Ewelina Barski
This research investigates the acquisition of the abstract feature [gender] in second language (L2) Spanish. Previous research on the acquisition of gender found that gender was difficult to acquire resulting in persistent problems in agreement (Franceschina 2001; Hawkins 1998). Problems realizing gender have been attributed to ‘mapping’ problems where there is a mismatch between surface realizations and abstract feature properties (White et al. 2004). Spanish is a language that has a gender feature for nouns and gender agreement for determiners and adjectives a property of the grammar for which explicit instruction is received. However, viewing how L1 Polish speakers acquire gender in their L2 Spanish will be interesting since Polish also marks gender in demonstratives, nouns and adjectives. In order to investigate this issue, all Polish and Spanish speaking participants completed two tests: An oral production task and a picture-matching task. Currently, there are 14 L1 Polish speakers and 9 L1 Spanish speakers who have been tested. Preliminary results indicate that problems realizing gender are present even when the L1 also marks grammatical gender.
This research investigates the acquisition of the abstract feature [gender] in second language (L2) Spanish. Previous research on the acquisition of gender found that gender was difficult to acquire resulting in persistent problems in agreement (Franceschina 2001; Hawkins 1998). Problems realizing gender have been attributed to ‘mapping’ problems where there is a mismatch between surface realizations and abstract feature properties (White et al. 2004). Spanish is a language that has a gender feature for nouns and gender agreement for determiners and adjectives a property of the grammar for which explicit instruction is received. However, viewing how L1 Polish speakers acquire gender in their L2 Spanish will be interesting since Polish also marks gender in demonstratives, nouns and adjectives. In order to investigate this issue, all Polish and Spanish speaking participants completed two tests: An oral production task and a picture-matching task. Currently, there are 14 L1 Polish speakers and 9 L1 Spanish speakers who have been tested. Preliminary results indicate that problems realizing gender are present even when the L1 also marks grammatical gender.
