and Sensitivity to Gender in Spanish Word Recognition

Abstract

Speakers of gender-agreement languages use gender-marked elements of the noun phrase in spoken-word recognition: A congruent marking on a determiner or adjective facilitates the recognition of a subsequent noun, while an incongruent marking inhibits its recognition. However, while monolinguals and early language learners evidence this gender-marking effect, late learners do not (Guillelmon & Grosjean 2001). The goals of this study were to determine whether early learners who are not dominant in the gender-marking language (Spanish) can use gender cues in spoken-word recognition and whether the ability of both early and late learners to do so is a function of the noun’s gender-marking transparency. Results of a word-repetition task, completed by 32 native Spanish speakers and 64 English-dominant early and late learners of Spanish indicate that both types of learners make use of gender cues during spoken-word recognition, and that gender-marking transparency may influence this process.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Carmen Albaladejo along with Luis García and the College Assistance Migrant Program Scholars Initiative at Michigan State University for their help with participant recruitment. Thanks also go to Junkyu Lee and Soo Kim, who served as research assistants for this project.

Notes

¹ According to Guillelmon & Grosjean, this design was used in their study because results of a pilot had indicated that the strength of the congruency effect depends in part on the grouping of the experimental conditions.