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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Edited by
Rosa María Jiménez Catalán University of La Rioja, Spain
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 5 © Rosa María Jiménez Catalán 2010 Chapters © their individual authors 2010
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–23262–4 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
List of Figures and Tables
vii
Notes on the Contributors
x
Theorizing Gender Perspectives in Foreign and Second Language Learning Jane Sunderland
1
Part I Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition, Development and Use 1 More Than Words: Inferential and Incorrect Units Recalled Cindy Brantmeier
23
2 Gender and L1 Influence on EFL Learners’ Lexicon Mercedes Díez Prados
44
3 Exploring the Role of Gender in Lexical Creations María Pilar Agustín Llach
74
4 Gender and Motivation in EFL Vocabulary Production Almudena Fernández Fontecha
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5 Gender Tendencies in EFL across Vocabulary Tests Rosa María Jiménez Catalán
117
6 Boys’ and Girls’ L2 Word Associations Soraya Moreno Espinosa
139
Part II Gendered Words: Representation and Identities 7 A Case Study of Mrs Smith’s Words and Her Quiet Girls Allyson Jule 8 Gender Identity in Words for Professional Titles in Textbooks Mercedes Bengoechea and José Simón
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Contents
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Contents
9 Humour, Vocabulary and Individuality in an EFL Task Julieta Ojeda Alba
212
10 Lexical Encoding of Gender Relations and Identities Antonio García Gómez
238
Index
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Figures 1.1 Literal Units Recalled for Boxing Passage by Gender 1.2 Distribution of Literal Units by Gender with Boxing Passage 1.3 Literal Units Recalled for Frustrated Housewife Passage by Gender 2.1 Examples of Grammatical Metaphor 2.2 Examples of Certainty and Doubt Adverbs for all Populations 3.1 Examples of Categories of Lexical Inventions 3.2 Distribution of Categories of Lexical Inventions for Boys 3.3 Distribution of Categories of Lexical Inventions for Girls 4.1 Cueword Scores per Sex 4.2 Mean Motivation Score per Sex 4.3 Cueword Scores and Motivation’s Positive Relation 6.1 Definition of Word Association Categories (Moreno, 2009:101)
33 34 36 61 65 79 82 82 100 101 104 143
Tables 1.1 Ranges, Mean Scores and Standard Deviations for Idea Units Recalled by Gender for Boxing Passage 1.2 ANOVA of Literal Units Recalled for Boxing Passage by Gender 1.3 Ranges, Mean Scores and Standard Deviations for Idea Units Recalled by Gender for Frustrated Housewife Passage 1.4 ANOVA Table for Frustrated Housewife Passage 2.1 Corpora Studied (number of words and compositions) 2.2 Measures of Lexical Competence per Subpopulation 2.3 Types and Amounts of Errors in Three ICLE Subpopulations 2.4 Type/Token Ratio Before and After Error Removal
32 32
35 36 51 56
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List of Figures and Tables
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viii List of Figures and Tables
68 79 80 80 81 83 83 99 100 101
102 102 102 103
103 126
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2.5 Significant Differences in the Four Measures of Lexical Competence 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for Lexical Inventions 3.2 Descriptive Statistics for Composition Length 3.3 Descriptive Statistics for the Ratio Lexical Inventions/Composition Length 3.4 Results for Inferential Statistics 3.5 Absolute Values of the Categories of Lexical Inventions 3.6 Results for Inferential Statistics for the Categories of Lexical Inventions 4.1 Cueword Scores per Sex (MWW test: p-value = 0.019; K-S test: p-value = 0.016) 4.2 Mean Motivation per Sex (MWW test: p = 0. 006; K-S test: p = 0. 010) 4.3 Motivation Levels: Frequency and Percentage 4.4 Motivation Levels per Sex: Chi-Square Test. (a 1 cells (16.7 per cent) have Expected Count Less than 5. The Minimum Expected Count is 3.94) 4.5 Sex and Motivation Levels: Percentage 4.6 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation per Sex (MWW test: p = 0. 007; K-S test: p = 0. 020) 4.7 Correlation between Cueword Scores and Motivation, and Cueword Scores and Types of Motivation 4.8 Correlation between Cueword Scores and Motivation and between Cueword Scores and Types of Motivation per Sex 5.1 Means and Standard Deviations Obtained by Sixth EFL Learners across Tests 5.2 t-Test for Differences between Means Obtained by Girls and Boys, Taken all Together, in the Receptive Tests and in the Productive Tests 5.3 Mean and Standard Deviation in 1000 WT and 2000VLT Distributed by Gender 5.4 t-Test for Differences between Means Obtained by Girls and by Boys in the Receptive Tests 5.5 Means and Standard Deviations for Composition and Cue Word Tests by Gender 5.6 Correlation between Girls’ Results in the Four Tests: p < 0. 01 Level. Girls N = 105 5.7 Correlation between Boys’ Results in the Four Tests (∗∗ p < 0. 01 level) (∗ p < 0. 05 level). Boys (N = 105)
128 128 128
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List of Figures and Tables
143 145 146 148 150 159 160 161 171 172 198 200 201 202 202 206 207 207 219 220 245 254
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6.1 Mean Number of Tokens and Types Reported on an Individual Basis 6.2 Mean Lex30 Lexical Frequency Profile Following the Three-year Period 6.3 Correlations between Level zero words and the Vocabulary Levels Test 6.4 Mean Percentage of Associations by Class Word 6.5 Mean Percentage of Responses Given by Both Groups of Informants A.1 Fourth Grade: Top most frequent word association responses A.2 Fifth Grade: Top four most frequent word association responses A.3 Sixth Grade: Top four most frequent word association responses 7.1 Teacher Speech Acts 7.2 Student Speech Acts 8.1 Distribution of Samples (in our Corpus) 8.2 Sexist and Non-Sexists Denominations for ELE Materials 8.3 Frequencies of the 20 Most Common Professions 8.4 Ratios (Percentages of Total Tokens for the Most Common Professions) 8.5 Ratios (Percentages of the Total Tokens for All the Professions) 8.6 Gender Inflection (From González Hermoso and Romero Dueñas, 2007) 8.7 Gender Inflection (From Cerrolaza et al., 1999) 8.8 Excerpt from Activity 1, unit 7 (from Cerrolaza et al., 1999, 16) 9.1 Lexical Fields with the Highest Number of Types in FS 9.2 Lexical Fields with the Highest Number of Types in SS 10.1 Words Representing Categories of Affect in the Data 10.2 Words Representing Categories of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT in the Data
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María Pilar Agustín Llach works as an assistant teacher at the Department of Modern Languages at the University of La Rioja, Spain, where she teaches second language acquisition and linguistic courses. PhD in English Studies, she is a member of the Applied Linguistics Research Group (GLAUR) based at the University of La Rioja, where she has focused on the study of gender differences in vocabulary acquisition, development and use. She has published widely on these topics. Her most recent work is Gender Differences in Vocabulary Acquisition in the Foreign Language in Primary Education (University of La Rioja, 2009). Mercedes Bengoechea is Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics (Universidad de Alcalá, Spain). Her research on language and gender has focused on denouncing, on the one hand, the sexist usage of the language in the Spanish media and, on the other hand, normative linguistic policies and dictionaries of Spanish. She is a member of IGALA (International Gender and Language Association) Advisory Board; member of the Advisory Language Committee of the Instituto de la Mujer, NOMBRA (Ministry of Social Affairs); member of the Experts Committee on Gender and Childhood for the Institute of the National Spanish Television (Instituto Oficial de Radio Televisión Española) since 2005; and has been the co-ordinator of the 2006 Report of the Spanish National Observatory on Gender Violence. Cindy Brantmeier is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures of Washington University in St. Louis. Her investigations examine specific cognitive, linguistic and affective contributions to adult L2 reading capabilities. Some of her publications include Brantmeier, C., Schueller, J., Wilde, J. and Kinginger, C. (2007). Gender equity in foreign and second language learning. In S. Klein (ed.), Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity through Education (pp. 305–334). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, ‘Does gender make a difference? Passage content and comprehension in second language reading’ (Reading in a Foreign Language, 2003), and Brantmeier, C. (2002). The effects of passage content on second language reading comprehension by gender across
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Notes on the Contributors
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Notes on the Contributors xi
Mercedes Díez Prados is Associate Professor at Alcalá University. Her research fields and publications are mainly concerned with discourse analysis, pragmatics and TEFL. She has published on gender and discourse, her most recent publications being ‘El Lenguaje dirigido a las mujeres frente al lenguaje dirigido a los hombres: ¿Igual o diferente?’, ‘Kimmy y Jules: Dos estereotipos de mujer en My Best Friend’s Wedding’ and ‘Women and Language in Female Magazines’. She is currently a member of the research project Efectos de las Políticas Antisexistas y Feminización del Lenguaje de los Medios, led by Mercedes Bengoechea and financed by the Spanish Instituto de la Mujer. Almudena Fernández Fontecha, PhD in English Studies from the University of La Rioja (Spain), teaches Applied Linguistics courses in the Department of Modern Languages. She is a member of GLAUR research group. Her main research interests are the implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIIL), Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and gender and motivation in foreign language learning. She is co-author of ‘Semantic Derogation in Animal Metaphor’ (Journal of Pragmatics, 2003) and author of several publications on mixed-sex education and foreign languages. Antonio García Gómez, PhD in English Linguistics, teaches Functional Linguistics and Discourse Analysis at the University of Alcalá de Henares de Madrid, Spain. His research interests focus on the construction of gender identities throughout oral and written discourse in different contexts. He is the author of Assertive Behaviour and Gender Roles in Interpersonal Communication: A Constrastive Study (Madrid: Magister Editorial, 2008), ‘Discourse, politeness and gender roles: an exploratory investigation into British and Spanish Talk show verbal conflict’ (Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, 2000), ‘Sneaking gender into the EFL class’ (Porta Linguarum: revista internacional de didáctica de las lenguas extranjeras, 2006) and ‘ “Teenage Girls” Personal Weblog Writing: Truly a New Gender Discourse?’ (Information, Communication and Society 2009).
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instruction levels. In J. Hammadou Sullivan (ed.), Research in Second Language Learning: Literacy and the Second Language Learner (pp. 149–176). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Rosa María Jiménez Catalán is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of La Rioja where she teaches Translation, SLA and TESOL courses. She leads a research project granted by Spanish
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
‘Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología’ and FEDER, Grant No HUM200609775-C02-02/FILO on the acquisition of vocabulary by Spanish EFL learners in classroom contexts. Head of GLAUR research group, her research focuses mainly on gender in foreign language learning and cross-linguistic analysis of gender in English and Spanish. Some of her publications in this connection are: The English Vocabulary of Girls and Boys: Similarities or Differences? Evidence from a Quantitative Study [Palgrave, 2008 (co-authored with Julieta Ojeda)], ‘Sex differences in L2 Vocabulary learning strategies’ (International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2003), ‘Semantic Derogation in female/male examples of Animal Metaphor’ [Journal of Pragmatics, 2003 (co-authored with Almudena Fernández)] and the co-edition of ‘Género’, Sexo, Discurso’ (Editorial Laberinto, Madrid 2002). She is also co-editor of Content and Language Integrated Learning (Multilingual Matters, 2009), where the issue of gender is also addressed. Allyson Jule, PhD, is Associate Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Gender and Language (2008) and Gender, Silence and Participation in the Language Classroom: Sh-shushing the Girls (2003). She is also the editor of Gender and the Language of Religion (2004) and Language and Religious Identity (2007) and co-editor of Being Feminist, Being Christian: Essay from Academia (2006). She also serves on the advisory board of IGALA (International Gender and Language Association) and on CASWE (Canadian Association for the Study of Women in Education). Her work focuses on the complementary and often contradictory ways that gender identity, religious identity and classroom talk work alongside each other in the lives of girls and women. Soraya Moreno Espinosa holds a tenure at the Official Language School in Logroño where she teaches English and co-ordinates several programmes on assessment. She was awarded with a four-year research fellowship by Comunidad Autónoma de La Rioja to conduct her PhD studies. A member of GLAUR research group, she has conducted research and published in the field of second language acquisition and teaching, particularly in the area of vocabulary acquisition and assessment. Her current research interests are in the role of gender and type of instruction in EFL learners’ word associations. Her most recent publication being ‘Young Learners’ L2 Word Association Responses in Two
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Notes on the Contributors xiii
Julieta Ojeda Alba is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of La Rioja, where she teaches North American Literature courses. She has been visiting professor at Northeastern University and Bridgewater College. Her research work focuses on literary writers such as Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne; and on foreign language education. Member of GLAUR research group, she has published articles on gender such as ‘Representaciones de la mujer en la música tradicional y country norteamericana’ (Madrid, Editorial Laberinto, 2002) and ‘Hawthorne’s Scribbling Women’ (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2001); and co-authored The English Vocabulary of Girls and Boys: Similarities or Differences? Evidence from a Quantitative Study (Palgrave, 2008). José Simón is Senior Lecturer in Computational Linguistics (Universidad de Alcalá, Spain) and Information Technologies for Language Teaching and Research. He has developed a number of computational tools for corpus management/exploitation and dictionary compilation which have been used by several publishing houses in Spain, France and Portugal. Together with Mercedes Bengoechea he compiled a corpus of officialese in which sexist utterances were annotated. All these expressions together with proposals of alternative non-sexist wordings were collected in a database published by the Instituto de la Mujer under the name Nombra.en.red. Jane Sunderland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK, where she teaches courses on Language and Gender to MA and PhD students. She is interested in gender and language both inside and outside the foreign and second language classroom. She is the author of Gendered Discourses (Palgrave, 2004) and co-editor of Gender and Language Research Methodologies (Palgrave, 2008).
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Different Learning Contexts’ (Content and Language Integrated Learning, Multilingual Matters, 2009).
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Jane Sunderland
Gender and language education The field of gender and foreign or second language education – of which the teaching and learning of foreign and second language vocabulary is part – is a long-established one, having been a concern for many researchers and language teachers since the inception of the modern women’s movement (for example, Schmitz, 1975). It is also a wide field and hence of interest to a wide audience, including language education practitioners, researchers interested in second language acquisition (SLA) and many who work in gender studies. Of course, many readers will fall into more than one of these camps. The field itself can broadly be divided into three areas. The first is the subject matter itself: the second or foreign language in question, in the senses of usage and use, langue and parole, competence and performance. Most obviously, something that has to be taught and learned is the ‘grammatical gender’ of nouns in languages such as French and Spanish (see Corbett, 2004), in contrast to the ‘natural gender’ of nouns in English. More controversial are social questions surrounding genderrelated language change. One example is the recent non-use of Fraulein to refer to single women in German, for example – instead, both married and single women are Frau. Similarly in Spanish, the use of Señorita to refer to single women is beginning to be replaced by Señora (for both married and single women). A second example is the new non-sexist terminology to replace or provide an alternative to sexist items (chair instead of chairman, for example). Certain gender-related vocabulary items may be alienating to or enjoyed by EFL learners – the relatively new Ms, the old-fashioned use of chairman to refer to women and men alike. Learners of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) have to face similar
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Theorizing Gender Perspectives in Foreign and Second Language Learning
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
issues, for example in the terms Hombre (man) and Mujer (woman). Comparable to English, the former has two senses: specific (men as opposed to women) and generic (human beings in general). However, in contrast to English (in which there has been a movement to avoid use of the socalled ‘generic’ man), in Spanish there is a strong movement to avoid the specific use of hombre (to refer to the masculine), replace it by Varón and to use Hombre only to refer to both varones (men) and mujeres (women), that is, as a gender-inclusive term. Again, this may be something that learners of SFL welcome or dislike. As regards language use, gender variation can largely be seen as a matter of tendencies (that is, as ‘sex-preferential’). (I avoid the word differences as this suggests something absolute rather than relative.) In terms of vocabulary, there may be sex-preferential use of words associated with certain topics: one study of the British National Corpus of Spoken English for example found quid (English slang for one pound sterling) to be more characteristic of male than female speech and school more characteristic of female than male speech (Rayson et al., 1997). In certain languages, however, for example Japanese, not only are certain prosodic styles sex-preferential, certain pronominal forms are sex-exclusive in terms of use. These are of course grammatical rather than lexical (and, indeed, even these cases of sex-exclusiveness may be loosening) (Swann et al., 2000). The notion of discourse in general and gendered discourse(s) (see for example, Sunderland, 2004) in particular has, however, shifted a concern with the ‘who’ of talk (men or women) to the ‘what’ of talk (that is, a combination of topic and how a given topic is addressed) – and a similar ‘what’ may be articulated by both women and men. I would suggest that the idea of ‘gendered styles’, including the notion of vocabulary use, is now outdated. It is now recognized that ‘styles’ vary hugely with genre and with context, context both including and extending to the notion of ‘Community of Practice (CoP)’, and vocabulary use in talk will inevitably be related to the CoP in question. Taking on board language use, Community of Practice has been defined as an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in some common endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of their joint activity around that endeavor. A community of practice is . . . defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages. (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992)
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A language classroom is a CofP, as is (say) a multi-lingual workplace. If a given CofP is gendered (that is, if gender is relevant in that CofP), then it is likely that talk in that CofP will be too – but there is no reason to expect that such gendered practices will map neatly on to other CofPs or to talk by women and men more widely. For most languages, then, ‘a gendered style’ should not be something that teachers try to teach or learners try to learn (although languages which include normatively sex-exclusive grammatical features raise different issues). The second area of gender and foreign or second language education which can be identified is processes – both learning and teaching processes. Most straightforwardly, language learning processes include those associated with attitude and motivation (with implications for subject choice, when this is available or required), together with learners’ own beliefs, expectations and models of language learning; all these may be gendered. Processes extend to learning styles and strategies, student-talk in the classroom (to the teacher and to other students, both on-task and off-task), which have also been found to be gendered (see for example, Sunderland, 1998; 2000a; 2000b) and cognitive or psycholinguistic processes. They also include performance and achievement in relation to each of the ‘four skills’, achievement including both rate and route of acquisition (Ellis, 1994), that is, do girls really learn languages faster and/or better than boys, and does their learning happen in a different way? Vocabulary acquisition, use and development are related to all these. In this book, Soraya Moreno deals with development through patterns of word associations in the same EFL learners throughout three school years (fourth, fifth and sixth grade of primary education) and Julieta Ojeda Alba compares use of humour over time: in their fourth year of primary education compared to their second year of secondary education. Teaching processes include those associated with teacher beliefs concerning, inter alia, whether (and how) gender is a factor in language acquisition. Such beliefs may extend to teachers’ classroom practices, encompassing teacher talk, which may similarly be gendered (male and female learners for example being addressed or treated differently, including with slightly different sets of lexis). To both teaching and learning processes, which may be variously gendered in the sense that gender is ‘already’ an aspect of the various dimensions identified, we can add the notion of gendering. This includes the active and constitutive ‘maintaining the genderedness’ of the language classroom or even ‘making the language classroom more gendered’. This may happen in different ways. One is that, as suggested above, teachers’ discourse may position girls and women as the better
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Jane Sunderland
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
language learners. A second, given that many mixed-sex classes are largely populated by women and/or girls, may be the associated ‘gendering’ of those students who choose to learn a particular foreign or second language (for women and girls, in most contexts, as something unmarkedly feminine; for men and boys, something which has associations with a more peripheral, non-hegemonic masculinity). In Spain, although foreign languages are compulsory throughout primary (ages six to 12) and secondary education (ages 12 to 16) and girls and boys almost all attend mixed schools, most teachers of English as a foreign language are women, particularly in primary education. At university, English Philology studies (needed to become a secondary teacher) are mainly selected by females, only exceptionally by males. The third area is classroom materials: teacher-created handouts, commercially published textbooks, teachers’ guides, grammars and dictionaries, tests and curricula (see Sunderland, 2000a for an overview). How is gender represented in these various texts? Dictionaries are of particular interest in terms of vocabulary representation (for example, Hennessy, 1994; Marco, 1996; Vargas et al., 1998; Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba, 2001), as regards the definitions, examples and indeed sequencing (prioritizing) of meaning of gender-related words, as well as the inclusion (or not) of newer, non-sexist items. As regards textbooks, questions of representation include whether women and men are represented equally or at least realistically in terms of numbers, as well as social, professional and discourse roles. This is important, given the concern with construction beyond the text [for example, in shaping beliefs or practices – see Fairclough’s (2003) construction/construal distinction here] – while remembering that students and teachers always have a degree of agency and can resist particular constructions. Of course, classroom materials alone are always mediated by what is done with them – how they are ‘consumed’ by the teacher and learners. For example, a text which is full of traditional gender stereotypes can be ‘rescued’ by a teacher (whose lesson may involve a spoken or written critical evaluation of the text); similarly, a teacher can undermine a progressively-written text (for examples, see Sunderland et al., 2002). Similarly, depending in part on their previous experiences, learners will interpret a given text in different ways – including critical rejection of its particular gender representation. It will be clear from the above that the word gender can be used in different ways. As the study of gender has advanced, meanings of gender have become more sophisticated and have multiplied. Gender has been studied from a psychological perspective, in the form of ‘sex
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differences’, and with an emphasis on the individual. It is this meaning that is important for many – though not all – of the studies reported in this collection. Alternatively, socially, while the notion of gender may have previously corresponded closely with ‘biological sex’ to mean biological sex’s assumed social correlates, gender now extends beyond socialization to social construction, that is, how women, men, boys, girls and indeed gender relations are represented and/or constructed in both written texts and talk, including their own talk and texts. Discourse has a clear role to play here. This means extending our understanding of gender from person-based (or even people based, that is, social group-based) to ‘ideas-based’. The social construction of gender is also an on-going, lifelong process which involves multiple and (synchronically and diachronically) shifting gender identities (see for example, Sunderland, 2002; 2004). There is however a lack of research on gender in both foreign language classrooms and second language settings more widely, especially in contexts in which English is not the target language. The fact that this book includes research on Spanish as an FL goes some way to addressing this gap. In particular, there is a lack of work on second and foreign classroom interaction (but again see Sunderland, 1998; 2000a; 2000b; also work by Chavez, 2000a; 2000b, on German as an FL classroom; AlcónSoler and Codina-Espurz, 1996; Alcón-Soler, 1996, on Spanish students learning EFL) and learning processes generally. In SLA more generally, sex (usually rendered ‘politely’ as gender) as an independent variable has been investigated less than other potentially relevant variables. The one area that has been widely explored is gender’s relationship with language (EFL) learning strategies, through work done by Rebecca Oxford and her colleagues in many countries (for example, Green and Oxford, 1995; Oxford, 1996; Young and Oxford, 1997). In Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, the notion of gender (in its different meanings) is applied mainly to foreign languages in language education, in particular, the acquisition, development, production and teaching of vocabulary. The foreign or second language question is not always English, but in several chapters is Spanish. Cindy Brantmeier focuses on native speakers of English learning Spanish as a foreign language in the USA and Mercedes Díez compares the vocabulary used by native and non-native speakers of English in written essays. Mercedes Bengoechea and José Simón report a thorough analysis of dictionaries and other materials to teach Spanish as a foreign language. Notably, Spanish is spoken by more than 400 million speakers as a first and as a second language all over the world;
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the study of this language is increasing, in China and Japan as well as in European countries (Luján Castro, 2001). As regards the foreign and second language learning distinction, this book is not the place to theorize, debate and problematize this (but see Krashen, 1981 and also Zobl, 1995). Our working definition is that foreign language learning is that which is largely classroom-based, there being little or no use of the language in question in the wider community. In second language learning, on the other hand, the second language will be spoken in the student’s community and useful or even essential to him or her in his or her day-to-day life. Second language learning may thus take place outside the classroom as well as (or, often, instead of) inside the classroom. However, the distinction is rarely so clear-cut. An FL may have an important role in the beliefs of the community: English for example in Spain is thought to be an important language for prospective jobs, for travelling, for education, particularly because of the euro and within the European community. For ERASMUS exchanges, and the Bologna educational context, English is regarded as a lingua franca. Spanish students of EFL may well then need the language in their later day-to-day lives, but as children and adolescents (both primary and secondary school students) they are frequently unaware of this. Their immediate context is often their town, family and friends, with whom they tend to enjoy very close relations. And although their global and multilingual awareness may be changing with the coming of thousands of immigrants (for example, from Romania and Latin America), Spanish children and adolescents may not be consciously aware of the importance of foreign languages, their own concerns perhaps being more immediate to them.
Gender and second language acquisition Gender may be an issue in SLA in general and vocabulary acquisition in particular in more ways than are immediately apparent. Perhaps most obviously, there is the question of the rate of SLA (and hence vocabulary acquisition and development): I have already referred to the popular belief among language teachers that, just as little girls allegedly acquire their L1 faster than do little boys, girls just ‘are’ better L2 language learners than boys. And certainly in many countries, for example the UK, girls’ school grades are higher than those of boys when it comes to foreign languages (and indeed other subjects)1 – the gap being greater than for many other subjects in which there is also an achievement gender
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gap in favour of girls (see also Davies, 2004). But if girls and women are in some ways the ‘superior sex’ when it comes to foreign language acquisition, then we have to address the age-old dichotomy of nature and nurture: is it a question of linguistic hard-wiring in the brain, or are girls somehow socialized into thinking that language learning is either intrinsically good or for some reason important, which makes them engage with it more seriously and/or effectively than their male peers? As regards ‘innate’ sex differences in L2 learning, Lars Ekstrand claims that ‘almost all the behavioural variation may be explained by cultural factors’ (and even for L1 acquisition research comments on inconsistency of findings and the smallness of the differences) (1980:251). So, do girls and women just get on better with the task of learning a foreign or second language, for social rather than biologically determinist reasons? We need to add to the rather tired ‘nature or nurture’ debate a third possibility, that of agency, that is, that individuals can decide (up to a point) to learn particular things in particular ways, ways which may be related to a desire to perform or ‘display’ a certain masculinity or femininity in particular moments of their lives (see below). There may be a difference between foreign and second language settings here, with their different social characteristics and requirements. Bonnie Norton (2000) for example convincingly demonstrated that female migrants’ particular ‘investment’ in learning a second language in Canada was what helped them (again see below). Norton’s intrinsically social concept of ‘investment’ replaces the more individualistic concept of ‘motivation’, yet motivation does not have to be seen as solely individualistic. In this volume, Almudena Fernández shows that there is a relationship between gender, motivation and vocabulary performance, and that girls are more motivated than boys to learn English. This motivation may be applicable to academic work in general and as such subtly related to social factors: in the last few decades, Spain has undergone a profound change, in that women are now fully part of the professional world of work, with young women taking important jobs, and many women serving in the government.
Research on SLA and gender
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While it is important to remember that gender will not always be relevant, gender is in fact completely invisible in some accounts of SLA. Jiménez Catalán (2002) claims that gender (or even sex), in contrast with such variables as age, motivation and learning style, is neglected
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
in ‘well-known and widely-cited’ textbooks on second language acquisition (see Ellis, 1994 for an exception; see also critical reviews by Ehrlich, 1997; Pavlenko, 2001; Block, 2002). Susan Ehrlich criticises SLA work on gender ‘[removed] from its particular social, cultural and situational contexts’ (1997:427). With reference to naturalistic, second language learning settings she cites exposure to the target language as sometimes gendered. She also notes, echoing Labov, how women are often (and/or often seen as) either ‘cultural brokers’ (that is, ‘guardians’ of traditional language and culture) or, somewhat paradoxically, innovators. There is in fact now a range of work written from a largely non-cognitive perspective which shows how second language acquisition can be viewed as a social issue, and related to (gender) identity (see also Rampton, 1991; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, 2001). In terms of cognitive processes in foreign language learning, in a study of British second year learners of French, German, Spanish and Italian, Julia Batters (1986) found that girls’ and boys’ attitudes to classroom activities varied. The boys were more negative than the girls in all areas, except speaking, where they were equally positive. Batters also found girls more likely to give a language ‘favourite subject’ status, that they showed a greater desire to meet and communicate with people from ‘target language’ countries and had significantly higher self-image as foreign language learners (see also Powell and Batters, 1985). Harris (1998) has suggested that boys are demotivated in part by their perceived lack of independence in the subject (see also Graham and Rees, 1995), although it is unclear why this should apply only (or more) to boys. It is of course not impossible that the requirement of adolescent boys in oral foreign language work to produce unusual sounds broadly coinciding with their voice breaking, in the presence of girls, may lead to embarrassment and negative affect – this would not in fact be inconsistent with Batters’s finding above, given that the boys she studied would have been aged 12 and 13. The concept of motivation, with its instrumental/integrative distinction, is such a familiar one in language education discourse (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) that – as suggested above – it perhaps warrants reexamination. Norton Pierce sees motivation as misleadingly to do with the ‘here and now’ and, as shown above, suggests the term investment, which ‘more accurately signals the socially and historically constructed relationship of [a given set of learners] to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practice it’ (1995:17; see also Cohen, 1996; Norton, 2000). Boys’ (relative lack of) motivation
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Research on gender and vocabulary acquisition As regards research on gender and vocabulary acquisition specifically, the understanding of gender in many studies is often that of ‘sex’, and I suggest that, in some studies, ‘sex differences’ are sought (or sometimes just documented) simply because, given a mixed-sex group of research participants, it is straightforward to do so. While this means such studies are not gender-blind, at the same time, gender is not theorized in terms of, for example, to what extent any gender differences found are socially constructed, or indeed intentionally enacted, and the proportion of gender similarities is similarly often not emphasized. Scholars of gender and language (learning) need to be vigilant for these same points even when gender is a focus of the study. Further, it is important to remember that finding an association of ‘X’ with gender is just that – an association or relationship – and it cannot be said that gender is either somehow reflected in or causal of ‘X’. Results of studies of gender and FL vocabulary acquisition are mixed – unsurprisingly, given the range of ages, levels, classroom activities and social contexts relevant to the teaching and learning of second and foreign languages. In a study of two groups of Chinese students in Hong Kong (from the Chinese University and a banking college), Joseph Boyle (1987) found male students to have higher mean scores in ‘listening vocabulary’ – despite the female students performing better in general language proficiency. Boyle suggests that if L2 speakers follow the (presumed) L1 pattern of girls expressing themselves earlier than boys, then, in both, boys may be relatively ‘dependent on discriminating listening for a longer period than girls’ (1987:282). Boyle’s finding in favour of male students is rather unusual, however: other FL research on vocabulary and task has come up with findings in favour of female learners, or has identified no relationship between vocabulary acquisition and gender. For example, Martha Nyikos (1990) found that female university students of German as a foreign language performed better than their male peers in a memorization test of German vocabulary when using certain strategies. In some contrast, a study of University students starting French as a foreign language using L1 translations in a CALL
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for language learning in many contexts could be seen in this way in terms of both perceptions of foreign language use (perhaps associated with careers for women) and of gender itself (the felt need to ‘perform masculinity’ by oppositionally avoiding those practices perceived to be associated with femininity) (see Johnson, 1997).
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
lesson found no gender differences in short- or long-term retention, or indeed in the time male and female students spent looking up translations (Grace, 2000). Similarly, a study of how vocabulary acquisition by Iranian EFL students through monolingual and bilingual dictionary use might vary with gender and ‘linguality’ found zero or non-significant relationships between vocabulary acquisition and gender (or indeed linguality) (Maghsoudi, 2008). Other work looks at gender variation in vocabulary use. In a recent study, Rosa María Jiménez Catalán and Julieta Ojeda Alba (2008) carried out a corpus investigation of compositions by Spanish primary school boys and girls learning EFL. They found many shared tendencies between girls and boys, including a shared distribution of words in different classes. An exception was adjectives, with eight occurring in the boys’ ‘top 50’ words and 13 (including colours) in the girls’ ‘top 50’. Girls also mentioned family and kinship terms more frequently than did the boys. Overall, the girls ‘ma[d]e use of a statistically significant greater number of tokens and a near-significant greater number of types than boys’ (2008:112). Although the focus of this study was not genderdifferential achievement, Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba propose that the sort of linguistic production characteristic of the girls is positively related to ‘reading comprehension and writing performance, and . . . the chances of achieving good marks’ (2008:112). As in Nyikos’s study (above), emphasis in vocabulary learning research is often on achievement of vocabulary in relation to learning strategies, or perceptions of strategies used. This tends to be done via questionnaire studies of learners’ perceptions, which tell us about reported rather than actual strategy use (they may be closely related, but without further investigation via observation, we can never be sure). Yongqi Gu, for example, in a study of Chinese EFL learners found that ‘female students significantly outperformed their male counterparts in . . . a vocabulary size test and . . . reported significantly more use of almost all vocabulary learning strategies that were found to be correlated with success in EFL learning’ (Gu, 2002:35; again see for example, Young and Oxford, 1997). Gender in fact proved to be a more important factor in Gu’s study than academic major (‘female students outperformed male students no matter what academic background they were from’ (2002:42)). Gu cites social expectations (in China) as a possible explanation here:
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Women are generally expected to succeed in language learning, and for non-English majors in China, failure in English for female students may well be more face-threatening than for male students.
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Females’ alleged superiority in EFL could then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rosa María Jiménez Catalán’s (2003) own work on vocabulary and EFL study involved primary, secondary and university students of EFL. The study was designed to investigate whether either number of vocabulary learning strategies or range of these strategies (as claimed by the respondents in a questionnaire) varied with gender. Females reported using significantly more learning strategies; as regards range, in addition to a large amount of gender similarity, females reported making greater use than males of formal rule strategies (such as analysing the part of speech), input elicitation strategies (such as asking a teacher or classmates for a translation) and rehearsal strategies (such as saying a word aloud when studying). Males reported greater use than females of strategies which involved forming an image of the word’s meaning. In general, females reported greater use of consolidating (rather than discovery) strategies than males. As noted above, however, Jiménez Catalán reminds us that these results may reflect perceptions of vocabulary learning behaviours as much as differently gendered patterns of vocabulary strategy usage. Studies of vocabulary and gender in ESL contexts are few but the results are again, unsurprisingly, varied. Male university ESL students in the USA performed significantly better than females on the speciallydevised ‘Test of Academic Lexicon’, which tests recognition, understanding and use of academic vocabulary (Scarcella and Zimmerman, 1998). Possible explanations, Scarcella and Zimmerman suggest, could be related to exposure to academic texts, leisure time reading, previous educational opportunities, different interaction in academic conversations, cultural background and/or learning strategies. As regards vocabulary learning strategies specifically, Nemati (2008) carried out a questionnaire study of pre-University ESL students in India and found no significant gender differences.
Gender as conceptualized by vocabulary studies
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The fact that female participants spent more extra-curricular time on English learning provides support to this explanation. (2002:44)
Varied as the above reported studies are, and recognizing that they address gender similarities as well as differences, the emphasis is nevertheless very much on gender as something pre-existing and personrelated (as opposed to, for example, continually being constructed
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
and ‘ideas’-related (ideas about women, men, boys and girls)) that is, really, on biological sex as an independent variable. The studies are also, accordingly, overwhelmingly quantitative, with an emphasis on whether such and such ‘gender difference’ is, or is not, statistically significant. Notably, the majority of studies concern FL rather than SL settings. There are, I propose, several reasons for this particular profile. EFL contexts, the ‘site’ of most of the above studies, almost by definition are characterized by classroom language learning. ESL, on the other hand, is characterized by learning both inside and outside the classroom, by membership of a minority ethnic group, and perhaps by migration. In second language contexts the learning of the target language is in part a matter of identifying with the community of speakers or being resistant to it (or somewhere on that continuum), as some learners (immigrants or refugees) may feel that by acquiring the new language they are going to loose their own ‘native’ identity (which may be seen as a bad or good thing), or are adding to it in a positive way. ‘Identity’ is thus a key theme for work in SLA contexts – and is notoriously non-amenable to quantitative investigation. In contrast, for the foreign language learner, a language may be just another school subject. Identity in terms of ethnicity, at least (or at least in the monolingual, mono-cultural classroom), is much less at stake: learners are typically forging their own identities as adolescents, and their closest community members are their peers at school, with whom they share much. FL learners may feel attracted to learning the foreign language or scared of it, but ethnicity is unlikely to be the issue. In terms of gender, however, identity issues may become increasingly salient (see above) – notably, for boys. The focus in this collection is mainly (but not entirely) on the FL classroom, and it would seem that there is still plenty of room for nuanced quantitative research. But while such studies may be able to identify gender similarities and tendencies, it is important to take on board that these will always be just that, tendencies; that is, there will always be ‘gender overlap’ and indeed ‘intra-group differences’ (among girls, among boys) as well as inter-group similarities (between girls and boys). The professional relevance of the tendencies to FL practitioners thus cannot be straightforward: for example, it would seem counterproductive to teach girls and boys separately. However, it may be the case that some boys may need extra or a different type of tuition in (in this case) FL vocabulary, just as some girls may need extra tuition in those areas of the curriculum in which (in a given context) they tend
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to perform less well than boys. This is a matter for sensitive teacher education (pre-service and in-service) as well as flexibility in school organization and classroom management. Further, it would be a pity if FL classroom research and particularly research into vocabulary learning, use and development in relation to gender did not ultimately extend to more qualitative work (including ethnography and discourse analysis), which could not only interrogate and enrich the picture painted by quantitative work on vocabulary acquisition, but also develop our understanding of gender. Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages reports both qualitative and quantitative work, and is thus wide in scope. This is appropriate for a collection with gender as a key concept, given that gender can be explored cognitively or psychologically as well as socially. The former in several cases involves studies of ‘gender differences’ – or, better, ‘tendencies’ – for example in terms of lexical choice, lexical inventions, word association and lexical performance in tests. ‘Socially’ in contrast refers both to the relationship between vocabulary production and reception in terms of early socialization and on-going, life-long social construction – the latter extending to textual representation, discourse more widely and indeed individual agency, performance and resistance. It is taken as given that gender not only impacts on cognitive processes relevant to SLA, but also that SLA processes (in particular, in the classroom) have a role in the construction of gender. In this way the diverse contributions to this book contribute to a shared agenda. The collection is divided into two sections. Part I is entitled ‘Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition, Development and Use’ and examines gender tendencies. Cindy Brantmeier looks at how English-speaking Anglo-American students of Spanish recalled ‘idea units’ from Spanish short stories and reports some statistically significant gender tendencies (in particular, in recall of literal ideas), and other cases that were not significant (recalled incorrect ideas). Mercedes Díez Prados follows with a chapter on a corpus study focussing qualitatively and quantitatively on the lexis produced by university student writers writing in English, native speakers of a range of European languages. The females in this study tended to produce more nominalizations and, interestingly, more certainty adverbs (which were also used more by Romanic than Germanic L1 speakers), but there were no significant gender tendencies in lexical density. Next, María Pilar Agustín Llach looks at ‘lexical creations’ in the work of 298 Spanish intermediate learners of EFL. Classifying these into interlingual (from the L1) and intralingual (from the
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Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages
L2), she reports, refreshingly, a high degree of gender similarity both in number and type of these creations. Almudena Fernández Fontecha then looks at gender and motivation in EFL vocabulary production in second grade secondary students of EFL. She reports a statistically stronger motivation in the girls than the boys, and some positive correlations between motivation and achievement (with a stronger correlation for the girls than for the boys). Penultimately, Rosa María Jiménez Catalán explores looks at 12-year-old Spanish students’ gendered variation in performance in EFL vocabulary tests (both productive and receptive). Gender similarities were found in the receptive tests and differential gender tendencies in the productive tests (composition and cue word tests), the latter possibly being related to greater motivation and/or use of learning strategies. Last in this section, Soraya Moreno Espinosa looks at productive vocabulary knowledge from a longitudinal perspective in the form of late primary school boys’ and girls’ word association responses and (like Agustín Llach) reports gender similarities rather than differential tendencies. Importantly, although these Part I studies look for relationships between gender and some aspect of vocabulary in language education, they do not see such relationships as either straightforwardly causal or absolute (they are talking about tendencies rather than differences), and do see them as often nuanced (relevant ‘third factors’ including L1, age or general proficiency). Further, the relationships identified between gender and vocabulary acquisition may not be enduring, and may even be context- (for example, classroom- and test type-) specific, hence of limited generalizability. However, given the large number of EFL learners studied, the characteristics of the population from which the (representative) samples were drawn, and the statistical tests of significance applied to the data, the results may be generalizable, with caution, to other populations with comparable characteristics (of course, no two populations will ever have identical characteristics). A second important point is that the above researchers are all looking for (and willing to find, and report) similarities as well as differential tendencies – and, importantly, often find both differential tendencies and similarities, thus acknowledging that gender is always complex and nuanced. Part II is entitled ‘Gendered Words: Representation and Identities’. This concerns gender representation, identities and ideologies. In this section gender is conceptualized as an idea, often shown through representation, rather than something person-focussed. This section engages fully with newer understandings of gender as continually being constructed in an on-going way in every area of life and ‘Community of
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practice’ – at least potentially. The importance of discourse, individual agency and resistance are all acknowledged, as are material, social and linguistic practices. First, Mercedes Bengoechea and José Simón conduct an in-depth study of the incorporation of non-sexist professional Spanish titles in Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) textbooks. From a feminist or even equity perspective, their findings are depressing in terms of gender representation and lexical choices. Bengoechea and Simón analysed a large number of important books, looked at revised legislations of equity and still found a strong resistance to promoting equality of women and men through the incorporation of titles of professions explicitly indexing women as well as men. Both socio-political and linguistic factors may be relevant here (see also Pauwels, 1998). Next, reporting her work in a primary ESL classroom in Canada, Allyson Jule explores both qualitatively and quantitatively how gender (and ethnicity) can be ‘rehearsed’ in class, largely through teachers’ words. Julieta Ojeda Alba then focuses on gendered and gendering patterns of humour and identity in primary and secondary education in student compositions (the instructions for which did not require humour) and reports female students using humour less than males (whose humour often consisted of boastful exaggerations). Ojeda Alba puts this down to ‘social habits regulating choice’, including the social habit of males daring to express themselves humorously. Lastly, Antonio García Gómez, in a quantitative and qualitative study, considers students’ creative writing in terms of self-expression and gendered discourse. Trainee primary teachers were asked to write adverts for toys for girls, for boys and for a ‘unisex’ toy. Despite the adverts’ progressive aims, García Gómez argues that the result is distorted versions of gender equality.
Conclusion Vocabulary is self-evidently crucial for foreign and second language use and hence for foreign and second language learning, as scholars in vocabulary research have repeatedly observed. EFL learners’ vocabulary has been found to be related to language achievement: the higher the number of words, the higher the degree of language achievement (Meara and Jones, 1987; Read, 2000); academic success as measured by good marks: the higher the number of words, the better the marks (Meara and Bell, 2001; Laufer et al., 2004); and errors: the higher the vocabularies of EFL learners, fewer their errors (Meara, 1984). The
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number of words known is thus one of the key factors in language learning, particularly in the first stages (see Nation, 1990; 2001; Meara, 1996; Laufer, 1998a; 1998b). Even in an FL setting, the FL may be important for future academic life in terms of transition from secondary to higher education. In Spain, for example, getting into Higher Education requires school students to pass a final written EFL examination, which entails a certain EFL vocabulary threshold. Hence, vocabulary acquisition, development and use arguably merit more research than has been undertaken to date. And the acquisition of the vocabulary of foreign and second languages other than English merits particular study, given the gap in research here (and the increase in the teaching of other FLs). Vocabulary research and research into gender and language rarely meet (as evidenced by the few research studies on precisely this topic). We hope this volume has shown that, when they do, the results are fruitful. Vocabulary acquisition, use and development may be related to gender in a myriad of ways – some context-specific, some more widely generalizable – something of interest to the wider field of SLA. At the same time, gender cannot assumed to be omni-relevant, and similarities need acknowledging with no need for regret about a ‘non-finding’. For gender, vocabulary in the L1, SL and FL can be seen as a resource for constructing oneself and others (in gendered and non-gendered ways) – both inside and outside the ever-changing, social site that is the language classroom.
Note 1. See http : / / news.bbc.co.uk / 1 / hi / education / 6958992.stm, accessed 29 May 2009.
References Alcón-Soler, E. (1996) ‘Gender differences and cooperative strategies in second language learning’, in Aspectos de didáctica de la lengua y la literatura: actas del III Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad española de didáctica de la lengua y la literatura Guerrero Ruiz, P. and López Valero, A. (coord.), 1, 411–416. Alcón-Soler, E. and Codina-Espurz, V. (1996) ‘The impact of gender on negotiation and vocabulary learning in a situation of interaction’, International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 12, 1, 21–35. Batters, J. (1986) ‘Do boys really think languages are just girl-talk?’, Modern Languages, 67, 2, 75–79.
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Block, D. (2002) ‘Language and gender and SLA’, Quaderns de Filología. Estuis Lingüístics, 7, 49–73. Boyle, J. P. (1987) ‘Sex differences in listening vocabulary’, Language Learning, 37, 2, 273–284. Chavez, M. (2000a) Gender in the Language Classroom. USA: McGraw-Hill. Chavez, M. (2000b) ‘Teacher and student gender and peer group gender composition in German foreign language classroom discourse: An exploratory study’, Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 6, 1019–1058. Cohen, M. (1996) Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge. Corbett, G. (2004) Gender (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, B. (2004) ‘The gender gap in modern languages: A comparison of attitude and performance in Year 7 and Year 10’, Language Learning Journal (Summer), 2, 9, 53–58. Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992) ‘Communities of practice: Where language, gender and power all live’, in Locating Power: Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Hall, K. et al. (eds) Berkeley, CA: Women and Language Group. Ehrlich, S. (1997) ‘Gender as social practice: Implications for second language acquisition’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 4, 421–446. Ekstrand, L. (1980) ‘Sex differences in second language learning?: Empirical studies and a discussion of related findings’, International Review of Applied Psychology, 29, 205–259. Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Gardner, R. C. and Lambert, W. C. (1972) Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Grace, C. A. (2000) ‘Gender differences: vocabulary retention and access to translations for beginning language learners in CALL’, Modern Language Journal, 84, 2, 214–224. Graham, S. and Rees, F. (1995) ‘Gender differences in language learning: The question of control’, Language Learning Journal, 11, 18–19. Green, J. M. and Oxford, R. (1995) ‘A closer look at learning strategies, L2 proficiency and gender’, TESOL Quarterly, 29, 2, 261–297. Gu, Y. (2002) ‘Gender, academic major, and vocabulary learning strategies of Chinese EFL Learners’, RELC Journal, 33, 1, 35–54. Harris, V. (1998) ‘Making boys make progress’, Language Learning Journal, 18, 56–62. Hennessey, M. (1994) ‘Propagating half a species: Gender in learners’ dictionaries’, in Exploring Gender: Questions and Implications for English Language Education. Sunderland, J. (ed.), Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Jiménez Catalán, R. (2003) ‘Sex differences in L2 vocabulary learning strategies’, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13, 1, 54–77. Jiménez Catalán, R. (2002) ‘La Representación del factor sexo/género en manuales y revistas en la lingüística aplicada’, in ‘Género’, Sexo, Discurso. Vigara Tauste, A. and Jiménez Catalán, R. (eds) Madrid: Editorial El Laberinto, Colección Hermes, 229–262.
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Jiménez Catalán, R. and Ojeda Alba, J. (2001) ‘Sex/Gender in the illustrations of an ESL dictionary’, in Estudios de la mujer en el ámbito de los países de habla inglesa. Antón Pacheco, A. et al. (eds) Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 67–96. Johnson, S. (1997) ‘Theorizing language and masculinity: A feminist perspective’, in Language and Masculinity. Johnson, S. and Meinhof, U. (eds) Oxford: Blackwell. Krashen, S. P. (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. OUP: New York. Laufer, B. (1998a) ‘The development of passive and active vocabulary in a second language: same or different?’, Applied Linguistics, 19, 2, 255–271. Laufer, B. (1998b) ‘What percentage of text-lexis is essential for comprehension?’, in Special Language: From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines. Lauren, C. and Nordmann, M. (eds) Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 316–323. Laufer, B., Elder, C., Hill, K. and Congdon, P. (2004) ‘Size and strength: Do we need both to measure vocabulary knowledge’, Language Testing, 21, 2, 202–226. Luján Castro, J. (2001) ‘La enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera en Europa: cifras de la situación actual y manifestaciones de los estudiantes’, II Congreso de Internacional de la Lengua Española, Valladolid: University of Valladolid. Meara, P. (1984) ‘The study of lexis in interlanguage’, in Interlanguage. Davies, A., Criper, C. and Howatt, A. P. R. (eds) Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 225–235. Meara, P. (1996) ‘The dimensions of lexical competence’, in Performance and Competence in Second Language Acquisition. Brown, G., Malmkjaer, K. and Williams, J. (eds) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 35–53. Meara, P. and Bell, H. (2001) ‘P_Lex: A simple and effective way of describing the lexical characteristics of short L2 texts’, Prospect, 16, 3, 323–337. Meara, P. and Jones, G. (1987) ‘Tests of vocabulary size in English as a foreign language’, Polyglot, 8, 1, 1–40. Maghsoudi, M. (2008) ‘Type of task, gender, linguality and type of dictionary in incidental vocabulary acquisition’, http://bibliotecavirtualut.suagm.edu/, date accessed 30 May 2009. Marco, A. (1996) ‘Estereotipos de género en el Diccionario de la Lengua Española’, in Estudios sobre Mujer, Lengua y Literatura. Marco, A. (eds) Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria/Universidade de Santiago de Compostela: Servicio de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago, 87–111. Nation, P. (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. New York: Newbury. Nation, P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nemati, A. (2008) ‘Use and Rankings of Vocabulary Learning Strategies by Indian EFL Learners’, http://www.languageinindia.com/.html, date accessed 28 April 2009. Norton, B. (2000) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. London: Longman. Norton Pierce, B. (1995) ‘Social identity, investment and language learning’, TESOL Quarterly, 29, 1, 9–31.
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Oxford, R. (ed.) (1996) Language Learning Strategies Around the World: CrossCultural Perspectives. Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center, University of Hawai’i. Pauwels, A. (1998) Women Changing Language. London: Longman. Pavlenko, A. (2001) ‘Bilingualism, gender, and ideology’, The International Journal of Bilingualism, 5, 2, 117–151. Powell, R. and Batters, J. (1985) ‘Pupils’ perceptions of foreign language learning at 12+: Some gender differences’, Educational Studies, 2, 1, 11–23. Rampton, B. (1991) ‘Second language learners in a stratified multilingual setting’, Applied Linguistics, 12, 3, 229–248. Rayson, P., Leech, G. and Hodges, M. (1997) ‘Social differentiation in the use of English vocabulary: Some analyses of the conversational component of the British National Corpus’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2, 1, 133–152. Read, J. (2002) Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scarcella, R. and Zimmerman, C. (1998) ‘Academic words and gender: ESL student performance on a test of academic lexicon’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 1, 27–49. Schmitz, B. (1975) ‘Sexism in French language textbooks’, in The Cultural Revolution in Foreign Language Teaching. Lafayette, R. (ed.) Skokie, IL: National Textbook Co. Sunderland, J. (1998) ‘Girls being quiet: A problem for foreign language classrooms?’, Language Teaching Research, 2, 1, 48–62. Sunderland, J. (2000a) ‘State of the art review article: Gender, language and language education’, Language Teaching, 33, 4, 203–223. Sunderland, J. (2000b) ‘New understandings of gender and language classroom research: texts, teacher talk and student talk’, Language Teaching Research, 4, 2, 149–173. Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sunderland, J., Cowley, Mairie, A. Rahim, F. Leontzakou, C. and Shattuck, J. (2002) ‘From representation towards discursive practices: Gender in the foreign language textbook revisited’, in Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. Litosseliti, L. and Sunderland, J. (eds) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Swann, J., Deumert, A., Leap, W. and Mesthrie, R. (2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Vargas, A., Lledó, E., Bengoechea, M., Mediavilla, M., Rubio, I., Marco, A. and Alano, C. (1998) Lo femenino y lo masculino en el diccionario de la Lengua de la Real Academia Española. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. Instituto de la Mujer. Young, D. J. and Oxford, R. (1997) ‘A gender-based analysis used to process written output in the native and foreign language’, Applied Language Learning, 8, 1, 43–73. Zobl, H. (1995) ‘Converging evidence for the “Acquisition-learning” distinction’, Applied Linguistics, 16, 1, 3–56.
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Jane Sunderland
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition, Development and Use
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Part I
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
More Than Words: Inferential and Incorrect Units Recalled Cindy Brantmeier
Introduction People make inferences routinely in comprehending their surroundings, and these inferences are a critically important feature of human cognition. The fact that such inferences can lead one astray, and that people can recollect vividly events that they only inferred, is a small price to pay for the inventiveness and adaptiveness of the human mind. (Roediger and McDermott, 2000:123) Correct and incorrect inferences about incoming information are a natural outcome of the cognitive system. During the silent act of reading, as readers go from a literal to an interpretive understanding of a text, inferences are made. Little research has been conducted on L2 inferences (Horiba, 1996), and no L2 studies have specifically examined male/female inference generation. One goal in most advanced levels of L2 instruction at the university level is to prepare students for the target language literature courses by developing reading skills such as summarizing, paraphrasing, skimming, scanning and making inferences. In most advanced levels of instruction, students are supposed to follow essential points of authentic written discourse and move beyond this by drawing inferences. They process words, sentences and the relationship between them. Many questions on standardized reading exams expect readers to demonstrate a surface level of understanding and also to generate inferences. For example, in the reading section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), to demonstrate the ability to analyse meaning, the comprehension questions specifically ask examinees to
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identify inferences. Furthermore, the guidelines for proficiency-based global assessments of L2 reading label the ability to make inferences as an advanced reading ability. In the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines (1999) for reading, the description of a Distinguished reader includes, ‘able to relate inferences in the text to real-world knowledge and understand almost all sociolinguistic and cultural references by processing language from within a cultural framework.’ Likewise, in the Second Language Evaluation Reading Test of French in Canada, the description of the highest level of reading proficiency states, ‘ability to understand most complex details, inferences and fine points of meanings; ability to read with good comprehension specialized or less familiar material.’ In a discussion about L1 skilled readers, Underwood and Batt (1996) claim that true comprehension requires the ‘construction of a mental model in which the formation of inferences acts to link the individual propositions in a unified representation’ (217). In a recent report on revisited directions in reading research, Bernhardt (2003) comments on the process of inferencing and how L2 readers need to attach a relevant or meaningful semantic field to words in order to fully understand authentic texts. As demonstrated, making inferences while reading a text is generally viewed as a more advanced skill, and the goal of many advanced L2 language courses is to teach students to go beyond the literal meaning of texts by understanding meanings that are not directly stated in the text. After this level is reached, students enter the target language literature courses where they are expected not only to infer meaning but also to produce a critical understanding of the text. (See Alderson, 2000 Chapter 2 for an extended discussion about the difficulty involved in defining levels of understanding.) While reading authentic texts the connections between sentences are not always obvious, and sometimes during the process of reading readers must access existing knowledge to understand the relationships between characters and actions. When making inferences, the reader supplements basic literal understanding with prior knowledge. Bartlett (1932) investigated the role of schema in L1 reading and claimed that when readers recall texts they use a schema to integrate new information into an organized, mental framework. Since the 1980s, a plethora of research that examined the role of schemata in L2 reading comprehension (Carrell, 1981;1983; Johnson, 1981; Hudson, 1982; James, 1987) has revealed that what students already know (the knowledge stored in their existing cognitive domain) significantly affects their comprehension of L2 reading materials. But knowing that prior knowledge affects
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reading comprehension is not enough (Nassaji, 2002) and therefore the present study attempts to reveal the nature of the units recalled.
It is common knowledge that there is more to reading than understanding the ideas expressed directly in the text. Readers often go beyond the explicit text by making inferences (Kintsch, 1974; Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). The act of drawing inferences is often viewed as a more advanced reading skill (Pressley and Afflerbach, 1995). Research that examines inferencing is relatively recent in first language reading and psycholinguistic research, and is scant in L2 reading research. Keenen et al. (1990) review the variety of testing procedures used to analyse inferences in L1 studies, and they also show that the majority of studies on inferencing focus on word-level inferencing and not on connected discourse levels. Graesser and Kreuz (1993) contend that situational factors are key in research on inferences. For instance, the type of text, the participant’s orientation to the text, the criterion task the participant expects and characteristics of the participant (such as prior knowledge of a text’s topic) are all variables involved in drawing inferences. Zwaan and Brown (1996) show the importance of inferencing as readers build mental models during the reading comprehension process. Hammadou Sullivan (2002) points out that making generalizations about inferencing from L1 studies is problematic because the methods and procedures are inconsistent across studies. However, the fact that L1 researchers are considering inferences as a key variable in the studies demonstrates the significance of inferencing in the reading process. As is evident from the L1 studies, readers make inferences to fill in meaning voids in a text. Lee and Van Patten (1995) talk about the importance of inference to second language learners. Students may be unfamiliar with words and expressions in a script, but they may deduce meanings through the process of inferring. When discussing L2 reading, they refer to Perkins’s (1983) notion of elaborative function of schemata and how readers rely on background knowledge to draw inferences from the content of the text. The study of inference as a key variable in L2 reading studies began with Hammadou Sullivan (1991). This investigation examined the differences in inferencing according to topic familiarity and levels of language proficiency. She found that beginner students of French drew more overall inferences from the texts than did the more advanced readers, but the advanced readers that indicated greater familiarity with the topic of the
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Studies on inferences
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passage showed fewer incorrect inferences. With four groups of readers (L2-intermediate, L2-Advanced, L1-Japanese, L1-English) Horiba (1996) found that L2 intermediate readers did not generate both backward, or bridging, and forward, or elaborative, inferences, but that the L2 advanced readers generated both types of inferences. More specifically, the L2 intermediate readers ‘reported much more frequently on analysis of words and sentences, commenting neither on inferences nor on general knowledge associations’ (465). Barry and Lazarte (1998) examined three types of inferences: within-text inferences, elaborative inferences and incorrect inferences. They found that lower levels of background knowledge produced more inaccuracies in readers’ inferences, and that high-knowledge readers generate richer and more accurate inferences than low-knowledge readers. In other words, when readers have sufficient access to the knowledge of the content domain, they generate inferences even when text difficulty levels increase. In a case study on L2 reading, Hammadou Sullivan (2002) examined whether ten advanced learners of French were aware of their inferencing while reading authentic texts. Results showed that participants were aware of their thought processes as well as their inferencing. This study also considered the differences in the written recall protocol and oral open-ended sentences as comprehension assessment tasks, and more specifically, she examined the differences in inferencing with these two assessment measures. The written recalls revealed few inferences, but the oral open-ended questions produced more inferences that were particularly based on the readers’ prior knowledge. She concluded that the L2 readers of French recreated the text plot without adding inferences in the written recall measure. She states, ‘In answering comprehension questions, successful readers sometimes discovered clues to the content of the text that they had not fully understood’ (233). This difference in inferencing could be due to oral versus written procedures as well as questions versus recall. In an L2 study on anxiety and reading comprehension with third semester students of Spanish, Sellers (2000) assessed comprehension of a passage with a free written recall protocol, and she classified the pausal units hierarchically into high-level, mid-level and low-level units. High-level units consisted of central ideas, mid-level units were supporting details and low-level units were additional information that was unimportant or could be omitted. She reported that reading anxiety affected the number of high pausal units but that anxiety had no affect on low pausal units recalled from the text. She concluded that highly anxious students recalled more interfering thoughts than their less anxious counterparts.
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From the review of research on inferencing in both L1 and L2 studies, it is evident that inferencing is a critical part of the reading process and, as indicated, different methodologies have resulted in different answers to the question about whether an inference is drawn. It is important to note that none of the studies analyse male and female differences in inferencing.
Gender differences in L2 reading Bügel and Buunk (1996) reported that the topic of text is a significant variable explaining differences by gender among scores obtained on the reading part of the national foreign language examination in the Netherlands. More specifically, males achieved higher scores than females on the multiple choice comprehension items for essays about laser thermometers, volcanoes, cars and football players, and females scored higher than males on the comprehension tests for essays on text topics such as midwives, a sad story and a housewife’s dilemma. With native English speaking men and women enrolled in Spanish courses, Young and Oxford (1997) reported no significant differences by gender for text topics such as economics, the presence of foreign cultures in work, leisure and history. They also found no differences by gender in the familiarity ratings with passage topics or background knowledge of any of the passages. With students studying German as a second language, Schueller (1999) revealed that, in some cases, males outperformed females only in multiple choice questions and never in open-ended questions with a passage about a fairy tale. Brantmeier (2003) found that male and female readers from the intermediate level of Spanish language instruction scored significantly better on both multiple choice questions and written recalls for passages with high self-reported familiarity levels. More specifically, men achieved higher scores than females on comprehension tasks for a passage about boxing, and females achieved higher scores than males on comprehension tasks for a passage about a frustrated housewife. With the same passages and comprehension tasks, no reported differences were noted between males and females who were enrolled in advanced level Spanish courses (Brantmeier, 2002). The contrasting findings in studies that have examined gender and passage content suggest need for further investigations of this nature. Brantmeier (2003) found significant gender differences in the number of idea units recalled from authentic texts by second language readers at the intermediate levels of language instruction, but not at the advanced stages of acquisition (Brantmeier, 2002). If the same recall assessment tasks are assessed in terms of other criteria (Hammadou Sullivan, 2002),
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Cindy Brantmeier
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
data may yield further results. The present study uses the same research design and methods as Brantmeier (2002; 2003) and utilizes participants from the intermediate level of language instruction (Brantmeier, 2003) to examine the quality of units recalled from L2 texts in order to provide a richer and more in-depth understanding of male and female comprehension. This study goes beyond counting word-level criteria and analyses more than isolated words. It looks at the inferential and incorrect ideas (isolated words or groups of words) recalled by gender.
Method The present study was designed to address the relationships between the following variables (a) reader’s gender and correct inferences drawn, (b) reader’s gender and incorrect idea units recalled. Participants All 78 subjects (29 men and 49 women) were enrolled in a fifth-semester Spanish class at a midwestern university. This course counts toward a major or minor in Spanish and it is an elective course that is taken between the intermediate and advanced levels of Spanish. One goal of the course is to prepare learners for the level of reading, writing and speaking necessary to be successful in the advanced language, literature and civilization courses. The course, conducted entirely in Spanish, entails the reading of encyclopedia-like passages and short stories written by Hispanic authors. By the time the students have completed this course, they should have a general synopsis of the histories and cultures which make the Spanish-speaking world what it is today. Only those students who had previously taken second-year Spanish at the university were included in this study. To further ensure homogeneity of subjects, only students whose native language was English were included, and only those students who completed all tasks on both days were included in the study. Reading passages Most texts used at the intermediate level of language instruction include a plethora of authentic short stories by male and female authors, and works by Elena Poniatowska and Julio Cortázar are often incorporated in syllabi. The short stories ‘La casita de sololoi’ by Poniatowska and ‘La noche de Mantequilla’ by Cortázar were selected for the present study. The Cortázar passage is about male spectators at a boxing match and all
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of the characters are men. The Poniatowska passage focuses on a frustrated mother and wife who visits her college room mate, and all the characters are women. Both short stories are often used in anthologies for the intermediate level of instruction. The stories were not used in their entirety. Each vignette consisted of about one and a half pages of text and contained approximately 600 words. For the present study, each passage was also analysed for syntactic complexity using Barry and Lazarte’s (1995) rubric. Syntactic complexity was defined by the number of embedded clauses per sentence for each of the reading passages (see Barry and Lazarte, 1998 for a detailed description on how to determine levels of syntactic complexity). The researcher and an assistant separately identified the embedded clauses for each passage, and then compared those results. The total number of embedded clauses for the passage on boxing was 98 and the total number for the passage about a frustrated housewife was 94. Both passages were given to students in an introduction to literature course to identify words that caused them difficulty, and instructors and supervisors for the course were also consulted about the glossed words. Ultimately, each passage contained the same number of glossed words. A description of key concepts in the title was included more than half a page length above the title of the passage because the titles contained unfamiliar and misleading terms (Brantmeier, 2001; 2002; 2003). Written recall With the written recall there is no tester interference. There are no retrieval cues provided as is the case of sentence completion and multiple choice comprehension tasks. The written recall protocol asks readers, without looking back at the passage, to recall and write down as much as they can of what they have just read. This protocol does not influence a reader’s understanding of the text (Bernhardt, 1991). The emphasis on the quantity of correct information recalled with written comprehension assessment tasks has been used widely (Carrell, 1983; Barnett, 1986; Lee, 1986a; 1986b; Khaldieh, 2001; Brantmeier, 2002; Maxim, 2002; among others) and is completed in the learner’s native language, English (Lee and Ballman, 1987; Bernhardt, 1991; Wolf, 1993; Brantmeier, 2002).
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Cindy Brantmeier
Topic familiarity Participants completed a questionnaire that included information such as sex, age, major, native language and number of years of Spanish
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study in high school and university. Topic familiarity was assessed via multiple-choice questions with five possible choices that ranged from ‘I was really familiar with this topic’ to ‘I was not familiar with this topic at all’. The five-point scale was used to encourage more precision in rating and encouraged respondents to show greater discrimination in their judgements.
Procedures The experiment was conducted in subjects’ regular classrooms during regular class time during the fifth week of classes. All subjects read both passages and completed written recalls for both passages on two different days. The researcher and instructors for the courses were present during all data collection sessions. For methodological purposes, the order of presentation of the male content passage and the female content passage were counterbalanced (Steffenson et al., 1979; Johnson, 1981). The order of presentation was also counterbalanced according to the readers’ gender (Bacon, 1992). Students were instructed not to look back at any previous pages while reading and completing all tasks.
Data analysis Using Riley and Lee’s (1996) criteria for a ‘correct unit of analysis’, which may be an idea, proposition or a constituent structure, the researcher and two trained assistants divided the reading passages into idea units. More specifically, a literal unit was classified as a correct fact based on the usual meaning. The total number of literal idea units possible from the boxing passage was 20 and for the housewife passage was 25. In each participant’s written recall for both passages, the total number of correct literal ideas units was calculated. In some instances, isolated words were counted as a literal idea unit. No embellishments or distortions of the original text were counted as a literal unit. Then, the researcher and two trained assistants counted the inferred propositions in each participant’s written recalls (Barry and Lazarte, 1998). An inferred unit was classified as ‘a step beyond the text, using generalizations, synthesis and/or explanations’ (Hammadou Sullivan, 2002). Again, an inferred unit could include an isolated word that was not in the original reading but was ‘inferred’ from the text. Finally, the number of incorrect idea units (including both incorrect literal and inferential units) was counted for each written recall. These incorrect idea units could also consist of an isolated word that was clearly incorrect. The incorrect
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inferential units included information that contradicted the text (Barry and Lazarte, 1998). The literal and inferred units were then compared to the texts again to ensure that the information in the written recall appeared in or was implied in the reading passage. The investigator and two assistants scored the written recalls and reported an interrater reliability of 0.96. Then incorrect idea units were compared to the texts to be sure that the information recalled was not correct in any way. In the present study the independent variables were reader’s gender and passage content, and the following were identified as the dependent variables: self-reported topic familiarity, number of correct literal idea units recalled, number of correct inferences recalled, number of incorrect idea units recalled. The recall scores (number of literal units recalled; number of inferences recalled; number of incorrect idea units recalled) were submitted to an ANOVA for reader’s gender with repeated measures on the dependent variables.
Results Topic familiarity To measure self-reported degree of topic familiarity, a five-point Likert scale that ranged from ‘I was really familiar with this topic’ to ‘I was not familiar with this topic at all’ was utilized. The five-point scale was used to encourage more precision in rating. The participants answered the topic familiarity question after completing all comprehension assessment tasks (Brantmeier, 2002). The lower the mean score, the more familiar the subjects were with the passage topic. Results revealed that the male participants were more familiar with the passage on boxing (M = 3. 00, SD = 1. 07) than the females were (M = 3. 79, SD = 0. 80), and the female participants were more familiar with the passage about the frustrated housewife (M = 2. 82, SD = 0. 78) than the males were (M = 3. 51, SD = 1. 02). The results of the Kruskal Wallis non-parametric test indicated that there was a significant difference in self-reported topic familiarity ratings with male and female learners for both of the texts (p < 0. 05) (Brantmeier, 2003).
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Cindy Brantmeier
Recall: literal, inferential and incorrect idea units for boxing passage The range of scores for the three types of idea units for the boxing passage as well as sample means and standard deviations are listed in
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Total
Male
Female
Literal Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 5.5 2.7
– 1 13 6.6 2.6
– 1 11 4.8 2.5
Inferred Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 1.1 1.5
– 0 4 1.4 1.2
– 0 8 1 1.6
Incorrect Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 1.3 1.4
– 0 4 1.7 1.2
– 0 5 1.4 1.5
Note: n = 78 subjects, 29 males and 49 females.
Table 1.1. For this passage the maximum number of literal idea units recalled was 17 and the minimum was 1 idea unit recalled. As Brantmeier (2003) indicated, the results of the ANOVAs yielded significant interactions between independent variables readers’ gender and the boxing passage content as they affect dependent variable recall of total idea units (F(1, 76) = 8. 26, p = 0. 01, N2 = 0. 10). In further analysis of the recalls, the results of the ANOVA (Table 1.2) revealed a significant interaction between independent variables readers’ gender and the boxing passage content as they affect dependent variable literal idea units recalled (F(1, 76) = 8. 43, p = 0. 01, N = 0. 09).
Table 1.2 ANOVA of Literal Units Recalled for Boxing Passage by Gender Source
df
SS
MS
F
Between Within Total
1 75 76
54.87 494.51 549.39
54.87 6.51 –
8.43 – –
P
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Table 1.1 Ranges, Mean Scores and Standard Deviations for Idea Units Recalled by Gender for Boxing Passage
0.01∗ – –
Note: ∗ p < 0. 05.
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6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5 Male
Female
Respondent's gender Figure 1.1
Literal Units Recalled for Boxing Passage by Gender
Figure 1.1 illustrates this significance and Figure 1.2 graphically displays the distribution of literal ideas/units by gender. The results of the ANOVA revealed no significant interactions between readers’ gender and the boxing passage content as they affect inferential idea units recalled as well as incorrect idea units recalled. Recall: literal, inferential and incorrect idea units for housewife passage For the passage about a frustrated housewife, the range of scores for the three types of idea units as well as sample means and standard deviations are listed on Table 1.3. For this passage the maximum number of literal idea units recalled was 20 and the minimum was 1. As Brantmeier (2003) reported, the results of the ANOVAs yielded significant interactions between readers’ gender and housewife passage content as they affect recall of total idea units (F(1, 76) = 15. 90, p = 0. 00, N = 0. 18). The results of the ANOVA (Table 1.4) revealed a significant interaction between independent variables readers’ gender and frustrated housewife passage content as they affect dependent variable literal idea units recalled (F(1, 76) = 12. 77, p = 0. 00,
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Mean literal units for boxing passage
7.0
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
10
6
4
2
0 .00
2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 7.00 9.00 11.00
# of Literal ideas recalled Participant's gender Male Figure 1.2
Female
Distribution of Literal Units by Gender with Boxing Passage
N = 0. 17). Figure 1.3 illustrates this significance. The results of the ANOVA (Table 1.4) yielded significant interactions between readers’ gender and housewife passage content as they affect generated inferences (F(1, 76) = 7. 72, p = 0. 01, N = 0. 15).
Discussion The hypothesis that content of texts affects L2 reading comprehension is not new. However, examinations on male and female differences and similarities in L2 reading are innovative (Chavez, 2001). Data from a prior study (Brantmeier, 2002) across various levels of instruction indicate that male and female L2 readers are not familiar with the same topics and that reader’s total correct idea units recalled from authentic texts is affected by gender at the intermediate level of instruction (Brantmeier, 2003). The findings in the present study relate to (a) the literal idea units generated by male and female readers with different passage content, (b) the inferential idea units generated by male and female readers with different passage content and (c) the incorrect understandings by gender with different passage content.
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# of Participants
8
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Total
Male
Female
Literal Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 7.5 3.8
– 1 12 5.7 3.0
– 2 20 8.7 3.7
Inferred Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 1.8 1.4
– 0 3 1.3 1
– 0 5 2.1 1.5
Incorrect Idea Units – – – –
– Min Max M (SD)
– – – 1.1 1.2
– 0 3 1.1 1.1
– 0 5 1.1 1.2
Note: n = 78 subjects, 29 males and 49 females.
In the present study, significant differences were found in selfreported topic familiarity levels by gender with the two passage topics: male readers reported being more familiar with the boxing passage than female readers did, and female readers were more familiar with the passage about a frustrated housewife than the males. Prior L1 research on passage content and gender predicted significant differences in comprehension scores achieved by male and female readers (Doolittle and Welch, 1989; Hyde and Lynn, 1988). In the present study, with readers from the intermediate level of Spanish language at a university in the USA, there were significant differences in the literal idea units recalled by both men and women for both passages. Women were able to ‘read the lines’ (Gray, 1960) better for a passage in which they reported high levels of topic familiarity, and their male counterparts recalled more ideas that were directly stated in the text with higher reported familiarity levels. Both men and women accurately recreated the explicit text plot with passage topics of higher familiarity. With the boxing passage, the data for the present study indicate that the interaction of reader’s gender and passage content does not significantly affect inferential units generated during a written recall
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Table 1.3 Ranges, Mean Scores and Standard Deviations for Idea Units Recalled by Gender for Frustrated Housewife Passage
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Table 1.4
ANOVA Table for Frustrated Housewife Passage
Source Between Within Total
df 1 75 76
SS 158.19 916.76 1074.95
MS 158.19 12.39 –
F 12.77 – –
P 0.00∗ – –
ANOVA of Inferences Recalled for Frustrated Housewife Passage by Gender Source Between Within Total
df 1 75 76
SS 13.92 133.48 147.41
MS 13.92 1.80 –
F 7.72 – –
P 0.01∗ – –
Note: ∗ p < 0. 05.
with readers from the intermediate level of instruction. The male readers indicated higher familiarity with the passage on boxing, and they recalled significantly more literal idea units than the female readers. But, an examination of the generated inferences for this passage revealed no differences between male and female readers. These results indicate
Mean literal units for housewife passage
9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 Male
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ANOVA of Literal Units Recalled for Frustrated Housewife Passage by Gender
Female Respondent's gender
Figure 1.3
Literal Units Recalled for Frustrated Housewife Passage by Gender
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that even though male readers report more familiarity with the topic of boxing than female readers, they do not generate a higher average of inferences from that passage at this level of instruction. Both male and female readers recalled an average of only one inference from this passage. To be sure that inferences could be generated from the boxing passage, the vignette was given to ten different native speakers of Spanish. The readers were asked to complete the written recall procedure. The results revealed an average of seven different inferences from this passage. Readers may not have supplemented their basic, literal understanding with prior knowledge to generate inferences in the written recall procedure. These findings contradict Barry and Lazarte’s (1998) findings where readers with high knowledge of the passage content generated more inferences in their written recalls even with texts of greater difficulty. In the present study, the boxing passage may be slightly more difficult than the housewife passage in that it includes more embedded clauses. However, it is difficult to make comparisons between these two studies because knowledge of passage content was determined via different tasks, which could have affected the outcome. Hammadou Sullivan (2002) found that the assessment task used to measure comprehension could affect whether or not inferences were generated. Readers may not report inferences of their own accord in their reconstruction of the ideas presented in a text during a written recall procedure. The task that the reader is expected to attend to after reading may affect the outcome (Bernhardt, 1991; Graesser and Kreuz, 1993; Wolf, 1993). Perhaps readers at this level of instruction would be able to answer open-ended questions related to meanings not directly stated in a text. Hammadou Sullivan (2002) reported that participants (male and female) produced more inferences with the oral, open-ended questions than with the free, written recalls. In the present study, male readers indicated being more familiar than female readers with the topic of boxing, but male readers did not produce more inferences than female readers in the written recalls with that text. Readers may be accustomed to revealing textually implicit understandings while recalling ideas from a text. In verbal reports while reading, Horiba (1996) found that L2 intermediate readers of Japanese reported more frequently on analysis of words and sentences, never commenting on inferences. A closer look at the frequency data in the present study (Figure 1.3) reveals that more than half of the total number of female participants did not generate any inferences from the boxing passage, but that almost half of the male participants generated at least one inference from this passage. The most frequent
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Cindy Brantmeier
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
inference made by the male participants was the following: ‘Napoles is a confident boxer.’ In the passage, Napoles is the boxer who wins the match. The only inference made by the female readers was: ‘Walter seemed restless.’ Walter is a spectator at the boxing match, and the women may have inferred this idea from his dialogue with the other male spectator. With the housewife passage, the present study revealed that females reported higher levels of topic familiarity than males, and the female readers generated one more inference than male readers for that passage. Generating inferences consists of relating the reading to relevant existing schemata, and female readers may have been able to supplement the propositional text base with prior knowledge to generate more inferences on the written recall. Perhaps text familiarity motivates female readers to gain a deeper reading of the text. The most frequent inferences reported by the female readers for this passage were: ‘The two women seemed to trust each other’ and ‘One woman was bored with her routine lifestyle’. The only inference generated by the male readers was the following: ‘The passage emphasizes the differences between the two houses that each woman lives in.’ Females may be more accustomed to generating inferences in a narrative like fashion that is similar to the recall procedure, that is, they are used to synthesizing and explaining a text (Hammadou, 2002). First language researchers have found that women more than men typically choose to elaborate on situations with descriptions of feelings (Coates, 1996), and that this talk can take a more narrative like style. Perhaps the written recall procedure utilized in the present study favoured female readers because of the narrative like style, and therefore included more inferences. However, female participants only generated one more inference than their male counterparts for only one passage. If open-ended questions were used that required male readers to integrate text information with stored knowledge, perhaps males would also generate inferences. More research needs to be conducted on differences in inferencing with varied comprehension assessment tasks by gender before any generalizations can be made. As indicated earlier, the ability to generate inferences is often used to characterize good comprehenders. The data from the present study revealed that male and female readers recall more direct, literal ideas from a text with familiar content. The data from this study also revealed that female readers draw more inferences from a familiar text than their male counterparts. More research that examines inferencing abilities between male and female readers needs to be conducted in the second
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language setting where these abilities are assessed by means of different tasks and across levels of language instruction. Data for the present study also indicate that the interaction of reader’s gender and boxing passage content does not significantly affect incorrect units generated. There were no gender-linked differences in the incorrect idea units recalled from both passages. This finding indicates that at this level of language instruction, topic selection may not predispose one gender to recall more incorrect idea units than the other. With both male and female readers, distortions of the original text did not occur with familiar and unfamiliar texts, and details were not exaggerated. At the intermediate stages of second language acquisition, when male and female readers encounter familiar and unfamiliar text topics, the recollections of the stories are not distorted in their written recalls. With students from third semester Spanish and a Spanish conversation course, Sellers (2000) reported that highly anxious students tended to experience more interfering thoughts than the less anxious readers. The present study utilizes students from fifth semester Spanish, so perhaps anxiety was not a factor because students are more accustomed to reading in a foreign language by the time they reach this level of language instruction. In summary, in the present study, the surface ideas (literal ideas) of the texts are affected by gender and content, but the inferential ideas recalled from the texts were not always affected by gender and content. The incorrect ideas recalled from the texts were never affected by gender and content.
Limitations and suggestions for future research The degree of variation within gender groups should also be discussed. In the present study no significant differences were found within gender groups. In other words, within the group of female participants no significant differences were revealed, and the same can be said for the male participants. It is important to note that in the present study there was not a balance of men and women. All participants were enrolled in an intermediate level Spanish course at the university, and Chavez (2001) reports that women outnumber men four to one in romance language courses, and the higher the level of instruction, the wider this gap becomes. Methods used to assess comprehension may be biased by gender. Future studies should examine the affects of assessment tasks by gender with gender-neutral texts. More research needs to be done on the
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Cindy Brantmeier
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
procedures involved in generating literal recall, inferences and incorrect recalls with L2 texts (Nassaji, 2002). At higher levels of language instruction, are more inferences drawn with these same passages? Would word frequencies or specific vocabulary input affect recalls? Would oral recall protocols be more appropriate for inference generation at this level? In the present study, types of inferences were not analysed because of the low numbers of inferences generated by the intermediate level learners. A future study could examine the types of inferences (bridging or elaborative) that are generated by readers at more advanced levels with these same passages (Keenen et al., 1990).
Conclusion At the intermediate level of language instruction, topic familiarity does influence male and female ability to recall literal idea units from an authentic L2 text. It is well documented that in order to fully understand many texts, readers also need to make inferences about the relationships between characters and actions. More studies need to be conducted with different passage topics and assessment tasks before generalizations can be made concerning gender. The complicated nature of meaning construction during the reading process can be appreciated further by considering inferences drawn by men and women with different topics, varied comprehension tasks and varied instructional levels. Overall, topic familiarity should be recognized as influencing literal and inferential idea units recalled from a text. Therefore, instructors should make attempts to allow topic familiarity to facilitate performance rather than allowing its absence to hinder performance.
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a recall task for nonnative readers of Spanish?’, Modern Language Journal, 82, 176–193. Bartlett, F. C. (1932) Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernhardt, E. B. (1991) Reading Development in a Second Language: Theoretical, Empirical and Classroom Perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bernhardt, E. B. (2003) ‘Challenges to reading research from a multilingual world’, Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 1, 112–117. Brantmeier, C. (2001) ‘Second language reading research on passage content and gender: Challenges for the intermediate level curriculum’, Foreign Language Annals, 34, 325–333. Brantmeier, C. (2002) ‘The effects of passage content on second language reading comprehension by gender across instruction levels’, in Literacy and the Second Language Learner, Vol. 1 of Research in Second Language Learning. Hammadou Sullivan J. (ed.). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Brantmeier, C. (2003) ‘Does gender make a difference? Passage content and comprehension in second language reading’, Reading in a Foreign Language, 15, 1, 1–23. Bügel, K. and Buunk, B. P. (1996) ‘Sex differences in foreign language text comprehension: The role of interests and prior knowledge’, Modern Language Journal, 80, 15–31. Carrell, P. L. (1981) ‘Culture-specific schemata in L2 comprehension’, in Selected Papers from the Ninth Illinois TESOL/BE. Orem, R. and Haskell, J. F. (eds) Chicago, Illinois: Illinois TESOL/BE, 123–132. Carrell, P. L. (1983) ‘Three components of background knowledge in reading comprehension’, Language Learning, 33, 183–207. Chavez, M. (2001) Gender in the Language Classroom. New York: McGraw Hill. Coates, J. (1996) Women, Men and Language. New York: Longman. Doolittle, A. and Welch, C. (1989) Gender Differences in Performance on a CollegeLevel Achievement Test (ACT Research Rep. Series 89–9). Iowa City, IA: American College Testing Program. Graesser, A. C. and Kreuz, R. J. (1993) ‘A theory of inference generation during text comprehension’, Discourse Processes: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 16, 145–160. Gray, W. S. (1960) ‘The major aspects of reading’, in Sequential Development of Reading Abilities. Robinson, H. (ed.) Chicago: Chicago University Press, 90, 8–24. Hammadou Sullivan, J. (1991) ‘Interrelationships among prior knowledge, inference, and language proficiency in foreign language reading’, Modern Language Journal, 75, 27–38. Hammadou Sullivan, J. (2002) ‘Advanced second language reader’s inferencing’, in Literacy and the Second Language Learner, Vol. 1 of Research in Second Language Learning. Hammadou Sullivan, J. (ed.) Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Horiba, Y. (1996) ‘Comprehension processes in L2 reading: Language competence, textual coherence, and inferences’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 403–432. Hudson, T. (1982) ‘The effect of induced schemata on the short circuit in L2 reading: Non-decoding factors in L2 reading and performance’, Language Learning, 3, 2, 3–31.
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Cindy Brantmeier
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Hyde, J. S. and Lynn, M. C. (1988) ‘Gender differences in verbal activity: A metaanalysis’, Psychological Bulletin, 104, 53–69. James, W. F. (1987) ‘Reading, the imagination, and writing’, ADE Bulletin, 86, 29–33. Johnson, P. (1981) ‘Effects on reading comprehension of language complexity and cultural background of a text’, TESOL Quarterly, 15, 169–181. Keenen, J. M., Potts, G. R., Golding, J. M. and Jennings, T. M. (1990) ‘Which elaborative inferences are drawn during reading? A question of methodologies’, in Comprehension Processes in Reading. Balota, D. A., Flores d‘Arcais, G. B., & Rayner, K. (eds). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Khaldieh, S. A. (2001) ‘The relationship between lexical knowledge and reading comprehension of nonnative readers of Arabic’, Modern Language Journal, 85, 416–431. Kintsch, W. (1974) The Representation of Meaning in Memory. NJ: Erlbaum. Lee, J. F. (1986a) ‘On the use of the recall task to measure L2 reading comprehension’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8, 201–212. Lee, J. F. (1986b) ‘Background knowledge and L2 reading’, Modern Language Journal, 71, 50–57. Lee, J. F. and Ballman, T. L. (1987) ‘ “Learners” ability to recall and rate important ideas of an expository text’, in Foreign Language Learning: A Research Perspective. Van Patten, B., Dvorack, T. R. and Lee, J. F. (eds) Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 108–117. Lee, J. F. and Van Patten, B. (1995) Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen. New York: McGraw-Hill. Maxim, H. H. (2002) ‘A study into the feasibility and effects of reading extended authentic discourse in the beginning German language classroom’, The Modern Language Journal, 86, 1, 20–35. Nassaji, H. (2002) ‘Schema theory and knowledge-based processes in second language reading comprehension: A need for alternative perspectives’, Language Learning, 52, 2, 439–481. Perkins, K. (1983) ‘Semantic constructivity in ESL reading comprehension’, TESOL Quarterly, 17, 1, 19–27. Pressley, M. and Afflerbach, P. (1995) Verbal Protocols of Reading: The Nature of Constructively Response Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Riley, G. and Lee, J. (1996) ‘A comparison of recall and summary protocols as measures of second language reading comprehension’, Language Testing, 13, 2, 173–189. Roediger, H. L. and McDermott, K. B. (2000) ‘Tricks of memory: Current directions in psychological science’, American Psychological Society, 9, 4, 123–127. Schueller, J. (1999) The effect of two types of strategy training on foreign language reading comprehension: An analysis by gender and proficiency. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. The University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sellers, V. (2000) ‘Anxiety and reading comprehension in Spanish as a foreign language’, Foreign Language Annals, 33, 5, 512–521. Steffensen, M. S., Joag-dev, C. and Anderson, R. C. (1979) ‘A cross-cultural perspective on reading comprehension’, Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 10–29. Underwood, G. and Batt, V. (1996) Reading and Understanding. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
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Van Dijk, T. A. and Kintsch, W. (1983) Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York: Academic. Wolf, D. (1993) ‘A comparison of assessment tasks used to measure FL reading comprehension’, Modern Language Journal, 77, 473–489. Young, D. J. and Oxford, R. (1997) ‘A gender-related analysis of strategies used to process input in the native language and a foreign language’, Applied Language Learning, 8, 43–73. Zwaan, R. A. and Brown, C. M. (1996) ‘The influence of language proficiency and comprehension skill on situation-model construction’, Discourse Processes, 21, 289–327.
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Cindy Brantmeier
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender and L1 Influence on EFL Learners’ Lexicon Mercedes Díez Prados
Introduction The words we use are a gate into our mind and as such uncover patterns of thought including ideological ways of thinking. They also become necessary tools for mental processes, such as forming relationships and analogies, ordering, classifying and distinguishing (Arribas, 2003:1), and reflect our educational background. For (Arribas, 2003:4), the learning of a second language is a cultural rather than a natural (that is, biological) process and, thus, it is only logical to think that different foreign language learning contexts may have an influence on the interlanguage of learners from diverse countries and mother tongues. This language learning process results in specific features in the performance of second language learners due to these idiosyncratic factors. On the other hand, a certain degree of similarity is expected among all learners of the same second language due to diverse sociolinguistic egalitarian processes such as globalization, a natural sequence of SL development (Ellis, 1985:71), genre conventions or social roles, just to mention a few. These opposing forces must be necessarily reflected on the learners’ lexical competence, which would display similarities and differences derived from the common characteristics they share (such as age, sex, educational background, or type of task required) and the distinctive features they possess (such as L1 background or L2 proficiency). Thus, the purpose of this study is to contrast the lexicon used in texts written by university students, focusing on the variables of gender and first language background, as contrasted with a reference group of English native speakers of equivalent sociolinguistic characteristics. Given the educational level and L2 proficiency taken for granted in university students majoring in English, some degree of complexity is
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expected in the lexicon used in their texts. In order to somehow quantify the degree of lexical complexity of their writings, the lexical richness of their compositions will be assessed as well as the use of certain specific lexical resources with a pragmatic function. Lexical richness will be calculated by two of the measures mentioned by Laufer and Nation (1995): by lexical density (type/token ratio) and by lexical variation (content to function words); pragmatic load of texts will be measured by examining the frequency of usage of some types of grammatical metaphors, and the amount of certainty and doubt adverbs. According to Halliday (1994), grammatical metaphor is used more by expert writers as a mark of prestige and power, and, therefore, it may be the case that more novice writers use them in an attempt to imitate authorial models. Thus, the substitution of congruent expressions by grammatical metaphors carries a prominent pragmatic load, since the writer’s intention is to taint his or her writings with a formal and prestigious register. Likewise, certainty and doubt adverbs are polypragmatic epistemic markers (Hyland and Milton, 1997), whose main function is to boost or hedge claims by modulating the degree of truthfulness, commitment or reliability of the information provided. According to Hyland and Milton (1997:184), ‘We have no real idea how novice writers from different language groups differ in the ways they express doubt and certainty in English.’ This study expects to shed some light on this issue by quantifying the frequency of use of such devices by female and male speakers of different L1 backgrounds. Another apparently disregarded aspect in the literature on gender studies can be found in corpus-based research. Gilquin et al. (2007:321–323) make a thorough review of research papers and articles which use learner corpora as their data to study a wide range of linguistic features and no single one of the works mentioned deals with gender differences in this type of corpora. Granger and Wynne (1999), for instance, have studied the lexical variation of some subpopulations in the ICLE corpus, like in the present study, but no gender differences are addressed. In previous publications (Neff et al., 2002; 2003a; 2003b; 2004a; 2004b), we studied different mechanisms for the expression of writer stance by learners of different L1 backgrounds from the ICLE corpus, but a gender contrast was never tackled. This disregard for gender issues is also present in Petch-Tyson’s (1988) study of formality in texts written by ICLE writers as opposed to comparable native writers. Thus, the present study aims to determine whether there are similarities and/or differences regarding the aforementioned lexical phenomena in the texts written by several subpopulations of university student
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Mercedes Díez Prados
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
1. Are there any quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the lexicon used in compositions written by different subpopulations of university students when writing in English, either as their first or second language? 2. Is there a relationship between the writer’s gender and the amount and/or types of words used? 3. Can the gender variable be related with the L1 variable, that is, do female and male writers from different L1 backgrounds show quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the lexicon used in their compositions? In the following sections, I first define and justify the measures adopted in an attempt to answer these questions, and then present the results obtained in a corpus-based study to ascertain the degree of lexical richness of the texts under scrutiny and the pragmatic functions of some lexical resources, such as the use of grammatical metaphors, and certainty and doubt adverbs. Finally, the conclusions drawn from the analyses are presented in order to answer the research questions this study sets out to address.
Lexical resources under study Lexical richness Laufer and Nation (1995) claim that the more popular measures to describe lexical richness are: lexical originality, lexical density, lexical sophistication and lexical variation. Lexical density and lexical variation have been the two measures selected in the present study. These authors define lexical density as the percentage of lexical words in the text and lexical variation as the type/token ratio. Likewise, Granger and Wynne (1999: 249) state that ‘one of the most commonly used measures of lexical richness in texts is the Type/Token ratio. More precisely, the Type/Token ratio measures lexical variation, which is the number of different words in a text’. As far as lexical density is concerned, Halliday (1994:351) explains that in order ‘to measure lexical density, simply divide the number of lexical items by the number of ranking clauses’; Nunan (1993) defines the concept as the ratio of content or lexical words to grammatical or
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writers from different backgrounds. With such a focus in mind, this research is an attempt to answer the following questions:
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function words, explaining that the former include nouns and verbs, whereas the latter include prepositions, pronouns and articles. In the present chapter, both definitions have been adopted and lexical density has been calculated by two measures: the ratio of content words to function words in the whole text and the number of content words per sentence.
Lexico-pragmatic resources Grammatical metaphor is, according to Thompson (2004:220), ‘a central resource for expanding the meaning potential of language’, since the relationships between the meanings and its different wordings can be reset. Halliday (1994) distinguishes between three different types of grammatical metaphor, each of which corresponds to his three metafunctions of language: ideational, interpersonal and textual. In the present chapter, we will focus, exclusively, on the first one, the ideational metaphor. Metaphors offer alternative wordings (lexicogrammar realizations in Halliday’s terms) to express meanings in a nonliteral (non-congruent) way, as opposed to a ‘literal’ (congruent) wording; ideational metaphors occur whenever meanings that are congruently worded as processes (realized as verbal groups) and properties (realized by adjectives) are presented as participants (nominal groups) in those processes: ‘Nominalizing is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor’ (Halliday, 1994: 352). Halliday (1994: 351) states that nominalization is also the primary resource for high density in texts (the ratio of lexical words to function words in the compositions), since meaning is expressed by lexical words, rather than function words. Hence, lexical density and grammatical metaphor are two related phenomena indicating the lexical complexity, which is mainly a feature of the written language. The spoken mode generally displays fewer lexical items and a higher number of clauses. Sušinskiene (2004:77) claims that grammatical metaphor also contributes to language economy and often fulfills a cohesive function. As pointed out in a previous study (Neff et al., 2002:748), adverbs play a central role in ‘epistemic judgment, the establishment of relationships between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader, and the organization of discourse’. Within the broader category of adverbs, Biber et al. (1999) include stance adverbials, which are further subdivided into three categories depending on how they modulate the meaning of propositions: epistemic, attitude and style. Through epistemic markers, the speaker or writer expresses judgement about the certainty, reliability
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Mercedes Díez Prados
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
and limitations of the propositions, or comments on the source of information. Attitude stance adverbials convey the speaker’s or writer’s attitude or value judgement about the proposition’s content, whereas style adverbials describe the manner of speaking. The focus of the present study is the first type, epistemic adverbials and, more concretely, how this stance is expressed by certainty and doubt adverbs. This choice has the goal of testing the use of female and male novice writers’ interpretation of them in order to check the degree of assertiveness in their propositions. In what follows, the details of the study are explained and the main results are presented and discussed.
Method Participants In order to answer the research questions posed above, the lexicon found in the compositions written by the following subpopulations of university student writers is contrasted: – Male writers versus female writers. – Native English-speaking female writers versus non-native Englishspeaking female writers. – Native English-speaking male writers versus non-native Englishspeaking male writers. – Non-native English-speaking female writers from different L1 backgrounds among themselves: those with a Romance L1 background (learners whose mother tongues are Spanish, French or Italian) versus those with a Germanic L1 background (learners whose mother tongues are German, Dutch or Swedish). – Non-native English-speaking male writers from different L1 backgrounds among themselves: those with a Romance L1 background (learners whose mother tongues are Spanish, French or Italian) versus those with a Germanic L1 background (learners whose mother tongues are German, Dutch or Swedish). The subpopulations studied are drawn from two corpora, one composed of texts written by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and another one by English-speaking writers, all of whom are university students. The former corpus is known as ICLE (International Corpus of Learner English), which is a learner corpus compiled as a result of an international project launched by Sylviane Granger, from the University
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of Louvain in Belgium. The corpus is formed by subcorpora of texts written by university students of intermediate-advanced level of English with 11 different mother tongues. Within this corpus, the selected subcorpora of learner English to be studied are those of SPICLE (Spanish L1), FRICLE (French L1), ITICLE (Italian L1), GERICLE (German L1), DICLE (Dutch L1) and SWICLE (Swedish L1), so that learners with Romance L1 background could be contrasted with those of a Germanic mother tongue. The ICLE is formed by compositions written by university undergraduates in English in different EFL contexts: up to 11 teams from different countries contributed with compositions collected from students enrolled in various universities. Coordinated by JoAnne Neff, we collected the Spanish corpus at two public universities located in Madrid, the Complutense and Alcalá. All of the learners in the ICLE were in their twenties at the time the compositions were gathered; the mean age of the participants selected for this study (the Romance and Germanic subcorpora together) is 23.30. Regarding the gender of the writers in the whole corpus, there is a majority of females: a mean of 82 per cent of the ICLE data has been produced by female writers. This percentage varies in the different subcorpora, although it is quite high in all of them. As for the subcorpora which concern us here, this is the breakdown: Spanish, 86 per cent; Italian, 92 per cent; French, 88 per cent; Swedish, 77 per cent; German, 78 per cent; and Dutch, 73 per cent. According to Granger et al. (2002:15), the general coordinators of the ICLE, the reason for this high percentage is that studies in the humanities attract more female than male students (that English Philology in Spain is, in general, female-dominated is indeed a fact). Although the initial intention was to contrast this corpus of learner English with the LOCNESS (Lovain Corpus of Native English Essays) one, which is a corpus of comparable size formed by texts written by Englishspeaking university writers, also compiled at the University of Louvain, the idea had to be disregarded because the LOCNESS does not provide the sociolinguistic information needed regarding the writers’ gender. Therefore, a different corpus of equivalent characteristics, albeit not as large, had to be used: the part of the MAD Corpus composed of texts written by American native-English speakers. Directed by JoAnne Neff, from the University Complutense of Madrid, the SpainWrite Team – of which I am a member – collected a corpus of argumentative texts written from three different subpopulations of university students in 1992: 50 first-year English Philology students, 50 fourth-year English
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Philology students and 45 American students who were spending a semester in Spain. My participation in the collection of this corpus gives me access to the sociolinguistic information needed in order to carry out the gender contrast established in the research questions for the present chapter, which is access to the gender of each writer. The collection of the compositions written by native speakers of English was carried out at the Miguel Angel Institute in Madrid, gathered from American students from two universities in the United States (Boston University and Kalamazoo College), who were spending a semester in Spain, living with Spanish families and studying diverse subjects related to the Spanish language and culture at the Institute. They were in the third year of university in their home country and, thus, were of equivalent age to the non-native participants (in their early twenties). Thirty of them were female and 15 were male, which reveals a clear predominance of female speakers in the native corpus as well. This subcorpus of 45 compositions was later donated to the University of Louvain coordinators to contribute to the data collection for the LOCNESS. In sum, Table 2.1 displays the total amount of texts and the number of words in the corpora that are going to be contrasted with the goal of finding out whether there are differences in the lexical competence between female and male, native and non-native university writers. As can be seen, the number of words in the female subcorpora is larger than in their male counterpart. This is due to the fact that both in the native and non-native populations there is a majority of females (66.66 per cent and 94.83 per cent, respectively). On the other hand, the native and non-native subcorpora are not equivalent in length either. Thus, in order to make them comparable, the results of the different measures studied will be normed by percentages, since using total amounts would draw inaccurate contrasts.
Data collection In order to collect the ICLE, the subjects were instructed to write a composition on a wide variety of topics, although some of them recur, because they were taken from a list of the 14 topics suggested by the coordinating team at Louvain. All of the compositions conform to an academic genre and most of them are argumentative essays, a type of text that ‘allows for discourse-oriented (cohesion, coherence, argumentative patterns, etc.) as well as lexical and grammatical exploration’ (Granger et al., 2002:16). A small proportion (25 per cent) of the corpus
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Table 2.1 Corpora Studied (number of words and compositions) NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS (NNS)
Spanish L1 female NNS Italian L1 female NNS French L1 female NNS TOTAL ROMANCE L1s Swedish L1 female NNS German L1 female NNS Dutch L1 female NNS TOTAL GERMANIC L1s TOTAL FEMALE NNS Spanish L1 male NNS Italian L1 male NNS French L1 male NNS TOTAL ROMANCE L1s Swedish L1 male NNS German L1 male NNS Dutch L1 male NNS TOTAL GERMANIC L1 TOTAL MALE NNS
No. of Words
No. of Texts
173, 819 206, 299 199, 923 580, 041 160, 788 185, 961 175, 794 522, 543
244 387 443 1, 074 351 432 254 1, 037
1,102,584
2,111
24, 967 18, 668 26, 565 70, 200 45, 041 45, 454 61, 155 132, 761
15 10 17 42 21 18 34 73
202,961
115
1,324,434
2,226
FEMALE NS MALE NS
11, 533 5, 852
30 15
TOTAL NATIVE SPEAKERS
17,385
45
TOTAL FEMALE (NS & NNS) TOTAL MALE (NS & NNS)
1, 114, 117 227, 702
2, 141 130
TOTAL
1,341,819
2,271
TOTAL NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS NATIVE SPEAKERS (NS)
ALL SUBPOPULATIONS BY GENDER
is formed by literary exams. It should be noted that the Spanish subcorpus has the highest proportion of texts coming from literary exams (21 per cent of the total), since all the texts collected at the University of Alcalá belonged to this text type; texts collected from examinations are time-constrained and the use of reference tools is not allowed. However, most of the texts in the corpus were developed under no time constraints and with the possibility of using reference tools. The essays were unabridged (errors were not removed from the texts) and had an average length of 705 words.
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Mother tongue
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
The task assigned to the native speakers was equivalent to the one for collecting the ICLE corpus: the subjects had to write a composition following these instructions: ‘Write a composition of at least 300 words on a discovery or invention during the twentieth century which you think has significantly changed people’s lives’. The topic implied no difficulty, to avoid extraneous variables affecting the results, and it was, on the one hand, open enough to let the writers choose a particular invention or discovery they were more familiar with, and, on the other hand, close enough to avoid too much disparity in the data collected. The students were given an hour to write their compositions in one of the classrooms they normally used at the Institute and were not allowed to use reference tools. The atmosphere was relaxed since they were voluntarily contributing to the collection of data for a research project and knew the texts were not going to be evaluated as part of their academic performance. The type of text was, as well, argumentative, since they have to defend their opinion as to why they thought a given invention or discovery was the most important or revolutionary, presenting its advantages and disadvantages. Data analysis Once the native and non-native corpora were selected, the data were analysed with the aim of studying the following lexical phenomena: a. The number of different lexical items (type/token ratio) used by each subpopulation, with the aim of finding out whether there were any differences in the lexical variation of each subpopulation. b. Lexical density (that is, the ratio of lexical words to function words in the compositions) and the presence of grammatical metaphor (that is, the process of turning verbs into nouns), both of which were concepts developed by Halliday as measures of the text complexity and formality (see Nunan, 1993). c. Certainty and doubt adverbs, as boosting and hedging devices, respectively, which are lexical resources that fulfil an important pragmatic function in academic essays.
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In order to compare the lexical richness of the texts written by the different subgroups of subjects, two different measures were applied: lexical variation and lexical density. Lexical variation (that is, type/token ratio) was calculated with the WordSmith Tools 3.0 programme (Scott, 1998). The number of tokens corresponds to the number of words in
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each subcorpus and types refer to the number of different words in each of them; the Type/Token ratio is calculated by obtaining the percentage of types in relation to the number of total words in the corpus. As Scott (1998) explains, this ratio varies in accordance with the length of the text, in such a way that longer texts tend to have a lower percentage of types than shorter ones. To compensate for this skew in the results, the WordSmith programme uses another measure, the standardized type/token ratio, which computes the ratio every n words. Although the default n number in this programme is 1000 words, it has been calculated for every 500 in the present study due to the small size of the native subcorpora. This means that the ratio is calculated anew every 500 words, obtaining, thus, an average type/token ratio based on consecutive 500-word chunks of text. The ratio is computed counting as a word every different form of a lexeme (for example, say and says compute as two different types). In that way, type/token ratios across texts of different lengths can be compared. The second measure of lexical richness used was lexical density, which refers to the ratio of content words to lexical words in the text. Since Halliday does not specify what he considers lexical items, as opposed to grammatical ones, the guideline adopted in the present study to distinguish between the two was mainly based on Nunan’s. The 57,427 word types of the different subcorpora were classified into lexical and function words according to the following criterion: nouns, verbs (except for be, have and auxiliary verbs in general) and adjectives were considered content words, whereas adverbs, pronouns, articles, prepositions and conjunctions were counted as functions words. Admittedly, counting as function words some adverbs that certainly have a lexical load seemed somehow odd, such as manner adverbs ending in ly, but distinguishing between different types of adverbs could have resulted in having to make arbitrary decisions. Therefore, a more objective and efficient criterion was adopted and all adverbs were regarded as function words. When a given term belonged to more than one part of speech, it was included in the class that seemed more feasible without taking into account the co-text (that is, linguistic context) in which the word was embedded, since the corpus size made it impossible to consult the context of every single use in order to check the grammatical function played. Two calculations of the lexical density of texts were carried out in the present study. Firstly, the ratio of lexical words to content words was calculated and, secondly, the number of lexical words was divided by the number of sentences in the texts. The WordSmith Tools programme
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
automatically calculates the number of sentences in a given corpus, considering a sentence to be a stretch of words finished by a full-stop, a question-mark or an exclamation mark immediately followed by one or more word separators (roughly, spaces in between words) and then a capital letter, a number or a currency symbol. Although this way to parse sentences in the text may not fully coincide with that of a manual parser, it is a reliable method of analysis to avoid the tremendously arduous work that would be involved in manually parsing a 1,341,819word corpus. This same reason made it unfeasible to measure lexical density in relation to the number of clauses, as Halliday (1994:351) proposes, instead of sentences. Lexical density was calculated globally for female and male native and non-native populations, rather than by language subcorpora, since that would have complicated the already laborious task of classifying types of words into content and function words: instead of classifying 57,427 words, as was done, classifying the types of words separately would have involved analysing 105,455 types of words. The amount is almost double because word types are repeated throughout the subcorpora. Although both verbs and adjectives can often be transformed into nouns, the present research will only focus on the achievement of grammatical metaphor through the nominalization of verbs by several prefixes, or, as Nunan phrases it, the ‘process of turning verbs into nouns’ (Nunan, 1993:12). In order to study nominalization, a series of suffixes used for turning verbs into nouns has been selected: -ation, -ition, -tion, -sion (which provide nouns with the meaning of ‘state’ or ‘process’, for instance abbreviation, acquisition, decision, action, admission); -ment (meaning ‘process’ or ‘result’, for example, abolishment); -ure (‘action, state’, as in closure); -ance, -ence (‘action’, ‘process’, ‘state’ or ‘quality’, for instance, self-confidence); -ism (‘belief’, ‘behaviour’ or ‘process’, for example antagonism); and the suffix -th (when the noun means ‘action’, ‘process’, ‘state’, ‘quality’ or ‘condition’, as in revisionism). After clearing the concordances obtained with WordsSmith Tools, a total of 1278 different words were found that could be considered grammatical metaphors stemming from the nominalizations of verbs. These words were computer-searched thanks to a computer programme designed by Professor José Simón, a colleage from the English Department at the University of Alcalá. The last measure carried out was the use of certainty and doubt adverbs by the different groups of subjects. The study of these lexical devices aims at discovering patterns of use of these boosting and hedging devices in the male and female populations, since they are subjective
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indicators of evaluation and might shed some light on the degree of self-reliance, self-confidence and assertiveness in the writers according to their gender. The selection of adverbs to be studied was based on that compiled by Biber and Finegan (1989:119; 33), certainty adverbs (actually, admittedly, assuredly, avowedly, certainly, clearly, decidedly, definitely, evidently, in actuality, incontestably, incontrovertibly, indeed, indisputably, indubitably, in fact, in reality, in/with certainty, irrefutably, manifestly, obviously, of course, patently, plainly, surely, unambiguously, unarguably, undeniably, undoubtedly, unmistakably, unquestionably, no/without doubt and without question) and 26 doubt adverbs (allegedly, apparently, arguably, conceivably, doubtless, formally, hypothetically, ideally, improbably, likely, maybe, officially, ostensibly, outwardly, perchance, perhaps, possibly, presumably, purportedly, reportedly, reputedly, seemingly, superficially, supposedly, technically and theoretically). These 59 adverbs were searched with the aid of the aforementioned computer programme in the different subcorpora of male and female writers. The results from all measures were statistically treated with the SPSS programme to ascertain whether the differences found among the variables and populations were significant or whether the null hypothesis had to be admitted.
Results and discussion In this section the results for the aforementioned calculations will be presented in the following order: the lexical variation of the different subpopulations of writers, the lexical density and grammatical metaphors of their texts, and the frequency of use of certainty and doubt adverbs associated with each gender and subpopulation of native and non-native speakers. Table 2.2 shows the results obtained in the four measures of lexical competence by the 14 subpopulations of university student writers. It should be noted that when subpopulations are grouped the figure in the table represents the mean value. Lexical density was calculated globally for female and male native and non-native populations, rather than by language subcorpora; that explains why some cells are empty. If we focus on the results obtained in the standardized type/token ratios, it can be observed that the percentages for all groups of subjects are very similar. In fact, there are no significant differences between means in paired-samples tests, except for two cases: when female
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Population
Lexical richness
Females
Spanish Italian French ROMANCE L1s (µ) Swedish German Dutch GERMANIC L1s (µ) FEMALE NNS (µ) FEMALE NS FEMALES (µ)
Lexico-pragmatic devices
Lexical variety
Lexical density
Stand. TT Ratio (%)
% CW/TOKENS
CW/SENT.
— — — — — — — — 43.462 41.325 42.394
— — — — — — — — 12.086 10.272 11.179
47.55 48.13 49.1 48.26 49.04 51.2 48.68 49.64 47.55 47.27 48.71
Gram. met.
Adverbs
% NOM/TW
%per cent Certainty Adv/TW
% per cent Doubt Adv/TW
0.133 2.282 3.136 1.850 0.254 0.320 0.198 0.257 1.054 0.147 0.924
0.084 0.105 0.110 0.100 0.139 0.091 0.088 0.106 0.103 0.087 0.101
2.512 2.282 3.136 2.643 1.914 1.771 1.955 1.880 2.261 2.350 2.274
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Table 2.2 Measures of Lexical Competence per Subpopulation
Stand. TT Ratio (%)
per cent CW/TOKENS
CW/SENT.
per cent NOM/TW
per cent Certainty Adv/TW
per cent Doubt Adv/TW
Spanish Italian French ROMANCE L1s (µ) Swedish German Dutch GERMANIC L1s (µ) MALE NNS (µ) MALE NS MALES (µ)
47.35 49.28 49.92 48.85 49.99 52.43 49.34 50.59 49.72 45 49.04
— — — — — — — — 43.392 43.165 43.279
— — — — — — — — 11.101 10.395 10.748
1.226 0.712 0.858 0.932 0.466 0.452 0.531 0.483 0.708 2.187 0.919
0.096 0.054 0.143 0.098 0.053 0.060 0.061 0.058 0.078 0.290 0.108
0.064 0.021 0.064 0.050 0.042 0.019 0.018 0.026 0.038 0.068 0.042
Fe & Ma NNS (µ) Fe & Ma Romance (µ) Fe & Ma Germanic (µ) Fe & Ma Ns (µ)
49.33 48.56 50.11 46.14
43.427 — — 42.245
11.596 — — 10.334
1.485 1.788 1.182 2.268
0.566 0.974 0.158 0.219
0.070 0.747 0.066 0.078
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Males
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
non-native speakers are contrasted with their male counterparts, the latter showing a higher mean (49.72) than the former (48.95); and, specifically, when female Germanic speakers are contrasted with male Germanic speakers. Therefore, male non-native university writers display a higher lexical variation than females, particularly when the Germanic subpopulations are compared between themselves, but not in the case of the Romance ones. The fact that the native population does not surpass the non-native one, as would have been expected, may be due to different factors: it could be indicative of a similar lexical variation in both native writers and non-native writers – both novice writers – or it may well be that the type/token ratio for non-natives is somewhat altered by the mistakes they made: non-native writers misspell words and even coin new ones (either based on the L2 code or borrowed directly from their mother tongues) much more frequently than native speakers, and all those erroneous words increase in the number of types. Granger and Wynne (1999) detected this problem when contrasting the type/token ratio of different subpopulations within the ICLE with those of the LOCNESS. To solve it, they propose to expurgate the corpus, on the one hand, by lemmatizing the types of words, that is, by considering as just one type all inflected forms, and by eliminating erroneous words. In order to implement this correcting measure, they used a computer tool they had at their disposal; even with such an aid, Granger and Wynne (1999) point out that the methodology involves the analyst in a laborious process; therefore, the result is that it is rather impractical to carry out the expurgation completely by hand. Due to this, and thanks to the fact that Granger and Wynne (1999) provide the exact number of words they excluded from the word type list of three of the subcorpora that are used in their study, I decided to extrapolate their results to my data to see how that may affect the type/token ratio of those three subpopulations. Table 2.3 shows how the errors found by Granger and Wynne (1999) were distributed between the female and male populations in the ICLE subcorpora. The percentages of female and male subjects, obtained from the information compiled in the manual that accompanies the ICLE corpus (Granger et al., 2002), were used to divide the number of total errors into the female and male subpopulations in a proportional way. Table 2.4 displays how the results in the type/token ratios for these three populations would be affected by the reduction of word types, after applying the extrapolation of results from Granger and Wynne (1999).
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Table 2.3 Types and Amounts of Errors in Three ICLE Subpopulations Spelling errors
Nonstandard word coinages
Total errors
Females
896 524 271
339 158 130
1235 682 401
86% 88% 73%
Spanish French Dutch
Males Female Male errors errors
14% 12% 27%
1062 600 293
173 82 108
As can be seen, the percentages decrease slightly, which provokes that what proved significantly different before (non-native females versus non-native males) no longer holds, and three new significant contrasts arise within the two subpopulations of Romance and Germanic speakers: Romance language females versus males, Germanic females versus males, with the males in each group being the ones that show higher lexical variation, and the whole Romance language population versus the whole Germanic one, with the latter outperforming the former (that Table 2.4 Type/Token Ratio Before and After Error Removal Text File
Tokens
Types
Type/Token Ratio
Standardized Type/Token n = 500
11,209 10,672 11,467
6.45 5.34 6.52
47.55 49.1 48.68
10,147 10,072 11,174
5.84 5.04 6.36
43.04 46.32 47.46
3,749 3,971 6,823
15.02 14.95 11.16
47.35 49.92 49.34
3,576 3,889 6,715
14.32 14.64 10.98
45.15 48.88 48.55
BEFORE ERROR REMOVAL Spanish female French female Dutch female
173,819 199,923 175,794
AFTER ERROR REMOVAL Spanish female French female Dutch female
173,819 199,923 175,794
BEFORE ERROR REMOVAL Spanish male French male Dutch male
24,967 26,565 61,155
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Population
AFTER ERROR REMOVAL Spanish male French male Dutch male
24,967 26,565 61,155
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
is, Germanic speakers show a wider range of vocabulary). Studies like that of Scarcella and Zimmerman (1998) also found that male ESL university subjects outperformed females in their knowledge of academic vocabulary. Nonetheless, native and non-native speakers of English are still not differentiated. Lemmatization might be a solution for a more reliable measure for lexical variation or it could just simply be the case that native speakers do not possess a greater vocabulary, as was proved in Granger and Wynne’s study (1999) where the native speakers ranged exactly in the middle when contrasted to four groups of non-native speakers. These results led them to draw the following conclusion: If, as shown by our study, advanced learners have at their disposal a relatively large vocabulary stock and if, as proved by numerous EFL studies, they also produce a great many lexical errors, one is led to the conclusion that advance vocabulary teaching should not primarily be concerned with teaching more words but rather, as Lennon (1996: 23) puts it, with ‘fleshing out incomplete or “skeleton” entries’ of the existing stock. (Granger and Wynne, 1999:255) Thus, this first measure of lexical richness, both before and after error removal, does distinguish between the genders and non-native speakers with different mother tongues, but not between native and non-native speakers. This latter finding seems to contradict previous studies like the ones mentioned in Nation (2001), which ‘show, not surprisingly, that native speakers use a much wider range of vocabulary (Linnarud, 1986; Harley and King, 1989)’ (Nation, 2001:178). The proportion of error-free content word lemmas to total tokens may be a more reliable measure to assess lexical variation, but the large size of the corpus is truly an impediment to applying it. The inferential statistics run for the results for lexical density (refer to Table 2.2 for results) show that there are no significant differences among the populations of novice writers, independently from the variables of gender and English as L1 versus EFL. This similarity could be the result of errors and lack of lemmatization of the corpus, since the amount of content words may be increased by erroneous words in the non-natives (coined by the students or transferred from their L1). On the other hand, as pointed out above, the differences in the type/token ratio between natives and non-natives did not significantly changed when adjusting the word types after error removal. Regarding grammatical metaphor, four contrasts between paired means showed significant differences at the 95 per cent confidence
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interval: the overall female population (µ = 2. 274), native and non-native speakers altogether, versus the overall male population (µ = 0. 919); the female non-native population (µ = 2. 261) versus the male non-native one (µ = 0. 708); the Romance (µ = 1. 788) versus the Germanic speakers (µ = 1. 182); and within this non-native population, specifically, when the Germanic subpopulations are contrasted (µ = 1. 880 in female Germanic speakers, versus µ = 0. 483 in their male counterparts). In all three cases of gender contrast, the females outperform the males, and in the case of language typological contrast, the Romance speakers use more nominalizations than the speakers of Germanic languages. If nominalization is a feature of formality and prestige in texts, we may conclude that texts written by female university writers use a much more formal register than those of male university writers, either native or non-native speakers of English. Thus, like in the case of lexical variation, the gender variable is more influential than the fact of being a native speaker of English, although it was the males who outperformed the females in that measure of lexical richness and, on this occasion, it is the females the ones with the higher ratios. Some randomly selected examples of grammatical metaphor extracted from the different corpora are presented in Figure 2.1. Nominalizations by the suffixes studied are highlighted, the most productive of all being -tion, as it becomes obvious by the abundance of occurrences in the examples shown. Example 1.
Dutch male Five days later he announces the annexation of the emirate and he reveals his plans to convert one part of it into a nineteenth Iraki province and to unify the other with the already existing province of Basra. Example 2. Dutch female Take children for example: if there were no age-restrictions on movies, children would be exposed to violent and erotic scenes that are not meant for them but for adults to see. Example 3. French female When George Orwell wrote in his novel Animal Farm: <∗ >, he not only denounced a punctual deficiency of the very society in which he was living, thinking and writing, but through this statement he also illustrated an unfortunately universal truth.
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Mercedes Díez Prados
Example 4. French male In a world so dominated by modern technology, people tend to be more and more superficial. We are bound to keep up appearances in order to avoid social discriminations. Figure 2.1
Examples of Grammatical Metaphor
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Example 6. German male So you see, hear and smell all the hectic of everyday’s traffic, which sounds like a mixture of a technological staccato and a motorized symphony. Example 7. Italian male The programme consists on a classification (just the first three positions) based on a certain argument, from a certain point of view. Example 8. Italian female In the second case there is the association of good life with that specific brand of brioches. Example 9. Spanish female In order to support this argument, we are going to review the following subjects: Labour discrimination, the right to vote, the fight against male chauvinist behaviours, the representation of women in important political charges and the recognition of sexuality in woman. Example 10. Spanish male Stockbrokers are men with no scruples and their obsession is to get whatever they want although it means that the lives of other people are destroyed. Example 11. Swedish female The politicians’ task is to make this integration as smooth as possible. Example 12. Swedish male Scientists speak about holes in the ozone layer and abnormal fluctuations in the weather, but it is not often that people encounter environmental destruction themselves. Example 13. <23-NS-09-FE> Female native speaker The presence of television has brought about several crucial trends in our culture: the mass culturization of various groups, the commercialization of our lifestyles, and the rapidity and breath of the information that reaches us. Gathered around the tube, the American family learned the ‘ideal’ way of life. Example 14. <14-NS-09-MA> Male native speaker Hopefully, with continued efforts, our use of nuclear fusion and fission will turn from mediums of strategy, destruction and waste to matters of energy production, medicine and other humanitarian goals. Figure 2.1
(Continued)
Our last concern is the frequency of use of certainty and doubt adverbs. Although the figures for certainty adverbs seem to indicate that Romance language speakers use more certainty adverbs than L1 Germanic ones (see Table 2.2), in fact, the differences are not significant. The same apparent difference can be observed when the male non-native English speakers are contrasted with their female
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Example 5. German female They, however, are only superficial and temporarily limited corrections, such as beauty treatments and the wide range of products offered by the cosmetics’ industry.
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counterparts: the difference between the females’ 1.054 per cent and the males’ 0.078 per cent is not statistically significant, nor is the difference between the overall females (µ = 0. 924) as opposed to the males (µ = 0. 108). Curiously enough, however, within the non-native English speakers, the ones with Germanic mother tongues show statistically significant differences: male Germanic speakers (0.58 per cent) use more certainty adverbs than Germanic females (0.257 per cent). This gender distinction between the Germanic speakers was also present in the use of nominalizations and lexical variation. Like in the previous cases, the use of certainty adverbs does not reveal differences between the native and non-native populations either. This result contradicts previous studies (Hyland and Milton, 1997; Neff et al., 2002), which found statistically significant differences between natives and non-natives, either underusing them (in the case of Spanish speakers in Neff et al., 2002) or overusing them (in the case of the Dutch, Italian and French L1 speakers in Neff et al., 2002; and of Chinese student subjects in Hyland and Milton, 1997). Unlike what happened with certainty adverbs, there are significant differences between the female (0.101 per cent) and the male (0.042 per cent) populations in the presence of doubt adverbs (refer to Table 2.2), because the females make greater use of this hedging device, conferring their statements with higher degrees of uncertainty and insecurity. This same tendency holds when the female and male non-native subjects are contrasted: µ = 0. 103 in the female subcorpus and µ = 0. 038 in the male one. This preference is, however, not found in other studies, where no ‘significant gender-related effect on the speakers’ hedging frequencies’ (for example, Poos and Simpson, 2002) was found. The types of corpus analysed (spoken in their study, written in mine) and the selection of hedging devices studied (the expressions kind of/sort of in the former, and doubt adverbs in the latter) may have a bearing on the disparity of the results. When frequency of use between certainty and doubt adverbs is contrasted, some interesting results are found: overall males and the group of non-native males significantly used more certainty than doubt adverbs. Among the female population, the only paired contrast that bears significant differences in the use of certainty and doubt adverbs is in the Germanic female group, where we find the same tendency of higher use in certainty adverbs. Female speakers of Romance languages and the overall female population do not show significant differences when using boosting (that is, certainty) or hedging (that is, doubt) devices.
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Mercedes Díez Prados
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Particular items can therefore only be understood as expressions of doubt and certainty by attending to the contexts in which they occur. Meanings do not reside in the items themselves, but are assigned to utterances which contain them. Determining how an item is used therefore requires a pragmatic interpretation of actual instances of use. (Ibid.:185) Paying attention to the context of these epistemic devices in such a large corpus is not feasible, but some examples can be examined with the aim of illustrating the particular use of the adverbs in specific utterances (see Figure 2.2). As can be seen, there is much more variety of certainty than doubt adverbs (it is extremely difficult to find examples of doubt adverbs of a different type in the compositions). Therefore, there are not only quantitative but also qualitative differences in the use of certainty and doubt adverbs in terms of the variety of adverbs used, both in the native and non-native populations. The most frequent doubt adverbs are, undoubtedly, perhaps and maybe, and they even alternate in the same text, for instance, in the following composition written by a Swedish student: After the nuclear reactor accidents in the 70s and 80s many people started to realize the gravity of the situation and perhaps they changed their ideas about Nature. But for others it soon fell into oblivion. Changing peoples attitudes would probably take more than a century and who could be responsible for that? Maybe it could be Nature itself. Sometimes Nature takes its ‘revenge’, by earth-quakes and typhons and who knows, one day the silence of Nature may be broken by something worse. (ICLE-SW-UG-0002.2) Another interesting case worth commenting on is Example 35 (see Figure 2.2), where there seem to be two contradictory degrees of assertiveness: on the one hand, the sentence starts with what Hyland and Milton (1997) call a ‘cluster’ of certainty adverbs (Of course, in reality . . .), followed by a must, which is also an epistemic marker of security. On the other hand, the proposition has two hedges, mitigating the degree of certainty and conferring doubt to the assertion: the verbal
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Although these results in the use of certainty and doubt adverbs could be interpreted as a sign of higher degrees of assertiveness and selfreliance in the male population, rushed conclusions should be avoided since, as Hyland and Milton (1997) highlight:
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CERTAINTY ADVERBS
DOUBT ADVERBS
Example 15. Dutch female The debate was of course almost as important as the actual change in the law, because the issue of abortion was brought into the open and was for the first time widely discussed. ( Female Dutch) Example 17. Dutch male However, these students will be less motivated than students who know what they chose, so that it is actually an advantage to exclude these students from the beginning. ()
Example 16. Dutch female The child may have to go through a series of abuses, mental, physical and perhaps even sexual. ( Female Dutch)
Example 19. French female In fact, the difference between university and higher schools is the following: university gives us a theoretical education whereas higher schools are more technical oriented. ()
Example 20. French female For sitting before the television from four o’clock in the afternoon till, maybe, one or two o’clock in the morning is, according to me, a sign that something goes wrong with the persons involved. ()
Example 21. French male . . . and if you live in Croatia with your wife, who has just been raped by Serbian soldiers, you will undoubtedly receive commiseration and moral support from people all over the world. ()
Example 22. French male It is surprising to see how many times documents disappeared in supposedly locked and guarded rooms. ()
Example 23. German female The creatures living during stone-age, for example, had certainly other delights as anybody living in our time. ()
Example 24. German female So perhaps someone, who cannot understand why music should open doors to an infinite and new reality, is more calm and ‘good’ than someone, who is sensitive for music that stirred him to the depths of his soul, and who then reacts in his life. )
Example 25. German male Well, if you still believe those advertising-fairytales you have obviously not yet experienced the
Example 26. German male I feel some sort of relief as we strode along the hallways, silently. I don’t know exactly, maybe it’s the prospect of
Figure 2.2
Example 18. Dutch male That people will protest is likely, but is this protest valid. ()
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Examples of Certainty and Doubt Adverbs for all Populations
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sound of old analogue recordings, digitally remastered for CD. ()
having someone to talk to. ()
Example 27. Italian female A car takes you from door to door, indeed it can reach even little villages in the mountain where no other means of transport are able to arrive. ()
Example 28. Italian female Perhaps, in the television era, a person who spends the most part of the day in reading and analysing a book could seem to be strange, too tied to the oast. ()
Example 29. Italian male In this cases somebody tries to publicize something without saying it clearly, without admitting it. ()
Example 30. Italian male Maybe it’s good to use these breaks to do something else, like order the room, washing dishes or similar, and then come back to our program; or maybe we should turn of the tv and read a good book, there’s no advertisement in it. (
Example 31. Spanish female Then the evidence is clear, there is no doubt that there was a rape, even from the point of view of the law. ()
Example 32. Spanish female Then, what should we expect from those apparatuses which, theoretically, are caring for our interests? ()
Example 33. Spanish male A fair distribution of goods and a higher level of civic education will undoubtedly make a much better world. ()
Example 34. Spanish male Meanwhile, the world is how the CNN describes it and the ‘real’ happiness of this world is sold by means of YOUTH, BEAUTY, SEX, SUCCESS and RICHNESS though the apparently innocent screen of the television set, the ‘silly box’, which made us silly too. ()
Example 35. Swedish female Of course, in reality, we must try to accept these differences (to a certain degree) and make the best of them. ()
Example 36. Swedish female Perhaps you expect me to come up with a cracking solution to this problem. ()
Example 37. Swedish male Children having been brought up under conditions where either or both of their parents have lost their jobs, might carry with them a feeling of animosity or ‘revenge’ but so many other things in their environment and experience will actually have a lasting influence on their worldviews and lifestyles. ()
Example 38. Swedish male Possibly the first few steps towards a better production system for the environment are taken. Although there are problems left, I am optimistic about the future. ()
Figure 2.2
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(Continued)
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Example 39. Native female The zip-lock bag was definitely a good invention. (<18-NS-09-FE>)
Example 40. Native female As a result of the greatly decreased travel times, countries can work together much easier than previously possible. (<12-NS-09-FE>)
Example 41. Native male Without question, the geo-centric satellite is the invention of the century. (<38-NS-09-MA>)
Example 42. Native male When someone is concentrating more on their telephone conversation and less on their driving, they are more likely to get into an accident. (<45-NS-09-MA>)
Figure 2.2
(Continued)
periphrasis try to accept (instead of simply we must accept) and the bracketed expression (to a certain degree). The apparent contradictory forces of boosting and hedging devices in this utterance could be interpreted as a the writer’s desire to convey confidence in the truth of the information but, at the same time, not to sound too imposing and leave room for feedback on the part of the reader (Hyland and Milton, 1997). All the measures applied to distinguish among the different subpopulations of subjects proved more fruitful in the case of the gender variable (female versus male) than in the language typology variable (Romance languages versus Germanic languages) or the fact of being a native speaker of English or an English learner. Table 2.5 summarizes all contrasts that showed significant differences (p < 0. 05) in the four measures of lexical competence applied in the study. In the following and last section, the conclusions derived from these results are presented.
Conclusions In order to present the conclusions derived from the present study, the research questions initially posed will be answered. For ease of reference, the questions will be recalled one at a time: 1. Are there any quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the lexis used in compositions written by different subpopulations of university students when writing in English, either as their first or second language? The two measures of lexical richness, lexical variation (that is, type/token ratio) and lexical density, did not distinguish between
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Paired Samples Test Paired Differences
t
df
Sig. (2-tailed)
−3.630 −5.753 −4.666 −13.485 5.744 10.326 35.268 5.612 5.027 2.427 4.377 −3.142 4.433
5 2 2 2 6 5 2 2 6 6 5 5 5
.015 .029 .043 .005 .001 .000 .001 .030 .002 .051 .007 .026 .007
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Pair 1 Pair 2 Pair 3 Pair 4 Pair 5 Pair 6 Pair 7 Pair 8 Pair 9 Pair 10 Pair 11 Pair 12 Pair 13
TTnnsFe – TTnnsMa TTgerFe – TTgerMa EFTTromFe – EFTTromMa EFTTgerFe – EFTTgerMa Nomfe – Nomma NomNNSFe – NomNNSMa NomgerFe – NomgerMa CerAdgerFe – CerAdgerMa DouAdfe – DouAdma CerAdma – DouAdma CerAdNNSMa – DouAdNNSMa EFTTRom – EFTTGer NomRom – NomGer
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
Lower
Upper
−.76833 −.94667 −1.94000 −1.09000 1.35543 1.55417 1.39700 .19933 .05829 .06586 .03983 −2.97833 .60617
.51844 .28501 .72021 .14000 .62430 .36868 .06861 .06152 .03067 .07180 .02229 2.32201 .33496
.21165 .16455 .41581 .08083 .23596 .15051 .03961 .03552 .01159 .02714 .00910 .94796 .13675
−1.31240 −1.65468 −3.72910 −1.43778 .77805 1.16726 1.22657 .04652 .02992 −1.00054 .01644 −5.41513 .25465
−.22427 −.23865 −.15090 −.74222 1.93281 1.94107 1.56743 .35215 .08665 .13226 .06323 −.54153 .95768
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Table 2.5 Significant Differences in the Four Measures of Lexical Competence
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native and non-native novice writers. As was pointed out, a deviation in the figures caused by the errors committed by non-native speakers and a lack of lemmatization of the content words could be the cause for this unexpected result. However, it could also be the case that non-native speakers do possess an extended vocabulary, although they need to work on the occurrences of errors (Granger and Wynne, 1999). Mackenzie and Hannay’s (2001) computer-assisted, text-based approach could be a step in the right direction. They have developed a computer tool for students to explore lexical issues in several corpora from a variety of sources, making the task of learning vocabulary a much more motivating and effective activity. The two measures for lexico-pragmatic resources (grammatical metaphor and epistemic devices) do not discriminate between native and non-native speakers either. The academic genre in which the texts are written could justify the homogeneous use of nominalizations by all groups of subjects and the lack of differences in epistemic markers could be due to the intrinsic difficulty to use those devices even for native speakers (Hyland and Milton, 1997). 2. Is there a relationship between the writer’s gender and the amount and/or types of words used? As pointed out above, the gender variable has proved the most fruitful. All but two of the significant differences involve different behavioural trends between males and females. The first contrast was observed in lexical variation, before error-removal: non-native males outperformed non-native females. Within the non-native population, the Germanic males also showed a wider range of vocabulary than their female counterparts, but the Romance ones did not differ statistically. After errors were removed from the Spanish, French and Dutch populations, both the Romance and the Germanic equally showed significant gender differences, in favour of the males, and the female versus male non-native population stopped being significant. As far as lexical density is concerned, this measure was homogenous for all subjects. Grammatical metaphor (that is, nominalization) also discriminated between the overall female and male populations, as well as between male and female non-natives, particularly in the case of Germanic speakers: in all cases, females outperformed males. Last but not least, females generally used more doubt adverbs than overall males, who used significantly more boosting (that is, certainty adverbs) than hedging (that is, doubt adverbs) devices. Only Germanic females used more certainty adverbs than their male counterparts. Finally,
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
while non-native females did not significantly use one type of adverbs more than the other, non-native males preferred certainty over doubt adverbs. If, as Halliday (1994) proposes, nominalization is a feature of complexity and formality in texts, then the present study seems to prove that women writers, either native or non-native, use more formal and complex language, a characteristic that is aligned with the claim that female speech tends to be more conservative (Smith, 1979) and uses more prestigious forms of language (Labov, 1990). The fact that female writers excel in the use of doubt adverbs, a hedging device in texts, could be interpreted as a reflex of what is traditionally considered as stereotypical of women’s speech (Haas, 1979): being non-assertive, tentative and supportive. Thus, the use of hedging devices could be considered as a lack of self-security or self-reliance on the part of the female writers. On the other hand, the use of more boosters than hedges in the male population could be interpreted as offering stronger commitments. However, rushed interpretations of results must be avoided, since an overuse of certainty devices can also be interpreted as counterproductive, since excessively strong commitments are imposing; no significant differences in the use of certainty and doubt adverbs, like females show, may thus be preferable. A more qualitative study of the devices in the corpus would probably shed some light on the accuracy of use by each subpopulation. Nonetheless, both native and non-native novice writers in general would most probably benefit from instruction on the balanced use of epistemic devices of certainty and doubt (Hyland and Milton, 1997). 3. Can the gender variable be related to the L1 variable, that is do women and men writers from different L1 backgrounds show quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the lexicon used in their compositions? Finally, the third question calls for language typology relations combined with the gender variable. No significant differences were found when female Romance speakers were contrasted with female Germanic speakers or when Romance and Germanic male speakers were compared. Therefore, when the gender variable is maintained, the mother tongue does not seem to be a relevant factor for change. However, Romance speakers, when no gender distinction is made, use more nominalizations than the Germanic ones and show greater lexical variation, in the type/token measure after error removal.
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The results obtained in the present study would probably benefit from further treatment of the data, such as lemmatization of words, complete error removal and a more qualitative analysis of the contextual use of the different lexical resources analysed. Lemmatization could even be controlled for the levels of difficulty in word families proposed by Bauer and Nation (1993). Other measures of lexical richness could also be applied, such as the Lexical Frequency Profile by Laufer and Nation (1995), but all of those improvements fall beyond the limits of the present research and will be the objective of further studies.
Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Instituto de la Mujer (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales), which funded this research within the framework of the project entitled ‘Efectos de las políticas lingüísticas anti-sexistas y feminización del lenguaje de los medios’ (Ref. 37/06-01). I am greatly indebted to my colleague Professor José Simón, from the English Department at the University of Alcalá, for his generous help in the design of a computer programme that tremendously eased the search of nominalizations and certainty and doubt adverbs in the corpus. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friend and colleague, Sandra Stroo, professor at the University of North Texas, who proof read this chapter.
References Arribas Esteras, N. (2003) ‘Propuesta de Aprendizaje del Léxico en ELE desde la Perspectiva de la Semántica Histórica y Cognitiva’, Quaderni del CIRSIL, 2, www.lingue.unibo.it/cirsil, date accessed 15 July 2008. Bauer, L. and Nation, P. (1993) ‘Word families’, International Journal of Lexicography, 6, 4, 253–279. Biber, D. and Finegan, E. (1989) ‘Styles of stance in English: Lexical and grammatical marking of evidentiality and affect’, Text, 9, 94–124. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and Finegan, E. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman. Ellis, R. (1985) Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilquin, G., Granger, S. and Paquot, M. (2007) ‘Learner corpora: The missing link in EAP pedagogy’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6, 319–335. Granger, S. and Wynne, M. (1999) ‘Optimizing measures of lexical variation in EFL learner corpora’, in Corpora Galore. Kirk, J. (ed.) Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 249–257.
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Granger, S., Dagneaux, E. and Paquot, M. (eds) (2002) International Corpus of Learner English [Handbook and CD-ROM]. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Haas, A. (1979) ‘Male and female spoken language differences: Stereotypes and evidence’, Psychological Bulletin, 86, 3, 616–626. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd edn. London: Edward Arnold. Hyland, K. and Milton, J. (1997) ‘Qualification and certainty in L1 and L2 students’ writing’, Journal of Second Language Writing, 6, 2, 183–205. Labov, W. (1990) ‘The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change’, Language Variation and Change, 2, 205–254. Laufer, B. and Nation, P. (1995) ‘Vocabulary size and use: lexical richness in L2 written production’, Applied Linguistics, 16, 307–322. Mackenzie, L. and Hannay, M. (2001) ‘Developing lexical competente: A computer-assisted, text-based approach’, Cauce, 24, 541–563. Neff, J., Ballesteros, F., Dafouz, E., Díez, M., Martínez, F., Prieto, R., Rica, J. P. and Sancho, C. (2004a) ‘The expression of writer stance in native and nonnative argumentative texts’, in English Modality in Perspective: Genre Analysis and Contrastive Studies. Facchinetty, R. and Palmer, F. (eds). Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 141–161. Neff, J., Ballesteros, F., Dafouz, E., Díez, M., Martínez, F., Prieto, R. and Rica, J. P. (2004b) ‘Formulating writer stance: A contrastive study of EFL learner corpora’, in Applied Corpus Linguistics: A Multidimensional Perspective. Connor, U. and Thomas, U. U. (eds). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 73–89. Neff, J., Ballesteros, F., Dafouz, E., Herrera, H., Díez, M., Martínez, F., Prieto, R. and Rica, J. P. (2003b) ‘Contrasting learner corpora: The use of modal and reporting verbs in the expression of writer stance’, in Extending the Scope of Learner-based Research. Granger, S. and Petch-Tyson, S. (eds). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 211–230. Neff, J., Dafouz, E., Díez, M., Martínez, F., Prieto, R. and Rica, J. P (2003a) ‘Evidentiality and the construction of writer stance in native and non-native texts’, in Language and Function. Hladký, J. (ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 223–235. Neff, J., Dafouz, E., Herrera, H., Martínez, F., Rica, J. P., Díez, M. and Sancho, C. (2002) ‘A contrastive study of certainty and doubt adverb in native and non-native argumentative texts’, in Studies in Contrastive Linguistics. Iglesias Rábade, L. and Doval Suárez, S. M. (eds). Santiago de Compostela: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 747–753. Nunan, D. (1993) Introducing Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin. Petch-Tyson, S. (1988) ‘Writer/reader visibility in EFL written discourse’, in Learner English on Computer. Granger, S. (ed.). London and New York: Longman. Poos, D. and Simpson, R. (2002) ‘Cross-disciplinary comparisons of hedging: Some findings from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English’, in Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation. Reppen, R. Fitzmaurice, S. M. and Biber, D. (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 3–23. Scarcella, R. and Zimmerman, C. (1998) ‘Academic words and gender: ESL student performance on a Test of Academic Lexicon’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 1, 27–49. Scott, M. (1998) WordSmith Tools Version 3.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Smith, P. M. (1979) ‘Sex markers in speech’, in Scherer, K. R. and Giles, H. (eds.) Social Markers in Speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Presss, 109–146. Sušinskiene, S. (2004) ‘Grammatical metaphor in scientific discourse’, Kalbotyra, 54, 3, 76–83. Thompson, G. (2004) Introducing Functional Grammar, 2nd edn, London: Hodder Arnold.
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Mercedes Díez Prados
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Exploring the Role of Gender in Lexical Creations María Pilar Agustín Llach
Introduction The present study aims at identifying gender differences, in the use of lexical inventions in Foreign Language (FL) writing within a school context. Gender is one of the most basic criteria of classifying people into groups. Myriad studies have concentrated on examining gender differences in different areas of cognition and learning. The main areas in which gender differences have been researched are verbal skills, mathematical skills and visual-spatial abilities. Gender differences in language acquisition have been repeatedly demonstrated with results pointing to girls as more able language acquirers than boys. The appearance of lexical creations in language learners’ productions can be considered as a manifestation of a productive use of vocabulary. These lexical inventions provide insights into the mental processes that underlie productive vocabulary use. Studies devoted to the exploration of gender differences in productive vocabulary use as regards the particular aspect of the creation of new, innovative lexical items are scarce. The present research intends to fill this gap in the literature. Then, the study conducted to explore gender differences in the production of lexical creations is accounted for and the main results are detailed and discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, the shortcomings of the study are stated and some future lines of research within this field are suggested.
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Lexical Creations Lexical creation is the term used to refer to those new lexical items coined by language users in either their mother tongue or foreign 74 10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
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language and which do not exist as such in the target language (Clark, 1980; Liederman et al., 1983; Dewaele, 1998; González Álvarez, 2004).1 Those non-target lexemes have an L1 or L2 basis and are adapted to the morphology of the target language, so lexical innovations are indicative of learners’ ability to analyse the target language input to apply this knowledge to communication in the FL (González Álvarez, 2004:35). Innovative language use tends to be the result of lack of lexical knowledge, so it is typical of children learning their mother tongue and of foreign language learners. When there is limited proficiency in the target language, then learners make a creative use of language. Most authors (Clark, 1980; Liederman et al., 1983; Kocoglu, 1997; Dewaele, 1998) interpret lexical creations as the result of the application of a communication strategy arisen to fill lexical gaps. Lexical inventions have, therefore, a communicative function. The better a new coined lexical item serves its function, the more frequently will it be used in subsequent instances, but lexical inventions that are not understood, that is, that do not comply with their communicative function are forgotten and not used any longer (Clark, 1980:10). Research has also placed the study of lexical innovations within the context of Error Analysis (cf. González Álvarez, 2004). Different types of lexical inventions have been mentioned in the literature depending on the mechanisms that underlie the processes of lexical creation and on the sources from which learners draw (cf. González Álvarez, 2004:36–56; Poulisse, 1993 for a more thorough account of the application of the term ‘lexical innovation’). Dewaele (1998), for example, distinguishes among several categories and subcategories of lexical inventions in the oral production of his French FL learners which are originated from intralingual and interlingual sources, as well as from a mixed source. Intralingual subcategories of lexical inventions include slips of the tongue and overgeneralizations (cf. also Blum and Levenston, 1977). Interlingual categories of lexical inventions refer to calques generated from transfer from their L1 and other known foreign languages (478–484, see also Rababah, 2002; Liaw, 1996). He also (cf. Dewaele, 1998:484) considers a final category which includes untraceable or ambiguous examples which cannot possibly be ascribed to any of the categories distinguished. Other categories considered are foreignizing (Ringbom, 1986; Singleton, 1987; Liaw, 1996), word coinage (Clark, 1980; Liaw, 1996; Kocoglu, 1997; Rababah, 2002) and transfer or code-switching (Blum and Levenston, 1977; Rababah, 2002).
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María Pilar Agustín Llach
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Singleton and Little (1991) believe that apart from crosslinguistic influence, creative lexical innovation can be traced back to incomplete mastery of orthographic conventions, or to deficient coding in memory of lexical items encountered in the input. Moreover, Poulisse and Bongaerts (1994) and de Houwer (1995) found out that some lexical inventions are the consequence of the mixing of first and target language forms. These authors believe that when producing utterances in the foreign language, not only FL lexical items are activated, but also the conceptual equivalent L1 lexemes or formally similar morphemes are retrieved, and as a result lexical inventions arise. In this sense, the mechanisms that lie behind the appearance of lexical creations can be those of language activation or selection (cf. Dewaele, 1998). Moreover, lexical inventions can also be the consequence of incorrect or incomplete information labels tagged to foreign language lexical items (Dewaele, 1998: 476). Most studies that have focused on the exploration of lexical creations are of the descriptive type. Findings pertain to the types of lexical inventions (Ringbom, 1986; Singleton, 1987; Dewaele, 1998; Singleton and Little, 1991) and to the differences observed in their production depending on the following: (1) whether the target language is the first or the second foreign language with both groups producing lexical inventions to a similar extent (Dewaele, 1998; González Álvarez, 2004), (2) on the age of the learner with adults and children producing similarly communicative L1 lexical inventions (Liederman et al., 1983), (3) on the proficiency of the learner with lexical inventions increasing with proficiency (González Álvarez, 2004; Naves, Miralpeix and Celaya, 2005; Celaya and Ruiz de Zarobe, 2008). Research has investigated lexical creations in the mother tongue (Clark, 1980; Liederman et al., 1983), from the point of view of their role as communication strategies (Blum and Levenston, 1977; Poulisse, 1993; Liaw, 1996; Kocoglu, 1997; Rababah, 2002), or as manifestations of erroneous target language use (Celaya and Torras, 2001; Naves et al., 2005). Regarding the issue of the production of lexical creations, we are not aware of any study concerned with the examination of gender differences, and only Kocoglu (1997) found as the by-product of a study with another focus that there are no gender differences in the production of word coinages. Neither is the literature on lexical creations very abundant and the focus of research changes from study to study. With these previous considerations in mind, the present chapter intends to search for male and female differences in lexical innovation.
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We want to find out whether male and female learners of EFL create lexical items to a similar extent and whether the innovation processes they resort to are similar. Examination of the nature of the lexical creative or innovative behaviour of male and female learners while writing in the foreign language can throw interesting results concerning the cognitive processes activated. Specifically, our research questions are as follows: 1. What are the most frequent lexical creations produced by male learners? 2. What are the most frequent lexical creations produced by female learners? 3. Is there any significant difference in the number of lexical creations produced by male compared to female learners? 4. Is there any significant difference in the types of lexical creations produced by male compared to female learners?
Method Participants A total of 298 learners of English as a foreign language participated in this study. Of these, 168 were male and 130 were female learners, so 56.37 per cent of the informant population were males and 43.62 per cent were females. They were attending the second grade of secondary education and averaged 13.32 years old. Spanish was their mother tongue and by the time of data collection they had received a total of 839 hours of instruction in the foreign language. English is a compulsory school subject for all learners. Data were collected in four secondary schools in Spain and intact classes were selected for the study. Instruments A written composition was used as the instrument to collect data from informants. Learners were required to write a letter to a prospective English host family. In this letter they had to introduce themselves and talk about their family, home town, school, hobbies and any other thing they thought the host family would find interesting. This composition topic was selected because it imposed little or no constraints on the linguistic content of the writings. Moreover, with this topic it was reasonable to assume that learners would have enough world knowledge to
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María Pilar Agustín Llach
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Imagina que vas a vivir con una familia inglesa en Oxford durante un mes. La familia se llama Mr. y Mrs. Edwards y tienen dos hijos: Peter y Helen. Escríbeles una carta en inglés, preséntate, háblales de tu cuidad, tu colegio, tus hobbies y cualquier otra cosa interesante que desees añadir. Procedures and analysis We can distinguish two phases in the analysis of our data. In the first phase, compositions were typed and scrutinized for lexical inventions. Following previous research (Dewaele, 1998), we identified two main sources of lexical innovations: the intralingual and interlingual source. Intralingual lexical inventions arise from the application of FL resources, which manifest, for example, in the combination of foreign language words or the creation of new words from the basis of already existing FL words (overgeneralization). Henceforth, this category of lexical invention will be termed ‘word coinage’. Interlingual lexical creations derive from the influence of the mother tongue of the learners, Spanish in this case. We distinguish between two subcategories: ‘foreignizing’ and ‘literal translation’. Foreignizing consist in adapting L1 words to the orthography and morphology of the foreign language, so that they look English (Poulisse, 1993:180 refers to these cases as morphological creativity). Literal translation refers to the word-for-word translation process which is based on the assumption of literal lexical equivalence between the L1 and the FL. In this sense, learners attribute to a FL lexical item ‘all the functions – referential and conceptual meaning, connotation, collocability, register-restriction – of its assumed first language translation equivalent’ (Blum and Levenston, 1977:16). Still, we created a further category containing those lexical inventions that were ambiguous and could not be traced back to either interlingual or intralingual sources. We termed this category: ‘ambiguous lexical inventions’. Figure 3.1 offers examples of each of these categories. In the second phase, the total number of words in each composition was counted and the different types of lexical inventions were tallied according to composition length (total number of words). This new ratio measure was obtained to allow for facility of comparison between male and female learners. First, we examined the two cohorts, male and female learners. We separately focused on the description of the lexical inventions created by
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write something. Instructions were given in Spanish, the mother tongue of the learners and they read as follows:
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
María Pilar Agustín Llach
Figure 3.1
I like all canes of music (for kinds) I wan the concurse (for competition or contest) In Saint Week I was in Paris (for Easter) The teachers steet our five minutes (for tell off)
Examples of Categories of Lexical Inventions
each group, and then we compared results looking for differences. Quantitative analyses of the lexical creations regarding both general results and those pertaining to particular categories are offered. We used the SPSS 15.0 to carry out descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results This section offers the results of descriptive and inferential statistics concerning lexical inventions of Spanish EFL learners in second grade of secondary education. First of all, we wanted to find out whether there were any differences between male and female learners concerning the creation of new lexical items while writing in the FL. Table 3.1 presents descriptive results for lexical inventions in absolute terms for both learner groups. As can be observed in Table 3.1, boys’ compositions display slightly more lexical inventions than those of their female counterparts, who create less than one lexical item on average. Maximum values are also higher for male learners, while minimum values coincide for both learner groups, with zero realizations. Nevertheless, one could argue that these results could be biased since differences in composition length may play a relevant role. So, we decided to tally the results in order to offer more reliable values of the invention of lexical items for comparison purposes. Tables 3.2 and 3.3 show these results.
Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for Lexical Inventions
Mean lexical inventions S.D. Maximum Minimum
Girls
Boys
0.87 1.17 5 0
1.02 1.37 7 0
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Word coinage Foreignizing Literal translation Ambiguous
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Mean composition length∗ S.D. Maximum Minimum
Girls
Boys
165 70.4 419 24
137.29 65.03 349 19
Note: ∗ Composition length is measured in total number of words.
Table 3.3 Descriptive Statistics for the Ratio Lexical Inventions/Composition Length
Mean ratio lexical inventions S.D. Maximum Minimum
∗
Girls
Boys
0.54 0.72 3.23 0
0.70 0.93 4.96 0
Note: ∗ This measure is obtained by dividing the number of lexical inventions per composition by the total number of words per composition. If percentages are to be expressed this value has to be multiplied by 100.
The information presented in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 clearly shows that girls write longer compositions than boys, that is, girls write on average more words than boys. Maximum and minimum values are also higher for girls. Regarding the ratio between lexical inventions and composition length, we can appreciate higher values for male learners, so that girls tend to create 0.54 new lexical items every 100 words they write, while boys invent on average up to 0.70 new FL words every 100 words. Maximum values are higher for male learners, while both learners display similar minimum values. Standard deviations are very high which indicates a great heterogeneity among learners with some learners producing notably fewer lexical inventions than some of their peers. In order to ascertain whether differences in the innovation behaviour of male and female learners were significant, we performed several tests for means comparison. First, we made sure that our samples did not meet a normal distribution, and then we opted for the non-parametric test for mean comparison, the Mann-Whitney test. The results of these tests show that there are no significant differences in lexical inventions
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Table 3.2 Descriptive Statistics for Composition Length
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
María Pilar Agustín Llach Results for Inferential Statistics
Lexical inventions Composition length Ratio lexical inventions
Mann-Whitney U
p
10322 8231 10082
0.524 0.000 0.326
either from an absolute perspective or from a relative one, that is, when the ratio between lexical inventions and composition length is considered. Nevertheless, the test for means comparison reveals that girls write significantly longer compositions than boys. To put it differently, girls write significantly more words in their compositions than their male peers. Table 3.4 offers the results of the inferential statistics with the values obtained for the Mann-Whitney U with their significance values. So far, we have ascertained that there were no significant differences between male and female EFL learners concerning the lexical innovations they created while writing in the foreign language. Next, we set out to investigate whether there were any differences in the categories of lexical creations. In other words, we wanted to know whether the mechanisms that led to the creation of new lexical items in the FL were the same for boys and girls. To do this, we classified the different lexical inventions into several categories (see section on procedures and analysis). According to this classification, we obtained the following distributions of the different categories of lexical creations across genders (see Figures 3.2 and 3.3): From Figures 3.2 and 3.3, we can conclude that the frequency percentages in which the different categories appear are very similar for both learner groups. Yet, girls show a more uniform distribution and display more instances of both literal translations and word coinages, with fewer examples of foreignizing. In absolute terms, both groups of learners display similar frequency of categories, and the same order of frequency of these categories. More specifically, the most frequent category of lexical creations for both male and female learners is foreignizing, followed by literal translations and word coinages with ambiguous instances being the least frequent category. Table 3.5 presents the absolute values of the different categories for boys and girls. As can be observed from Table 3.5, the order of frequency of the categories is the same. Notwithstanding this apparent similarity, we still
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Table 3.4
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
11%
14%
Figure 3.2
63%
Foreignizing
Literal translation
Word coinage
Ambiguous
Distribution of Categories of Lexical Inventions for Boys
11%
16%
53%
20%
Figure 3.3
Foreignizing
Literal translation
Word coinage
Ambiguous
Distribution of Categories of Lexical Inventions for Girls
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12%
wanted to conduct tests of inferential statistics to check and verify whether there are any significant differences in the categories of lexical inventions created by male and female learners. The data did not follow a normal distribution so Mann-Whitney non-parametric tests of means comparison were selected for the analysis. Table 3.6 presents the
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Total lexical inventions Foreignizing Literal translation Word coinage Ambiguous
Girls
Boys
112 61 23 18 12
172 108 24 21 19
Table 3.6 Results for Inferential Statistics for the Categories of Lexical Inventions Mann-Whitney U Foreignizing Literal translation Word coinage Ambiguous
10167 10695 10532 10690
p 0.279 0.743 0.591 0.680
results (U and p values) which threw non-significant differences for all categories submitted to analysis.2 Summing up the results section, we can state that no qualitative or quantitative statistically significant differences were found concerning lexical inventions present in EFL written compositions of Spanish male and female learners. In other words, girls and boys create new lexical items to a similar extent and the types of lexical items invented are very much the same.
Discussion The first research question asked about the types of lexical creations most frequent in male compositions. Our results show that foreignizing is the most frequent category of lexical inventions for male learners. Following in frequency, we identified literal translation, word coinage and lastly ambiguous lexical innovations. A similar order was found to answer research question number 2, which concerned the types of lexical creations found in female writings. An in-depth analysis of the types of lexical creations identified shows that the order of frequency corresponds to the degree of L1 influence in each category. Thus,
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Table 3.5 Absolute Values of the Categories of Lexical Inventions
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
foreigninzing is the mechanism by which an L1 word is adapted to the morphological conventions of the L2, so that it sounds English (cf. Celaya and Torras, 2001), in these cases the L1 and the L2 are simultaneously activated; in literal translation the learner simply translated the Spanish lexical items into English, so English words are used but with underlying Spanish constraints (for example, syntactical or usecontextual). Finally, word coinages are the result of applying target language rules to target language lexical items, so it is a completely L2-based strategy of lexical creation. From this observation, we can conclude that L1-influence is determinant in lexical innovation at our learners’ level. The limited English proficiency of the participants may account for this fact (cf. Poulisse, 1993:164, 177). In this sense we agree with Blum and Levenston (1977:16) when they say that basically at the beginning stages of language learning the assumption is prevalent that for every word in the mother tongue there is a single translation equivalent in the target language (word-for-word translation-equivalence). As the learner progresses in his or her mastery of the L2, there is a gradual abandonment of this equivalence hypothesis and the learner starts to ‘think in the second language’ (p. 16). Along the same line argues González Álvarez (2004), who contends that word coinages with an L2 basis start appearing at advanced levels of acquisition, where, by contrast, L1-influence is marginal in word formation processes. If these results are analysed in terms of Dewaele’s (1998) language activation interpretation, we can observe that the L1 is in a higher level of activation, since learners resort to it to compensate for lexical deficiencies in the L2 (González Álvarez, 2004). Our results show an intermediate stage of our participants in the aforementioned process. Our third and fourth research questions explicitly asked for gender differences in the quantity and types of lexical creations produced by our participants. Results revealed that there are no significant differences in the amount of lexical creations present in male and female writings. Male and female learners produce lexical creations to a similar extent. Moreover, further analysis brought out that the order of frequency and the percentages of the different types of lexical innovations were similar with no significant differences, for both male and female EFL learners. This result concurs with the findings of Kocoglu (1997). Basing on these findings we can safely argue that at this intermediate stage of foreign language acquisition, boys and girls do show the same mechanisms when creating new lexical items. When facing a lexical gap while communicating, male and female learners, either consciously or
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unconsciously, follow the same mental or cognitive processes to compensate for that lack of lexical knowledge. The different types of lexical innovations reveal different processes of word access or word retrieval,3 and, as we have pointed out above, FL proficiency level explains the preference of our informants for L1-based lexical creations. In the same line, we believe that lexical inventions should be seen as a way of learning the language and progressing in language knowledge, in other words as a way to cope with the acquisition process, and we agree with González Álvarez (2004:2) when she defends that ‘the study of lexical innovation can provide valuable insights into L2 acquisition in general’. In light of our results, it seems reasonable to conclude that as far as the intermediate stage of acquisition is concerned male and female learners go through the same processes of acquisition and use similar mechanisms to cope with the task of lexical learning and communicating. We can brandish several reasons to explain this lack of gender differences. First, it may simply be that there are no gender differences in general language acquisition.4 According to this explanation, boys and girls will show similar to equal behaviours all through their language learning process irrespective of the language areas tested, or the moment of testing. Nevertheless, this explanation conflicts with the findings of previous research, which established gender differences in several aspects of language acquisition. Second, the limited proficiency level of our informants may serve to explain this lack of differences. We can think that as learners become more proficient, differences can start to appear (cf. Casey, 1996 for the opposite view). To support this view, we can contend that males and females learn at different rates with girls showing faster rates of language development (Halpern, 1996; San Mateo Valdehíta, 2003/2004; Agustín Llach, 2009). In this sense, as their proficiency increases, differences from their male peers will also appear, especially concerning more the types of lexical creations rather than their amount.5 Further research in this respect is warranted. Finally, we can argue that the homogenous learning context in which participants are learning the foreign language serves to further explain this lack of gender differences. Male and female learners are subject to the same formal approach of language teaching and in this constrained learning context, they have hardly any exposure to the foreign language apart from that of the formal class. All that together with their young age and limited proficiency may hinder a more independent strategic development of male and female learners.
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María Pilar Agustín Llach
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Moreover, Halpern and Wright (1996) believe in the existence of gender differences which manifest in the different processes underlying different cognitive tasks. In this sense, we can think that insofar as the writing task is the same for all learners, they face it in the same way resorting to the same mechanisms of lexical innovation. Only when learners have to face tasks in which different cognitive processes prevail do gender differences seem to appear. This is in line with other studies in lexical inventions which showed that recourse to different innovation mechanisms depend on previous available linguistic knowledge (L1/Ln) (Ringbom, 1986; Singleton and Little, 1991; Dewaele, 1998) and on L2 proficiency level (González Álvarez, 2004). This conclusion seems to concur with research that found lexicon organization to vary depending on L2 proficiency and previous linguistic knowledge (Meara, 1984; Singleton, 1999), but no studies to date have found differences in lexicon organization across genders. Nevertheless, this issue has been scarcely addressed in research, so future research can tackle this in greater detail. From the results of this and other studies with the same subjects in grade eight and earlier (Agustín Llach and Terrazas Gallego, 2008; Agustín Llach, 2009), there seems to be enough evidence to conclude that from a cognitive point of view (mental behaviour, cognitive and intellectual capacity, processes activated, mechanisms employed and strategies used) there are no gender differences, at least as far as vocabulary use in writing is concerned. As we have just stated, male and female learners share cognitive processes of language learning. Notwithstanding this cognitive similarity, some previous studies conducted on the same subjects in earlier grades have suggested gender differences in vocabulary use. Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba (2007; 2008) and Ojeda Alba and Jiménez Catalán (2007) found that male and female learners produced words belonging to different semantic fields. Thus, boys used words of the semantic fields of sports, mainly, whereas girls preferred to talk about family and colours. Male and female learners have been observed to use language, especially vocabulary, in a different way (cf. also Sunderland, 1995; Cheshire, 2005). We can argue, then, that gender differences seem rather to have a social or psychosocial basis rather than a cognitive one. So gender differences ascertained in other research studies concerning strategy use (for example, Young and Oxford, 1997; Jiménez Catalán, 2003) or vocabulary use (for example, Ojeda Alba and Jiménez Catalán, 2007; Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba, 2007; 2008) may be due to social factors such as education, upbringing
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or motivation,6 but they do not seem to derive from cognitive processes of vocabulary learning and use, word storage or word retrieval (cf. also Phakiti, 2003). A deeper look into the descriptive results of our particular sample of lexical creations and the categories of lexical creations found in male and female writings reveals that girls show fewer lexical inventions, although this difference is not significant, and they write significantly longer compositions. We can contend that girls display higher levels of fluency in the productive written skill than boys and they encounter fewer lexical difficulties in their communicative process and thus they have to cover fewer lexical gaps. Another explanation for this slight difference can be that girls use words that they are confident with and write about topics they are familiar with. On the contrary, attending to the slightly and non-significant higher production of lexical creations on the part of boys, we can argue for male learners being more creative and taking more risks using words they are not familiar with. We can also believe that they want to express more complex ideas so that they need to make use of more difficult and unknown words to encode those ideas. This behaviour is in line with previous findings which showed that females are more interested in school subjects, use more rote-learning and memorization strategies, are more anxious, have lower levels of self-confidence and prefer to avoid answering if not sure, whereas males prefer to guess and deduce from context, and are more prone to risk without fear of failure (Prieto and Delgado, 1999; Rozendaal et al., 2003; Andreou et al., 2004; Furnham, 2004). Nevertheless, at this stage of these learners’ language development these differences are only very faintly appreciable. Further research should be conducted to find out whether at more advanced stages of language learning gender differences get bigger and become significant. By contrast, we can also argue that gender differences are not found any longer at this age and stage of language development, and we can speculate that they existed at younger ages and levels of proficiency (Agustín Llach et al., 2006; Ojeda Alba and Jiménez Catalán, 2007; Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba, 2007; 2008). This explanation would concur with Casey’s (1996) and Brantmeier’s (2004) belief that gender differences is a critical factor during the first years of schooling, but not at upper levels. In this sense, we believe that further research should concentrate on examining the production of lexical inventions in learners with different proficiency levels, both at lower levels and at higher levels.
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This could throw important findings concerning gender differences and their evolution through time and proficiency level. Another line of study should address the communicative effectiveness of the different types of lexical creations. A hierarchy of communicability can derive in the development of teaching approaches that focus on the instruction of the strategies that lead to the most effective lexical creations. We believe that lexical creations generated on the basis of the L1 are least effective in communicative terms than those that come from L2-based processes, because if learner and addressee do not share the same L1, these L1-based lexical creations will be difficult to impossible to understand. Nevertheless, Kocoglu (1997) contends that not only L2-based processes or strategies should be taught, but also that learners should be made aware of L1-based processes leading to lexical inventions, that is, codeswitching, foreignizing or literal translation, so that they can use them when they face problems in communication or gaps in their lexical knowledge. We coincide with Dewaele (1998:488) in pinpointing a main limitation for this study concerning the fact that the present study has analysed lexical inventions as products, so we can only make conjectures about the underlying pyscholinguistic processes that led to those productions and we must be careful and prudent in interpreting these results. What really goes on in the learner’s mind can only be anticipated from the available evidence. Notwithstanding this caveat, we believe in the value of this research as offering preliminary data regarding gender differences in lexical innovation.
Conclusion The present chapter has tackled the issue of gender differences in lexical creations. First, we identified the different types of lexical creations produced by male and female learners as two independent cohorts, then we established no significant gender differences either in the number of lexical innovations, nor in the order of frequency in which these types appear in male and female writings. The order of frequency found has been accounted for in terms of L1 reliance. Several other reasons have been given to explain the general lack of gender differences in the production of lexical creations, among them the homogenous learning context, the proficiency level of learners or the fact that there simply may be no gender differences in the process of language acquisition and use. Social or psychosocial factors may account for gender differences revealed by other research studies, since cognitively male and female
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learners tended to follow the same processes, at least as regards the creation of novel target language lexical items during their writings in the foreign language. We believe, along with González Álvarez (2004:38), that the study of lexical creations can be of special relevance in understanding the whole process of language acquisition, since they can reveal important insights into how language is acquired, stored and used. We may wonder whether conclusions concerning lack of gender differences in lexical creation could be examined in light of their consequences for general language acquisition processes.
Acknowledgements This study has been carried out under the auspices of a research project funded by the Spanish ‘Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología’ and FEDER, Grant no HUM2006-09775-C02-02/FILO. I am also grateful to the native speaker who corrected and proof read this chapter. Any remaining errors are my own.
Notes 1. In the present chapter we will use interchangeably as synonyms the terms lexical creations, lexical innovations and lexical inventions to refer to the same phenomenon of non-target lexemes. 2. Again we used the relative measure concerning number of lexical inventions and total number of words for each composition. 3. However, despite the fact that they reflect different mechanisms of coping with lexical difficulties, all types of lexical creations seem to be equally effective in communicative terms (Liederman et al., 1983). 4. For this commentary I have to thank M. L. Celaya (personal communication), who pointed out to me in the course of another discussion that it may be that male and female learners simply do not show different behaviours in their vocabulary learning acquisition processes. 5. We can also think that as learners get more proficient the amount of lexical creations reduces, since the number of lexical difficulties they have to face reduces as well. In this sense, if girls progress at a faster rate than their male peers, they will start to produce fewer lexical creations earlier than boys, and again differences can appear. 6. Traditionally, it is generally accepted that language learning is a ‘female subject’ and this may lead to lack of motivation on the part of male learners, who prefer not to get involved in language learning, since it is a ‘female activity’. Girls have been proved to be more motivated than their male peers in language acquisition tasks (Kaylani, 1996; MacIntyre et al., 2002; Fernández Fontecha, this volume).
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Agustín Llach, M. P. (2009) Gender Differences in Vocabulary Acquisition in the Foreign Language in Primary Education: Evidence from Lexical Errors, Biblioteca de Investigación no 54, Logroño: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de La Rioja. Agustín Llach, M. P., Fernández Fontecha, A. and Moreno Espinosa, S. (2006) ‘Lexical errors in the written production of young ESL beginner learners: sex difference’, in Adquisicion y enseñanza de lenguas en contextos plurilingües. Ensayos y propuestas aplicadas. Amengual, M., Juan, M. and Salazar, J. (eds) Palma de Mallorca: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Las Islas Baleares, 35–42. Agustín Llach, M. P. and Terrazas Gallego, M. (2008) ‘Gender differences in receptive vocabulary size in EFL primary school learners: A longitudinal study’, Paper presented at the XXXII AEDEAN Conference, Palma de Mallorca, 13–15 November. Andreou, E., Andreou, G. and Vlachos, F. (2004) ‘Studying orientations and performance on verbal fluency tasks in a second language’, Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 23–33. Blum, S. and Levenston, E. A. (1977) ‘Strategies of Communication though Lexical Avoidance in the Speech and Writing of Second Language Teachers and Learners and in Translation’, Available online http://eric.ed.gov/ ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/37/9f/7b.pdf, date accessed 19 April 2009. Brantmeier, C. (2004) ‘Gender, violence-oriented passage content and second language reading comprehension’, The Reading Matrix, 4, 2, 1–19. Casey, M. B. (1996) ‘Gender, sex, and cognition: Considering the interrelationship between biological and environmental factors’, Learning and Individual Differences, 8, 1, 39–53. Celaya, M. L. and Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. (2008) ‘CLIL, Age, and L1 influence’, Paper presented at the XXXII AEDEAN Conference, Palma de Mallorca, 13–15 November. Celaya, M. L. and Torras, M. R. (2001) ‘L1 influence and EFL vocabulary: do children rely more on L1 than adult learners?’, Proceedings of the 25th AEDEAN Meeting. December 13–15, University of Granada. 1–14. Cheshire, J. (2005) ‘Syntactic variation and beyond: gender and social class variation in the use of discourse-new markers’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9, 4, 479–508. Clark, E. (1980) ‘Lexical innovations: How children learn to create new words’, Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 18. Available online http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/ 80/34/58/44.pdf, date accessed 4 March 2009. Dewaele, J. M. (1998) ‘Lexical inventions: French interlanguage as L2 versus L3’, Applied Linguistics, 19, 4, 471–490. de Houwer, A. (1995) ‘L’alternance codique intr-phrastique dans les discurs de jeunes bilingues’, AILE, Acquisition et Interaction en langue etrangere, 6, 39–64. Furnham, A. (2004) ‘Are lay people lumpers or splitters? The factor structure of, and sex differences relate to, self-rated and other rated abilities’, Learning and Individual Differences, 14, 153–168.
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Gender and Motivation in EFL Vocabulary Production Almudena Fernández Fontecha
Introduction The aim of this study is to explore the possible connections between learners’ gender,1 motivation – and motivation types – and attainment in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lexical availability test. Among the variables affecting foreign language (FL) learning, gender and motivation have received extensive attention within this field. Gender in language learning The relationship between gender and language acquisition is a recurrent one in the literature. In the past decades, it has been approached from multiple angles, as illustrated in Sunderland’s (2000) review of issues in language and gender in second and foreign language education. Considerable research has suggested that while males are better than females in mathematics and visual-spatial abilities (Linn and Petersen, 1985; Hyde and Linn, 1988; Stumpf, 1995), females generally surpass males at verbal skills (Gordon and Lee, 1986; Boyle, 1987; Stumpf, 1995; Andreou et al., 2005; Kiss and Nikolov, 2005). Moreover, females remember words better than males (Kimura, 1999; Halpern, 2000; Maitland et al., 2004); they exhibit superiority in producing more words of a certain type in a limited period of time (Herlitz et al., 1999; Larsson et al., 2003); and they are also superior in reading tasks (Chavez, 2001). This female verbal advantage appears quite early in first language acquisition, but in many cases it disappears with age (see Ullman et al., 2008; Wallentin, 2009). Despite many results pointing to a general trend of female advantage in language-related tasks, counterevidence is also found. For example, Hyde and Linn (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 165 studies on L1 verbal skills which showed significant gender differences only in one
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third of the studies. For a critical review of the results of the investigation of sex differences in language performance and in brain structure and processing as well as in language-related disorders, see Wallentin (2009) and Ullman et al. (2008). Concerning the relationship between gender and FL vocabulary acquisition, studies are scanty and diverse (see Jiménez and Ojeda, 2010). Most research based on different selections of the group of Spanish EFL learners to which the sample of our study belongs reports a female advantage in FL vocabulary, specifically in types of words and semantic fields (Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008; Jiménez and Ojeda (2010) in the quantity of words understood and produced (Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008; Jiménez and Terrazas, 2005–2006); or in the lesser number of lexical errors produced by girls (Agustín, 2007; 2009). Gender-based differences are also reported in word association (Jiménez and Moreno, 2004). However, contradictory results are also obtained: focused on this group of Spanish EFL learners, Agustín and Terrazas (2008a; 2008b) did not observe significant gender-based differences in FL receptive vocabulary; and Agustin (in this volume) perceived no gender effect in the amount of lexical creations or in the order of frequency in which these types appear in writing tasks. In other studies on FL vocabulary tasks or vocabulary-dependent skills, Phakiti (2003) obtained no gender-based differences in FL reading comprehension performance; and Scarcella and Zimmerman (1998) reported a male advantage in a vocabulary task. Then, despite the identification of some general pattern favouring females both in linguistic skills and FL learning, the existence of counterevidence should at least serve to question the value of gender as a differentiating variable (Schmenk, 2004:517–518). In relation to this idea, the words below by Norton and Pavlenko (2004:504) can contribute to explaining the role of gender in language learning: nor do we assume that gender is always relevant to understanding language learning outcomes. Instead, we recognize that gender, as one of many important facets of social identity, interacts with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, age, and social status in framing students’ language learning experiences, trajectories, and outcomes.
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Motivation in language learning Since the emergence of Gardner and Lambert’s (1972) sociopsychological model, language learning motivation has been an everpresent topic in second and foreign language research. In Gardner’s
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(1985:11) view, language learning motivation is the desire of achieving language learning, the learner’s most immediate goal, through three components: Effort, want or desire, and affect or attitude. This process is accompanied by orientation, that is to say, the learner’s ultimate reason for learning this language. This model is based on a well-known established dichotomy of integrative and instrumental orientations. Integrative orientation refers to learners’ willingness to learn the language so as to become part of the target language community. Instrumental orientation is associated with learners’ desire to gain FL proficiency for practical purposes. While, for these authors, instrumental orientations are fundamental in language learning, integrative orientations have a secondary role in this task (Gardner et al., 1997). However, research has provided sufficient counterevidence to this argument (Clément and Kruidenier, 1983; Crookes and Schmidt, 1991). As a consequence, other motivational theories have arisen to complement this dual classification, even though Gardner and Lambert already argued that the integrative-instrumental dichotomy was exclusively initiated for purposes of measurement (Gardner, 1985:12) and other types of orientations were also necessary to explain motivation. One of these new theories is the self-determination theory, originally developed by Deci and Ryan (1985) and later applied to the field of FL learning by Noels (Noels et al., 2000; Noels, 2001). According to this model, two further types of motivation, closely related to the educational field, are identified along a self-determination continuum: Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. While the former type is based on external factors, the latter points to the interest generated by the activity itself. Within each of these two types, a further classification of types is included (Deci and Ryan, 1985; 2000). Thus, for example, four types of extrinsic motivation are distinguished: (i) external regulation as a non self-determined type of behaviour driven by rewards or punishments external to the individual – it is quite similar to instrumental motivation; (ii) introjected regulation as a behaviour more internalized than external regulation but not self-determined because it occurs as the result of some pressure as, for instance, avoiding a feeling of guilt – the focus is placed on approval from self or others; (iii) identified regulation as a type of motivation in which personal internal reasons of valuing an activity guide the individuals in carrying it out; and (iv) integrated regulation, the most autonomous type of extrinsic motivation that takes place when regulations or values are fully assimilated to the self. This latter type bears a resemblance to intrinsic motivation but it is still extrinsic since external reasons guide the individual’s behaviour.
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The authors also include the term amotivation to refer to the lack of perceived connection by the individual between behaviour and consequences. The possible connection between instrumental and external extrinsic motivation and between intrinsic motivation, identified or integrated external motivation and also some forms of integrative motivation should be established with utmost caution due to differences of conceptualization of these terms (see Gardner, 1985:11–12, for a further discussion on this issue). Numerous studies about motivational processes in FL learning have focused on examining the relationship between motivation and language achievement. Most of them coincide in pointing out the positive relationship between both (Clément et al., 1994; Wen, 1997; Masgoret and Gardner, 2003; Csizér and Dörnyei, 2005; Bernaus and Gardner, 2008; Yu and Watkins, 2008). Different studies have evinced connection between FL learning achievement and some types of motivation. In many cases, integrative motivation, against other types, is found to have the most positive effect in language learning (Oller et al., 1977; Gardner et al., 1985; Tremblay and Gardner, 1995; Masgoret and Gardner, 2003; Hernández, 2006). On the other hand, research which concentrates on more specific aspects of FL communicative competence – for example, the relationship between intrinsic motivation and pragmatic competence (Takahashi, 2005), or between motivation and oral competence (Vandergrift, 2005; Hernández, 2006) – largely coincides with the positive effect of motivation on FL processes. As regards the connection between motivation and FL vocabulary acquisition, it has not received much direct attention in research so far. As an example, several studies report a positive effect of motivation on different aspects of FL vocabulary learning (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1980; Gardner et al., 1985; Elley, 1989; Gardner and MacIntyre, 1991); a different line of studies examine the effect of Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) involvement load hypothesis or task’s cognitive and motivational load on the learner’s lexical competence (Kim, 2008); and another type of studies focus on the way the dynamic nature of motivation affects the process of FL vocabulary learning (Tseng and Schmitt, 2008). A considerable amount of research has examined the relationship between motivation and other individual factors such as learners’ age or gender. Regarding the relation between motivation and gender, a large number of studies have demonstrated that more favourable attitudes and motivation towards FL learning are found among girls than among boys (Spolsky, 1989; Wikeley and Stables, 1999; Norton, 2000; Kissau,
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2006; Mori and Gobel, 2006; Mills et al., 2007; Henry and Apelgren, 2008). However, in some cases no gender-based motivational differences are identified (Ludwig, 1983; Lasagabaster, 2003). The scarcity of research that brings together motivation and FL vocabulary learning prevents us from finding results derived from the combination of FL vocabulary learning and the two variables included in the present study: motivation and gender. Yet, we should mention here the study on motivational factors and EFL vocabulary conducted by Ágreda (2006), whose sample of learners partially coincides with ours and where females were found to be, although not significantly, more motivated than boys. In the light of this review, this study attempts to provide an answer to the following research questions: 1. Are there any gender differences in learners’ achievement in a lexical availability test? 2. Are there any gender differences in learners’ motivation (or lack of it) towards EFL learning? 3. What kinds of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) are mostly associated to each gender? 4. Is there any relation between the degree of motivation towards EFL learning and the scores obtained by male and female learners in the lexical availability test?
Method Participants The sample of the present study included 250 EFL Spanish learners (139 boys and 111 girls) in the second grade of secondary education, and aged around 13–14 years old. They were randomly selected from four mixedgender schools located in Logroño (La Rioja, Spain) which have a very similar socio-cultural and economic background. At the moment of data collection (March–April, 2008), they had received 839 hours of instruction of English, which is a foreign language in Spain and a compulsory subject in the Spanish education system.
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Instruments and procedures The data for this study were collected via a lexical availability test and a questionnaire on motivation. The lexical availability test draws upon
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research on lexical availability in Spanish as a first language (see Jiménez and Ojeda, 2010). It contained six cuewords in English, accompanied by their Spanish equivalents, representing six different semantic categories, namely, ‘parts of the body’, ‘environment’, ‘food and drink’, ‘earth’, ‘sports and hobbies’ and ‘health and disease’. Learners had to generate as many related content words or expressions as possible within each semantic category in 12 minutes (two minutes per cueword). We intended to adopt a flexible approach in editing the data from this test. Thus, spelling and grammar errors were disregarded unless the word or expression was unintelligible; only some very popular brand names existing in the target culture were considered, for example ‘Coke’ (or ‘Coca-Cola’), ‘Pepsi’ or ‘McDonald’s’; within one semantic category, either the singular or the plural form of a noun was accepted; similarly, either the verb infinitive or its regular past was allowed; and in modifier-plus-noun patterns when the same modifier was applied to different nouns, for example ‘broken leg’ and ‘broken arm’, or ‘orange juice’ and ‘apple juice’, and these nouns had already appeared in the same semantic category, only one instance was counted. On the other hand, learners’ motivation towards EFL is measured through a semantic differential technique of seven-point bipolar rating scale using seven pairs of bipolar adjectives presented as follows: ‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’, ‘ugly’ and ‘nice’, ‘attractive’ and ‘not attractive’, ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’, ‘not important’ and ‘important’, ‘useless’ and ‘useful’ and ‘interesting’ and ‘boring’. This scale is part of a questionnaire adapted from Gardner’s (1985) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (A/MTB). In this study, the lexical availability test is chosen as a means to measure learners’ FL vocabulary knowledge. We were only interested in counting the number of words produced by the learners not in exploring further semantic distinctions in the results. Based on Ágreda’s (2006) previous use of the same semantic differential scaling tool, the group of seven pairs of adjectives was used to measure learners’ general degree of motivation. Also inspired by Ágreda’s work, we established two further groups of adjectives with the aim of assessing learners’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Thus, the former is measured through the pairs ugly and nice, attractive and not attractive, pleasant and unpleasant, and interesting and boring; the latter is measured through the pairs necessary and unnecessary, important and not important, and useful and useless. Both the data from the lexical availability test and the questionnaire were analysed by way of the statistical computer package SPSS v.15.
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Concerning the first research question of our study, that is, whether there were any gender-based differences in learners’ achievement in the lexical availability test, we find that the 139 females outperform the 111 males of our sample. Once we confirmed we could not assume the normal distribution of the variable score, we applied the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U (MWW) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) tests. At a 0.05 significance level, statistically significant differences occur (MWW test: p-value = 0. 019; K-S test: p-value = 0. 016). As Table 4.1 illustrates, there is a difference between the mean scores obtained by males and females in favour of the latter. Males obtained the minimum score (24) and females obtained the maximum (171). Leaving aside the comparison of medians and quartiles, through a boxplot graph (Figure 4.1), we detect the occurrence of some outliers, that is, those subjects whose scores on the vocabulary test are most distant from the rest of subjects’. These subjects will be identified in Figure 4.3, which depicts the relation existent between learners’ cueword scores and motivation. Regarding our second research question, that is, whether there were any gender-based differences in learners’ degree of motivation (or lack of it) towards EFL, we decided to find out the mean degree of motivation exhibited by males and females as well as the male–female attainment at three different levels of motivation. As in the first research question, motivation could not be assumed to be normally distributed. Then, we decided to use the Mann-Whitney U and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. As Table 4.2 shows, at a significance level of p < 0. 05 (K-S) and of p < 0. 01 (MWW), we first discover that most learners are motivated and, second, we note that the mean motivation differs significantly by sex. Again, females obtain the highest mean scores. We can also observe that eight learners do not provide a valid answer to the selected questions in the questionnaire on motivation. Table 4.1 Cueword Scores per Sex (MWW test: p-value = 0.019; K-S test: p-value = 0.016) Sex
Mean
N
SD
Minimum
Maximum
Males Females
74.01 83.00
139 111
24.822 27.246
24 40
150 171
Total
78.00
250
26.257
24
171
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Results
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
200
Cueword score
150
21
6 5
75
Male s
Female s
100
50
0
Gender Figure 4.1
Cueword Scores per Sex
The boxplot in Figure 4.2 shows the data obtained. It also reveals the occurrence of some outliers, which will be identified in Figure 4.3. To gain a deeper insight into sex differences in motivation towards EFL learning, we structured the scores obtained in the motivation questions according to three different levels, ranging from level 1 (marks: 1.0–3.0), level 2 (marks: 3.1–5.0), and level 3 (marks: 5.1–7.0). Based on this three-level classification, we observe that most learners score at level 3 (63.2 per cent), while only 3.7 per cent score at level 1 (Table 4.3). Table 4.2 Mean Motivation per Sex (MWW test: p = 0. 006; K-S test: p = 0. 010) Sex
Mean
N
SD
Minimum
Maximum
Males Females
5.1460 5.5512
136 106
1.19263 .96618
1.00 1.86
7.00 7.00
Total
5.3235
242
1.11537
1.00
7.00
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7,00
Motivation
5,00
4,00 336
3,00
41
289
2,00 80 25
1,00
Males
Females Gender
Figure 4.2
Mean Motivation Score per Sex
By performing a Pearson Chi-Square test, we observe that the difference between males and females with regard to motivation levels is significant (p = 0. 006) in favour of females. 74.5 per cent of females’ outcomes versus 54.4 per cent of males’ are detected at level 3 (Tables 4.4 and 4.5). The third of our research questions addresses which types of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) are mostly associated to each sex. As Table 4.3 Motivation Levels: Frequency and Percentage Motivation levels Valid
Frequency
Valid Percent
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
9 80 153
3.7 33.1 63.2
Total
242
100
8
–
250
–
Missing system Total
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6,00
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Table 4.4 Motivation Levels per Sex: Chi-Square Test. (a 1 cells (16.7 per cent) have Expected Count Less than 5. The Minimum Expected Count is 3.94) df
10.404a 10.619 8.857 242
2 2 1 –
Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .006 .005 .003 –
Table 4.5 Sex and Motivation Levels: Percentage Motivation levels
Sex
Male Female
Total
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
4.4% 2.8%
41.2% 22.6%
54.4% 74.5%
3.7%
33.1%
63.2%
Table 4.6 evinces, extrinsic motivation is higher than intrinsic motivation in both male and female groups. Scores obtained are near the maximum score (7). If we compare both groups, both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are slightly higher in females than in males. These sex-based differences are partially significant: Both Mann-Whitney U and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests indicate that only differences related to intrinsic motivation and sex are significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) (p = 0. 007, MWW) and at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) (p = 0. 020, K-S). Table 4.6 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation per Sex (MWW test: p = 0. 007; K-S test: p = 0. 020) Sex
–
Males
Mean N SD Mean N SD Mean N SD
Females
Total
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
4.3125 136 1.60172 4.8467 106 1.27175 4.5465 242 1.48738
6.2574 136 1.21849 6.4906 106 .88036 6.3595 242 1.08757
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Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N
Value
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–
–
Cueword score – –
Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N
Motivation
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
.268(∗∗ )
.268(∗∗ )
.151(∗ )
.000 242
.000 242
.019 242
Notes: ∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ∗∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
As displayed in Table 4.7, a significant positive relation exists between learners’ motivation towards EFL learning and the scores obtained by the learners in the lexical availability test, and between the two types of motivation and the learners’ outcomes in the lexical availability test (fourth research question). As it could be expected, the correlation in all cases is positive, meaning that the more motivated learners are towards the FL, the better their outcomes in FL vocabulary productive test are. The correlation between the mean degree of motivation and outcomes in the lexical availability test is similar to the correlation coefficient between intrinsic motivation and these lexical outcomes (Pearson correlation: r = 0. 268; p < 0. 01). The results indicate that intrinsic motivation has a bigger effect than extrinsic motivation
Table 4.8 Correlation between Cueword Scores and Motivation and between Cueword Scores and Types of Motivation per Sex –
–
–
Cueword score – –
Male
Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N
– –
– – Female – –
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
Motivation
.205(∗ )
.101
.201(∗ )
.017 136 .307(∗∗ )
.242 136 .196(∗ )
.019 136 .307(∗∗ )
.001 106
.044 106
.001 106
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Table 4.7 Correlation between Cueword Scores and Motivation, and Cueword Scores and Types of Motivation
Notes: ∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ∗∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
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(Pearson correlation: r = 0. 151; p < 0. 05) on achievement in FL productive vocabulary. On the other hand, the fact that, although significant, the effect of motivation on FL scores is relatively low implies that many other factors are influencing the FL results. To complete these data, Table 4.8 presents the results of this correlation per sex. While the relation between cueword scores and extrinsic motivation in males is not significant (r = 0. 101), the rest of relations both in males and females are. It is interesting to note that the relation between FL outcomes and mean motivation is slightly more significant in the case of females. In other words, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have a stronger effect on FL vocabulary production in the case of females than in the case of males. However, both for females and males, intrinsic motivation is the best predictor of FL vocabulary achievement (females: r = 0. 307; males: r = 0. 205).
200 21 24 75 65
Cueword scores
150
80
100 289 41
50
336
R2 Linear = 0,072
0 1,00
2,00
3,00
Males Figure 4.3
5,00 4,00 Motivation
Females
6,00
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104
7,00
Fit line for total
Cueword Scores and Motivation’s Positive Relation
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The scatter graph in Figure 4.3 shows the positive connection existing between learners’ scores on the vocabulary test and their motivation towards the foreign language. Those outlier subjects detected in Figure 4.1 ‘Cueword scores per sex’ and Figure 4.2 ‘Mean motivation score per sex’ are identified here. For example, on the one hand, females 21, 24 and 75, and male 65, who performed best in the cueword test in the male group and in the female group, respectively, are some of the most motivated subjects in the sample. On the other hand, females 41, 289 and 336, who had the lowest degree of motivation in the female group, obtained no better scores in the lexical availability test. It is important to note that, although these learners had the lowest degrees of motivation, they did not have the lowest marks in the vocabulary test. In fact, the male subject 80, who had the lowest degree in motivation of the whole sample, shows a superior performance (116.00) over the mean score of the sample (78.00), that is to say, he performs better than other more motivated counterparts.
Discussion The results above are consistent with a large body of research conducted on the effects of gender and motivation on FL learning. Statistically significant results have shown that females excel over males both in FL vocabulary achievement and in FL motivation. As for the relation between learners’ motivation and their achievement in EFL productive vocabulary, a significant positive correlation is found between both, which is in line with general research that has investigated the relation between motivation and foreign language achievement (see above). Yet, we also infer from the low coefficients of motivation obtained that many other factors are also influencing the results in FL. This discussion attempts to interpret this overall female advantage by addressing the main factors involved in this study, namely, EFL as a subject, FL vocabulary as a component of language and the lexical availability test as a type of task. Whether supported by evidence or merely driven by uninformed stereotypical opinion, languages have been traditionally labelled as a female subject. In this line, Wallentin (2009) notes that, in evolutionary terms, the ‘hunter-gathered’ hypothesis (Kolb and Whishaw, 2001; Mildner, 2008) could serve to support the idea of women’s superiority in language since prehistory. According to this theory, while prehistoric men were predominantly hunters and explored large territories, women were predominantly gatherers who could ‘have benefited more
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from developing fine-tuned tools for social interaction, one of which is language’ (Wallentin, 2009:176). In explaining females’ higher degree of motivation towards foreign language learning, factors such as gender preference in subject choice and gender stereotyping could be particularly considered. Their possible interactions may turn them into potential causes or effects of motivational behaviour. A trend based on males and females’ preferences in the choice of studies is clearly identified. As an example, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day on 8 March 2009, the Eurostat published a News Release (2009:2) which presents results from 2006 on some gender-related issues. Although nowadays gender-based preferences are less marked than in the past, the investigation reveals that women represented the 17.4 per cent of students in engineering in the EU27, 55.2 per cent of students in business and administration, and 75.3 per cent of students in education. Likewise, the most recent survey by the Spanish Statistical Institute on the 2008 (INE, 2008) University Entrance Exam reveals that 36.1 per cent of the girls versus 20.4 per cent of the boys opted for the branch of Social Sciences, and 15 per cent of the girls versus 7.3 per cent of the boys opted for Humanities. By contrast, 36.8 per cent of the boys versus 11.5 per cent of the girls preferred the field of Sciences and Engineering. These figures could have influenced and, at the same time, been influenced by gender stereotyping, that is, social beliefs often learned from others which result from social classification of people into groups because of their presumed common attributes (Franzoi, 2000; Schmenk, 2004:515–516). In other words, males choose the so-called ‘male subjects’ and females opt for ‘female subjects’ as they are guided by extant gender-based stereotypes that somehow dictate these patterns of behaviour. In our opinion, it can be precisely this interaction between gender preference in subject choice and stereotyping which most probably affects males and females’ degree of motivation towards a particular field of knowledge. In our study, however, motivation cannot be actually attributed to gender preference in subject choice since EFL is a compulsory subject for our learners. We may postulate that, at the educational level focused on here – second grade of secondary education – some gender preferences might be starting to be shaped by the socio-cultural and stereotyping agents already present in the learners’ lives. Another possible reason refers to the extra-linguistic side of foreign language learning, which could be especially aligned with girls’ preferences rather than with boys’ interests. On the other hand, it could also be the case that our females’ degree of motivation is superior in all academic areas. In
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this case, gender could not be a differentiating variable in the linguistic domain. Be that as it may, only evidence offered by further studies on the evolution of motivation of these male and female learners from earlier educational levels and in different curricular subjects would help understand the findings. To complete the picture, concerning the two types of motivation addressed here, for both genders, extrinsic motivation towards EFL is found to be higher than intrinsic motivation, but females are more intrinsically and extrinsically motivated than males. Only gender-based differences concerning intrinsic motivation are found to be significant. Both in the case of females and males, intrinsic motivation is the best predictor of FL vocabulary achievement. The effect of this type of motivation on achievement is higher for females. These findings reveal, inter alia, that (i) with a slight difference favouring girls, both genders agree that English in this particular community of learners is considered necessary, important or useful; (ii) but this opinion does not necessarily imply a better EFL vocabulary attainment; (iii) on the other hand, it is learners’ belief that English is nice, attractive, pleasant or interesting which is more closely linked to their outcomes in the EFL vocabulary task.2 As noted above, what most literature has proved is that integrative motivation is a better predictor of FL attainment than instrumental motivation. Then, given the similarities between intrinsic and integrative motivation, and leaving aside the learners’ desire of learning a language to belong to the target language community – an idea inherent to integrative motivation that cannot apply here –, the results of our study are somehow in agreement with this previous research on FL achievement (Bernaus and Gardner, 2008; Yu and Watkins, 2008). Likewise, the findings also coincide with research which correlates motivation with educational behaviour, where the best educational outcomes come from learners’ most autonomous and selfdetermined motivations (that is, intrinsic and identified or integrated extrinsic motivation) (Guay et al., 2008). As for this last aspect, in our study, female motivation is more autonomous and self-determined than boys’ motivation in FL learning. That is to say, females are particularly motivated to study EFL as it has an appeal of interest or aesthetic value for them. As implied earlier in this chapter, research has pointed to a marked gender gap greater in foreign language achievement than in other subjects (Clark and Trafford, 1995; Lightbody et al., 1996; Davies, 2004). As exposed in the review of the literature, with regard to female superiority in FL vocabulary achievement, results are still inconclusive, although
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some tendencies can be identified. In the present study, the group of Spanish adolescent girls outperform the group of Spanish adolescent boys in an EFL lexical availability test. This finding is similar to previous research conducted with the same type of subjects at the same age – or younger – in the same context, which report a female advantage in several FL vocabulary related issues (Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008; Agustín, 2009; Jiménez and Terrazas, 2009; Ojeda and Jiménez, under review). Again, as in the case of the results obtained in motivation, females’ superiority in this FL task might be paralleled by a similar tendency in other areas which are not likely to involve language skills, something that is untested in this study. Most recent research on neurological and cognitive factors can contribute to shedding a light on these issues. Grounded in Psycholinguistics and Neurology, and based on the most recent neuroimaging methods like positron emission tomography or functional magnetic resonance imaging, research conducted by Professor Ullman and his team offers some possible explanation for this female lexical advantage other than the controversial evidence that females exhibit greater bilateral brain activity than men (Bowden et al., 2005). Ullman has examined the way adult males and females process mainly L1, but also FL. Having tested English and Spanish morphology and syntax, both in expressive and receptive language, Ullman posits that, while grammar is processed in the procedural memory system, lexical information is processed in the declarative memory, which is partly modulated by estrogen – the primary female gender hormone (Ullman et al., 2002; Ullman, 2001; 2004; 2005; Hartshorne and Ullman, 2006; Ullman et al., 2008). This declarative system is in charge of learning and use of knowledge about facts and events, whereas the procedural system addresses motor and cognitive skills involving sequencing. Ullman and his colleagues have found out that the female advantage at remembering words depends on male and female differences in declarative memory as well as the level of estrogen.3 Following this model, in L1, while males tend to compute complex forms by combining their parts, for example paint + ed, based on the procedural memory, females tend to store these complex forms (painted) by using the declarative memory. However, according to Ullman (2005), in FL learning a shift occurs: very likely due to an age-based attenuation of the procedural system, some of those operations carried out by the grammatical-procedural system in L1 depend mostly on the declarative system in the FL, where females show their advantage. This shift lasts at least during initial stages of learning, that is, when users do not have sufficient FL practice and proficiency.
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These results seem to support female superiority at lexical ability both in L1 and L2 or FL due to female advantage at declarative memory. Nevertheless, further investigation is required on these issues. Another aspect worth noting in this discussion is how the type of task used to measure FL proficiency may have affected the results. The body of research on FL vocabulary based on our sample of subjects is again used for comparison here. As we explained in the introduction, previous studies, which ascertained learners’ FL productive vocabulary, reported a female advantage (Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2010). Our findings clearly support the results obtained in studies of productive vocabulary size. Other studies which examined learners’ FL receptive vocabulary in the same context reported no significant gender differences (Agustín and Terrazas, 2008a; 2008b). Leaving aside the age variable, it is interesting to note that the two different tendencies in the results could be influenced by the nature of the task or test used, that is, productive or receptive (Jiménez and Ojeda, 2010). Further research is needed on this aspect. In this vein, Sunderland (2000:212–213) comments that research has provided evidence on males’ superiority in multiple-choice tasks, and females’ superiority in extended writing tasks, although research in this regard is not conclusive. Moreover, our results are consistent with the findings of studies on sex differences in L1 verbal fluency, such as Kimura (1983); Gordon and Lee (1986); or the most recent ones by Hausmann et al. (2009) and Weiss et al. (2003), who demonstrate a significant female advantage in an L1 lexical verbal fluency task, and a similar tendency in a semantic or category verbal fluency task. This latter task bears a close resemblance to the lexical availability test used in our study, where a sample of 97 college students of psychology and medicine had to generate words belonging to a specific category.4 Yet, the type of language and the age of the subjects differ from the type of language and the age of the subjects in our study.
Conclusion The study described here had primarily a twofold objective: first, to identify gender-based differences of a group of 250 EFL second grade secondary school Spanish learners (139 boys and 111 girls) in an EFL productive test; and second, to find out gender-based differences in these learners’ degree and types of motivation towards EFL. The relation between the former and the latter was also addressed. The study has revealed a statistically significant female advantage both in EFL
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vocabulary production and motivation towards EFL. Moreover, extrinsic motivation has been found to be higher than intrinsic motivation both for males and females. Only gender-based variation regarding intrinsic motivation is significant, being females more intrinsically motivated than males. In both cases, intrinsic motivation serves to predict best FL vocabulary achievement. In the interpretation of these and other results of research concerning gender and language learning, a miscellany of factors needs to be considered. As posited in the discussion, biological, cognitive and socio-cultural reasons can interact to have an effect in the results (López Rúa, 2006). This interaction can occur at all levels, as the above-mentioned psychobiosocial study by Hausmann et al. (2009) shows when proving that differences in specific cognitive abilities are influenced by sex hormones’ interaction with gender stereotype threat. Apart from biological and cognitive explanations, specifically in our study, variables such as the FL vocabulary as a component of language, the type of test used to measure the linguistic knowledge, the status of a language within a particular community of learners (for example, but not exclusively, in the foreign or second language distinction) or the learners’ perceptions of this language, among others, may have influenced the results in foreign language achievement. The difficulty lies in finding out the degree to which these factors affect the linguistic outcomes. The weight of one or other in foreign language learning, and in education in general, is crucial to determine whether they are immutable or not (Dalla and Shors, 2009:3). Moreover, while this study contributes to providing insights into gender-based perceptions of EFL in Spain and as a compulsory subject in Spanish education, future contrastive studies should inquire explicitly about the way the status of a language influences motivation per sex. Additionally, although age has been out of the scope of this investigation, longitudinal studies should be devised to investigate the effect of this variable in males’ and females’ development of motivation towards foreign language learning and particularly in relation to FL vocabulary acquisition, which entails a series of dynamic processes (Tseng and Schmitt, 2008). In all this language and gender research, individual similarities and differences should also be addressed both in future cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. In this line, we should underscore the relevance of the evidence provided by biological research focused on the effect of sex hormones in language processing, since not only can the level of estrogen imply gender variation in linguistic performance (L1 and L2 or
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FL), but also variation across and within individuals over relatively short periods of time (Ullman, 2005; Hartshorne and Ullman, 2006).
We would like to acknowledge the financial support of FEDER and the ‘Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología’ through grant no HUM2006-09775C02-02/FILO.
Notes 1. Aware of the differences between sex and gender, for the purpose of simplicity, gender will be henceforth used as the generic category comprising both biological (sex) and cultural factors (gender). 2. In explaining these findings, we should not forget about the possible existence of some mutual influence between motivation and L2 achievement, where motivation can correlate achievement in the same way as achievement can influence motivation. 3. Ullman (2005:151) adds that enhancement in declarative memory during childhood, with a possible plateau in adolescence, as proved by different studies, is supported by the increasing levels of estrogen during childhood and adolescence in both boys and girls, although estrogen levels are higher in the latter. The implications of this research for cross-sectional and longitudinal gender and language studies are many. 4. The authors used a lexical and a category word generation test. In the former, the subject is required to produce words that begin with a specific letter. In the latter, the subjects are asked to write down words belonging to three categories, namely, ‘supermarket’, ‘animals’ and ‘vegetables’. Both tests are timed at one minute per trial (Weiss et al., 2003:866). Different versions of this type of test are frequently used in research that measures verbal skills (see Ullman et al., 2008).
References Ágreda, M. (2006) Motivation in English as a Compulsory Subject at the End of Primary and Secondary School. Unpublished Master Thesis. University of La Rioja, Department of English Studies. Agustín, M. P. (2007) Los errores léxicos como indicadores de la competencia escrita y el nivel de vocabulario en la lengua extranjera. Doctoral Thesis. University of La Rioja, Department of English Studies. Agustín, M. P. (2009) Gender Differences in Vocabulary Acquisition in the Foreign Language in Primary Education: Evidence from Lexical Errors. Biblioteca de Investigación 54. Logroño: La Rioja University Press. Agustín, M. P. and Terrazas, M. (2008a) ‘Gender Differences in Receptive Vocabulary Size in EFL Primary School Learners: A Longitudinal Study’, XXXII AEDEAN Conference, University of Palma de Mallorca.
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Acknowledgements
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Gender Tendencies in EFL across Vocabulary Tests Rosa María Jiménez Catalán
Introduction Foreign language learning in primary and secondary schools shares common characteristics worldwide. It takes place in the formal context of a classroom, it follows a syllabus, learners accomplish tasks in order to achieve learning objectives and receive marks on the basis of their scores on language tests. Foreign language learners’ performance on language tests has important educational implications since test results are often used to discriminate between good and bad language learners. Moreover, in most countries, among them Spain, there are final examinations at the end of secondary education, in which scores on tests are used to promote students to higher education. In this regard, Shohamy (1997) draws attention to the need to be aware of the power and consequences of language tests as they have an impact on students’ lives and can create biases against individuals and groups. The variable sex, that is, gender, in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has received little attention compared with other factors of individual variation such as for instance age or language learning strategies (Ehrlich, 1997; Pavlenko, 2001; Jiménez Catalán, 2002). Furthermore, the scarcity of research goes hand in hand with dispersion in the issues investigated, which may explain the contradictory results found concerning boys’ and girls’ outcomes in second or foreign languages. In spite of the fact that there are not many studies, results show three trends: a) females outperform males; b) males outperform females; and c) there are no significantly differences. In my view, this is an unfortunate way of looking at gender in foreign language learning, as it takes for granted the existence of differences between male and female
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students. As a result, the possibility that male or female advantage in foreign languages may depend on the learning context is overlooked. Thus, the idea that male or female supremacy in foreign languages may vary according to factors such as the type of tests or the task given to students in language assessment is very often avoided in the discussions of gender differences in foreign language research. Regarding tests, Sunderland (2000) notes that, ‘girls tend to do better on essays and course book, requiring constant application; boys on multiple choice questions and exams’. In my view, this observation has important implications for teachers and researchers, since if it is true, it would provide evidence of variability in gender language performance due to assessing instruments rather than the supremacy of one sex over the other in foreign language education. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the sex or gender variable and test performance, by looking at the vocabulary profiles that are drawn from different tests. In this study I use the term gender to embrace males and females. In line with recent currents in gender and language education research (see Norton and Pavlenko, 2004) I understand gender in a broad sense. That is to say, I do not subscribe to the claim that there are fixed differences between sexes, but rather differential patterns that may or may not appear in some language learning contexts due to the interrelation of individual and instructional variables. Thus, I accept that the modification of a given variable such as age, language level, amount of language instruction or test may modify females’ and males’ outcomes in a second or foreign language. My main concern here is to determine whether variation is observed in the performance of Spanish EFL learners (males and females) across different tests used in vocabulary research in SLA as well as in English language teaching (ELT). Several scholars have pointed to the need to assess foreign language learners by means of different instruments, among them Read (2000:8), who in his discussion of approaches to assessing vocabulary claims that ‘There is a whole range of reasons for assessing vocabulary knowledge and use, with a corresponding variety of testing procedures’. Since tests are critical in this chapter, and tests are usually understood in the sense of tasks, in what follows I first clarify the terms and provide the background to the tests used in this study. Then I summarize research on test effects on the language performance of males and females. Finally, I present the results obtained by a sample of female and male EFL learners in a range of different tests.
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Tests are common instruments in the EFL classroom as well as in SLA research. In the former context they are used to diagnose weaknesses and assess the fulfilment of language learning objectives, whereas in the latter, tests are used to investigate learners’ language learning processes as well as language growth and development. Language tests are closely related to language tasks. Both have in common their orientation towards language learning and the fact that they can also be used as tools for assessment, to the point that we may find the terms used as if they were synonyms (see Bygate et al., 2001). Due to their double nature, it may be difficult, in practice, to differentiate tests from tasks. An example of this is the composition, a task frequently used in language classrooms for improving writing skills, but also employed as a test in vocabulary research to investigate learners’ knowledge and use of vocabulary. In the present study, I adopt the term test to refer to any instrument that serves to measure learners’ vocabulary size, vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary use either in oral or in written mode. Thus, in the definition of test, following Read (2000), I include multiple-choice tests as well as compositions; the former as examples of the discrete, selective, context-independent dimension in vocabulary testing, the latter as an example of embedded, comprehensive, context-dependent tests. In the following paragraphs I will attempt a brief description of the characteristics of main vocabulary tests, as set out in Jiménez Catalán and Moreno Espinosa’s 2005 review of tests used in vocabulary research. As they note, the most usual way of classifying vocabulary tests is on the basis of dichotomies such as ‘receptive versus productive, breadth versus depth, discrete versus embedded, context dependent versus independent, oral versus written vocabulary tests, or pen-and-paper versus computerised vocabulary tests’ (ibid.:172). However, the authors also observe that these dichotomies are not pure but blended, as they usually contain a great number of typologies and formats. Among the latter, we find multiple-choice tests, cue word tests and composition tests. Next I summarize the main features of each in turn.
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Terms and definitions
Multiple-choice tests One of the assessing instruments most commonly used in ELT and SLA research is the multiple-choice test. As the name suggests, test takers are presented with multiple options from which they have to make the
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correct choice. There are several versions of the multiple-choice test format but it always contains two parts: a part called the stem, usually realized as a question or an incomplete statement, and a part with the alternatives or answers from which testees have to select the correct one. Multiple-choice tests are widely used to measure text comprehension and overall language proficiency. They are also employed to measure discrete vocabulary knowledge; that is, knowledge of isolated words. The multiple-choice format is present in well-known vocabulary tests such as Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT). Designed by Nation (1983; 1990) as a practical tool to measure vocabulary size on the grounds of word frequency bands, it has been used by a good number of vocabulary researchers (Nation, 1983; 1990; Laufer and Nation, 1995; Waring, 1997; Laufer, 1998; Laufer and Paribakht, 1998; Fan, 2000; Schmitt and Schmitt, 2001; Schmitt et al., 2001; Cameron, 2002; Jiménez Catalán and Terrazas, 2009) to measure vocabulary size of EFL learners of different ages all over the world. Cue word tests Cue word tests are frequently employed in lexical availability studies. In this particular area of research, cue word tests provide language learners with a number of word stimuli – usually between ten and 16 – each standing for a particular topic or situation representative of daily life (for example, at school, transport, food and so on). Learners are presented with cue words one by one and asked to respond to each cue word with the first related words that come to their minds. Lexical availability studies have great potential not only to identify learners’ lexical availability but also their word knowledge. They are also useful to identify the words most available to foreign language learners in relation to particular situations. As Faerch et al. (1984:87) note: Availability studies are concerned with identifying which words are used in particular situations. One way to pinpoint availability is to give native speakers a topic or situation and ask them to write down the words which first come to mind. Possible topics might be ‘visiting a pub’ or ‘parts of the body’. Words mentioned by a high proportion of the informants are then considered the most available words, and these are assumed to be useful for a learner of that language.
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Cue words tests have been used in psycholinguistics research to investigate how words are organized in the mental lexicon of L1 speakers.
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Likewise, they have been widely used in sociolinguistics to investigate variation in the lexical availability of speakers. An important body of research is found in Spanish sociolinguistics, where the vocabularies of speakers from different Spanish regions and Spanish speaking countries worldwide are examined in order to identify similarities and differences. In comparison, research on lexical availability of foreign language learners is only in its infancy. The studies by Carcedo (1998) and Germany and Cartes (2000) are pioneering in this field. Our previous work on gender and lexical availability in EFL learners (Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda, 2010) followed the line of study undertaken by these researchers. There, we provided evidence in favour of females as they produced a significant higher number of words as responses to cue words in a lexical availability test. The analysis of gender variation according to a cue word test addressed in the present study draws on findings reported in our previous study.
Composition tests Although they may be oral or written, composition tests are most frequently found in the written mode. They are usually short pieces of writing, commonly found in language assessment as, for instance, in official examinations run by universities or academic institutions (for example, Cambridge or TOEFL). Composition tests are varied in topic and genre. Among the former, the possibilities are many as they range from family life, sports or environment to cooking habits, health or education. As to the latter, some of the most cited genre types are descriptive, narrative, argumentative and expository texts. Compositions are also used in SLA research to investigate a large number of aspects such as learners’ use of discourse, grammar, pragmatics or vocabulary. Regarding L2 vocabulary research, written compositions have traditionally been the instruments to investigate learners’ vocabulary use. (See for instance, Linnarud, 1986; Laufer, 1998; Arnaud, 1992; Laufer and Nation, 1995.) Nation (2001) identifies three ways of measuring vocabulary in writing: (i) by applying measures of lexical richness, among them lexical variation, lexical density or lexical sophistication; (ii) by means of calculating the percentages of word families contained in the text and arranging the words according to frequency bands as is done by means of the Lexical Frequency Profile (Laufer and Nation, 1995), and by using rating scales that focus on the assessment of vocabulary contained in compositions (see for instance, Jacobs et al., 1981).
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Rosa María Jiménez Catalán
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Research has yielded evidence of the effect of tests on the assessment of foreign language learners’ reading comprehension and learners’ writing production. As far as reading comprehension is concerned, Shohamy (1984) and Wolf (1993) showed how foreign language learners achieve higher scores in multiple-choice tests than in open-ended tests; particularly, as Shohamy demonstrated, these differences are greater in low proficiency language learners than in high proficiency learners. As for writing production, vocabulary research has revealed that the type of composition has an effect on different aspects of learners’ vocabulary. The study carried out by Koda (1993) with American Japanese FL learners, as well as the studies conducted by Jiménez Catalán (1992) and by Agustín et al. (2005) with Spanish EFL learners showed that descriptive and narrative compositions generate different numbers of words as well as different word choices. Learners were given a descriptive and a narrative task to ascertain whether the type of composition would have an effect on learners’ written performance. Although the above studies differ in their purpose, methodology and sampling, they achieve similar results. Firstly, learners write more words in descriptive compositions than in narrative composition tests. Secondly, different linguistic devices and discourse strategies are identified in the descriptive and narrative tasks produced by Japanese learners (Koda, 1993). Thirdly, it was found that errors were more frequent in narrative compositions than in descriptive compositions although they were of a different type (Jiménez Catalán, 1992; Agustín et al., 2005). Thus, descriptive compositions elicited more spelling mistakes than narrative compositions, but learners made more word choice errors in narrative compositions than in descriptive compositions. Likewise, in a study conducted with Hungarian secondary school EFL learners, Bygate (1999) proved the existence of significant differences in the grammatical patterns they used in oral argumentative tasks compared to narrative tasks. Hungarian EFL learners produced a greater number of words and more complex patterns of subordination in narrative tasks than in argumentative tasks. Since, as shown by research, variation occurs in learners’ performance as a result of the language test used, a key question is to determine whether this variation has an equal effect on male and female EFL learners. Nevertheless, this is not an easy issue to address since previous studies differ in the skills investigated, the language component, the techniques and methods used and the type of test format employed
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Review of the literature
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in the elicitation process. Next I give a brief account of research on the effect of test on gender in second or foreign language performance. As far as receptive skills are concerned, there are different outcomes depending on whether what is measured is reading or listening skill. In favour of females we find the research reported by Brantmeier (2003) in a series of studies undertaken with American university students, learners of Spanish as a second and as a foreign language. In contrast, the study by Boyle (1987) on listening comprehension reports that it was the male group who achieved the highest scores in a listening comprehension test. A similar tendency emerges when reviewing speaking studies compared with those on writing. Lumley and O’Sullivan (2005) found hardly any gender differences in speaking tasks, but other researchers (Jiménez Catalán, 1992; Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda, 2008) found significant differences in favour of female students concerning the number of words and the number of errors made in compositions written by female and male EFL learners. However, in writing studies we also have to take into account Morris’s (1998) study, in which neither grammatical nor lexical differences between males’ and females’ performance in written compositions were identified. Regarding test format, in a study conducted in Swedish secondary education schools, Hellekant (1994) found that boys performed significantly better in an English multiple-choice test than girls, whereas the girls scored higher than boys on a free-response test. These results partially coincide with the ones reported by Brantmeier (2003). In a series of different studies, she obtained inconsistent findings by gender in multiple-choice tests, but stable findings in written recall tests, where she observed females systematically outperforming males. In an attempt to explain test effect on gender language performance, Chavez (2000:8) notes that some tests ‘may be equally amenable to both genders, whereas others may accommodate the preferences of only one gender’. Chavez also observes that tests seldom measure only one skill but rather a number of different subskills that interact with characteristics of the test format. We agree with her, as a clear example of the multi-faceted nature of tests is found in compositions, where a wide range of features is assessed, among them discourse, structure and vocabulary to name but a few. Since the effect of the type of test on gender performance is still in question, the main objective of this study is to examine whether there are similarities or differences (or both) on the results obtained by the
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1. Does the type of test have an effect on EFL learners’ performance? If so, which test has the highest effect on learners’ performance? 2. Do male and female EFL learners differ in the scores achieved in two vocabulary receptive tests? 3. Do male and female EFL learners differ in the number of types and the number of tokens produced in a cue word test? 4. Do male and female EFL learners differ in the number of types produced in a composition test? 5. Is there a positive correlation among the results obtained by male and female EFL learners across different tests?
Method Participants The sample in the present study comprises 210 Spanish EFL learners from the sixth grade of primary education. Their average age is 12 and the distribution according to sex is equal: 105 girls and 105 boys. They come from four schools located in the centre of Logroño, the capital city of La Rioja, a northern Spanish region. In Spain, primary education starts when pupils are six and comprises six years (first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades). English is compulsory throughout the whole educational stage and, according to official guidelines, learners are taught by means of communicative approaches with an emphasis on meaningful input and language for communication. At the time of data collection (Spring, 2006), the sample of EFL learners participating in this study had received 619 hours of English instruction on the basis of three to four hours a week per school year. Instruments and procedures Participants were given four tests in the following order: (i) the 1000 Word Test (WT) (Nation, 1983), (ii) the 2000 word frequency band from Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) (Version 2) (Schmitt et al., 2001), (iii) a writing composition test and (iv) a cue word test. Learners took the tests in three different sessions: 1000 WT and 2000 VLT in one session, composition test in other session and cue word in another session. In order to ensure learners’ full understanding of the task they had to
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same sample of female and male EFL learners across four tests. The specific questions addressed in the present study are as follows:
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accomplish, instructions were given to them in Spanish in oral and written form. The tests mentioned are part of the battery of tests used by the members of the applied linguistics research group based at University of La Rioja (GLAUR) to collect data from EFL learners in primary and secondary schools. These tests were used in several studies conducted by this group under the auspices of three consecutive research projects. Drawing on fuller descriptions provided in previous studies, in the following paragraphs a brief account of each test is provided. The 1000 WT combines multiple-choice, matching and translation. It provides test takers with ten groups of six target words and three translations. For each group, they are asked to match one target word with a translation. The 2000 VLT follows the same format as in 1000 WT but differs in the fact that test takers are presented with three definitions instead of three translations for the six target words. Participants were given ten minutes to complete each receptive vocabulary test (1000 WT and VLT Test) and 30 minutes to accomplish each productive vocabulary test (composition and cue word). Following Nation (1983) and Schmitt et al. (2001), both the 1000 WT and 2000 VLT were scored one point for each correct answer: maximum 30 points. Regarding the composition test, students were asked to write a letter to an English family living in Oxford, Mr and Mrs Edwards, who had a son and a daughter, Peter and Helen, of the same age as the students taking the test. They were asked to write a letter to the Edwards family in which the students had to introduce themselves and say something about their town, school, hobbies and other things of interest. Our informants received oral and written instructions in Spanish before performing the task. The time assigned was 30 minutes. Students were not allowed to use dictionaries or other kinds of help. Once the compositions were collected, they were edited and typed into the computer and analysed by means of the textual analysis program WordSmith Tools (Scott, 1996). As in the case of the cue word test, word types in the composition were arranged according to alphabetical and frequency orders. Likewise, the means were calculated individually by editing learners’ compositions one by one.
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Rosa María Jiménez Catalán
Results Research Question 1: Does the type of test have an effect on EFL learners’ performance?
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Table 5.1 Tests
Means and Standard Deviations Obtained by Sixth EFL Learners across
6th EFL learners (girls + boys) mean std. dev.
1000 WT
2000 VLT
Comp. tokens
Comp. types
Cue word
21.20 3.39
9.14 4.73
125.35 65.18
57.91 24.51
109.01 38.61
Table 5.1 presents the means and standard deviations for the 1000 WT, 2000 VLT, composition test and cue word test. As can been observed, the type of test has an effect on EFL learners’ performance since there are differences in the means obtained by the same learners across the four tests. Regarding the receptive vocabulary tests, learners achieve higher scores on the 1000 WT than in the 2000 VLT. As for the productive tests, the figures reveal that the cue word test has the greatest effect on learners’ performance since the mean number of types (different words) produced by students is considerably higher in the cue word test than in the composition test. In order to ascertain if the differences between types were significant, two t-tests for paired samples were used: one to compare the differences in the means obtained by learners in the 1000 WT and the 2000 VLT, and another to compare the means of types produced by learners in the composition test and in the cue word test. The results are summarized in Table 5.2. As can be observed, the statistical analysis applied to the data shows that the differences between the means for 1000 WT and 2000 VLT, and also those between the means for types obtained in the composition and in the cue word test, are significant at the p < 0. 01 level.
Table 5.2 t-Test for Differences between Means Obtained by Girls and Boys, Taken all Together, in the Receptive Tests and in the Productive Tests Comparison between tests 1000 WT vs 2000 VLT Comp types vs cue word types
t value and degrees of freedom
Probability (directional/1-tailed)
41.18 (df = 209) 22.48 (df = 209)
0.000∗∗ 0.000∗∗
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Girls Boys
1000 WT
2000 VLT
Mean: 21.07 Std. dev.: 3.31 Mean: 21.33 Std. dev.: 3.48
Mean: 9.49 Std. dev.: 4.91 Mean: 8.79 Std. dev.: 4.53
The results reported in Table 5.3 show that there is hardly any difference in the means obtained by male and female students in the two receptive tests. The means are very similar, and although we see that boys score slightly higher than girls in the 1000 WT, in the 2000 VLT the situation is the reverse: girls achieve a slightly higher score than boys. The percentages of girls and boys who achieve the means or above is also very similar: 49.52 of the girls compared to 47.62 of the boys in the 1000 WT and 47.62 of the girls compared to 50.48 of the boys in the 2000 VLT. In the comparison of girls’ and boys’ performance as measured by the 1000 WT and the 2000 VLT, the results of independent samples t-tests proved to be non-significant (p > 0. 05) as shown in Table 5.4. Research Question 2: Do male and female EFL learners differ in the number of types and the number of tokens produced composition test, and the number of types produced in the composition test? As the figures in Table 5.5 indicate, there are differences between girls’ and boys’ performance in these tests. Girls clearly outperform boys both in the composition and in the cue word test. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated in order to ascertain whether there was a correlation among the results obtained by male and
Table 5.4 t-Test for Differences between Means Obtained by Girls and by Boys in the Receptive Tests Comparison between tests 1000 WT 2000 VLT
t value and degrees of freedom
Probability (directional/1-tailed)
0.57 (df = 208) 1.07 (df = 208)
0.285 0.144
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Table 5.3 Mean and Standard Deviation in 1000 WT and 2000VLT Distributed by Gender
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Girls Boys
Composition tokens
Composition types
Cue word types
141.77 69.82 108.92 55.83
62.61 23.82 53.21 24.39
118.95 40.87 99.07 33.57
Mean Std. dev. Mean Std. dev.
Table 5.6 Correlation between Girls’ Results in the Four Tests: p < 0. 01 Level. Girls N = 105
1000 WT 2000 VLT Comp tokens Comp types
2000 VLT
Comp. tokens
Comp. types
Cue word
0.575∗∗ – – –
0.439∗∗ 0.398∗∗ – –
0.512∗∗ 0.514∗∗ 0.900∗∗ –
0.501∗∗ 0.691∗∗ 0.453∗∗ 0.534∗∗
Table 5.7 Correlation between Boys’ Results in the Four Tests (∗∗ p < 0. 01 level) (∗ p < 0. 05 level). Boys (N = 105)
1000 WT 2000 VLT Comp tokens Comp types
2000 VLT
Comp. tokens
Comp. types
Cue word
0.421∗∗ – – –
0.292∗∗ 0.235∗ – –
0.340∗ 0.216∗ 0.872∗∗ –
0.288∗∗ 0.339∗∗ 0.548∗∗ 0.485∗∗
female EFL learners across the four tests. The values in Tables 5.6 and 5.7 show that there is significant correlation among the results obtained across the different tests.
Discussion
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Table 5.5 Means and Standard Deviations for Composition and Cue Word Tests by Gender
The results in the present study indicate that EFL learners’ performance varies across tests. However, results need to be interpreted with caution since the means obtained for each test cannot be compared on equal terms. On the one hand, two tests are receptive while two
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are productive. On the other, the means reflect different measures in the receptive and productive tests: whereas in the 1000 WT and the 2000 VLT the means refer to scores, in the composition and in the cue word test the means refer to the average number of word types and word tokens produced by students. In order to establish comparisons we should address receptive and productive tests separately. Regarding the former, we have seen that learners score higher on the 1000 WT than in the 2000 VLT. However, if we bear in mind that each test stands for a different level, as measured by different frequency bands, learners’ variation on these tests is hardly surprising. Taking girls and boys together, learners’ results show that there is a decrease in their scorings as their level increases, which in turn, indicates that their receptive vocabulary falls within the 1000 most frequent words in English rather than in the 2000 most frequent ones. As regards the performance of boys and girls taken together, on the two productive tests, results suggest that the cue word test is much more robust than the composition. Word productivity is measured on the grounds of number of word types and, from this perspective, it is evident that the cue word test has shown itself to be a higher generator of words than the composition test. The number of word types produced by students was almost twice as high in the former as in the latter, with equal times available for the tests (30 minutes each). These results indicate that two tests can draw quite a different profile of productive vocabulary from the same learners. However, again, we should treat the interpretation of data with caution, since the composition is embedded and context depended, but the cue word is discrete and noncontext depended. This suggests that it may be easier for EFL learners to produce isolated words in responses to prompts than to use these words embedded in written discourse. Concerning test effects on males’ and females’ vocabulary performance, the outcomes of the present study reveal tendencies of similarity and difference. In the multiple-choice tests, girls and boys show common patterns of behaviour as proved by their similar scores and by the equal percentage of girls and boys that achieve similar means in the 1000 WT and 2000 VLT. It is important to note that this pattern does not alter as level increases; in other words, gender differences do not appear when male and female students increase receptive vocabulary level. Although it is true that in the 1000 WT boys score slightly higher than girls, in the 2000 VLT the reverse is observed: it is the girls who score slightly higher than the boys, but these slight differences proved to be non-significant. Therefore, regarding receptive vocabulary
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knowledge, as measured by girls’ and boys’ scores on multiple-choice tests, the present study corroborates the results reported on a similar sample of students throughout different times of data collection. Neither at the fourth year of primary education (Jiménez Catalán and Terrazas, 2009), nor from a longitudinal perspective, when learners were at fourth, fifth and sixth years of primary education (Agustín and Terrazas 2008), were significant differences found. The present study, like our previous studies, disconfirms the results of Hellekant (1994), where boys were found to perform significantly better in an English multiple-choice test than girls. The common patterns observed in girls’ and boys’ performance in the multiple-choice tests for receptive vocabulary turn into patterns of difference when we analyse their results in the composition and in the cue word test. Girls outperform boys in the composition and in the cue word test: in each they produce a significantly higher number of word types than their male counterparts. This indicates higher lexical richness in the productive vocabulary of females compared to males. With regard to compositions, females also produce a higher number of tokens, which means that their compositions are longer than those of males. It is important to point out here that differences in the composition and cue word tests are statistically significant. These results are in line with the ones reported by Chavez (1996) and Brantmeier (2003), who showed females systematically outperforming males in writing tasks and written recall tests. The results of the present study also coincide with our previous studies (Ojeda and Jiménez Catalán, 2007; Jiménez Catalán and Ojeda Alba, 2008), carried out with the same EFL students and the same composition as gathering instrument. At different testing times, we found similar tendencies to the ones observed in the present study: girls produce a higher number of tokens and types than boys. However, only in the former study were tests for significance applied to the data, giving significant results in favour of females. It is important to highlight that the results obtained in compositions mirror the ones achieved by learners in the cue word test at the sixth year of primary education, and also at the second year of secondary education (see Fernández, in this volume): girls systematically produce a significantly higher number of types than boys. Without doubt, the results point to females’ greater lexical richness in a discrete test as well as in an embedded test. As shown in Tables 5.6 and 5.7, the scores on all possible pairs of tests show significant positive correlation, for both females and males (p < 0. 01 in most cases, p < 0. 05 in three cases for males). In other words,
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the higher a pupil’s score is on one test, the higher it tends to be on all the other tests. The present study has provided evidence of common tendencies but also patterns of difference in the EFL performance of males and females across different tests. These findings lead to several interpretations that I now address in turn. The similar means obtained by girls and boys in the two multiplechoice tests indicate that both groups may have reached a similar level concerning receptive vocabulary knowledge. On the contrary, the higher number of word types produced by girls in the composition and in the cue word test, together with the positive correlation found among these tests may indicate either that boys are at a lower level than girls as far as vocabulary knowledge is concerned, or that girls and boys behave in different ways regarding written productive vocabulary tests. Evidence in favour of the first assumption is found in the few studies that have looked at the relation between receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge level (Waring, 1997; Laufer, 1998; Laufer and Paribakht, 1998). Within these studies, vocabulary knowledge is conceived in terms of a continuum that ranges from partial knowledge to full knowledge. At one extreme of this continuum we are concerned with recognizing a word, in the middle, recalling the word when needed and, at the other extreme pole, using the word in appropriate contexts. The analyses performed in the present study do not allow us to conclude that female students have a larger productive vocabulary than male students. But taking into account that males and females were given the same amount of time for accomplishing the tests, and that females produced a significant higher number of word types than males, I am inclined to think that girls may be at higher levels in the scale of vocabulary knowledge than boys. Be that as it may, the question is why do girls produce a considerably higher number of word types than boys? Or rather, why do boys produce a considerably lower number of word types both in the composition and in the cue word test? My interpretation is that girls’ higher vocabulary production may be related to their higher motivation towards the English language. The present study has not looked at the relation between gender, motivation and vocabulary production. However, two studies conducted by the GLAUR group have provided evidence in this regard. First, chronologically, is the study conducted by Agreda (2006) which aimed to ascertain whether there was a relation between gender and motivation in EFL learning in the sixth year of primary education. She found that girls showed a higher degree of motivation towards the English language
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than boys. Second, the study reported by Fernández Fontecha (in this volume) with the same EFL learners two years later (second year of Spanish secondary education), gives evidence of significant gender differences regarding the word types produced in an abridged version of the cue word test. She also proves that girls are intrinsically more motivated towards English language as a school subject than boys, and that the degree of motivation correlates with vocabulary production: the higher the degree of motivation, the higher the number of word types produced in the cue word test. Hence, although in the present study I did not correlate gender, motivation and word type production, the data obtained by the GLAUR group with the same EFL learners as in the present study support the interpretation that girls’ word production in the cue word test and in the composition may be due to their higher level of motivation towards English language learning. Another possible explanation, which does not exclude but complements that postulated above, may be as follows: females’ greater vocabulary production in the composition and in the cue word test may be due to their greater use of vocabulary strategies to consolidate word learning. Support for this claim is found in the literature on language learning strategies. The research conducted by Ehrman and Oxford (1989), Oxford and Niykos (1989), Bacon (1992) and Graham (1997) showed that females made use of a significantly greater number of language learning strategies than their male counterparts. These studies also pointed to females’ greater use of formal rule strategies, study strategies and consolidation strategies in comparison to males. Very similar results were obtained in a large-scale study of the vocabulary learning strategies used by Spanish and Basque EFL learners of different ages and educational levels (Jiménez Catalán, 2003). The main results related to the present study were: (i) females employed a slightly (but significantly) higher number of vocabulary learning strategies than males; (ii) females used more consolidation strategies than males. Among these were: ‘Use word lists’, ‘Use the vocabulary section in textbooks’, ‘Keep a vocabulary notebook’ and ‘Test oneself with word tests’.
Conclusions
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This study has provided evidence in three respects: (i) the existence of variation in EFL learners’ vocabulary performance across four tests; (ii) the almost identical scores of females and males on two receptive vocabulary tests in multiple-choice format; (iii) the existence of significant differential patterns in the vocabulary performance of girls and
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boys in a composition and in a cue word test; and (iv) the existence of a positive correlation among the four tests under examination. These results have implications for foreign language education. Firstly because of the role played by tests in different communities of practice: the multiple-choice, the cue word test and the composition are widely used in EFL classrooms for teachers and researchers, not only in Spain but all over the world. Concerning the receptive vocabulary tests, the different scores obtained by EFL learners in the 1000 WT and in the 2000 VLT indicate that the two tests measure different word levels and are capable of discriminating learners’ vocabulary level according to word frequency bands. The similar results obtained by females and males in the present study indicate that the two tests are not biased towards either of the sexes. As for the productive vocabulary tests examined here, it is important to bear in mind that if we take girls and boys together, and also if we take them as separate groups, a different vocabulary profile emerges in the composition and in the cue word test. The latter has proved to be much more productive in eliciting word types from EFL learners than the composition. However, care should be taken in drawing definitive conclusions as the comparison has been done only in terms of number of word types produced by learners. Other important aspects of learners’ productive vocabulary knowledge were left aside in the comparison of these tests. In compositions, words come embedded in sentences, sentences come embedded in paragraphs and these come introduced by cohesive links; furthermore, compositions need to be coherent. The cue word test is more productive that the composition only if our aim is to count number of words produced by EFL learners in the same amount of time. However, it is not only the number of words learners are capable of producing in a given composition that is important, but also how they use the words in context, how they communicate meanings by means of words and how they relate words in discourse. The cue word test may be more productive but the composition may disclose more aspects of EFL learners’ vocabulary. Secondly, the results of this study are relevant for teachers and researchers in gender and foreign language education: the study reveals similarities and differences between female and male EFL learners in vocabulary performance across different tests. Results indicate that females’ and males’ vocabulary performance can be affected by the type of test used. Girls outperform boys in a composition as well as in a cue word test. As these results were significant, and there was a significant correlation between the two tests, attention should be paid to boys’ relationships to EFL learning. It is necessary to complete the information
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uncovered by this quantitative study by means of qualitative analyses. Particularly, it would be useful to interview boys and girls at different levels (high and low proficiency language learners) in order to find out what successful learners do with vocabulary and what difficulties less successful learners experience in the process of learning new words. This study has identified differential patterns that point to boys’ underachievement regarding productive vocabulary in the composition and the cue word test. Why do boys write fewer words than girls in two tests accomplished in the EFL? Why do girls outperform boys in these tests? What might these tendencies be pointing to? I have attempted an explanation of these differences on the grounds of girls’ greater motivation towards English and language learning as well as in terms of girls’ greater usage of consolidation vocabulary strategies, which in turn may be pointing to different styles of learning in girls and boys. I have based my interpretation on previous studies, mainly on the research carried out either by other members of the GLAUR research group or by myself with the same EFL learners and same tests but at different testing times. I have had the opportunity to contrast the results obtained in this study with the ones obtained by the same learners in previous studies. The picture that emerges from the comparison allows us to perceive aspects of the same reality. It highlights the fact that the female and male EFL learners under examination do achieve similar results throughout different years: girls and boys score equally in receptive vocabulary tests but differ significantly in their word production in a cue word test and a composition. But differences in favour of girls only appear regarding the number of word types since in the composition the results by the same learners, as reported by Agustín Llach in this volume, point to common patterns of lexical inventions in the same composition. Likewise, in the light of the longitudinal study carried out with the same learners by Moreno (also in this volume), common word association patterns were found throughout the fourth, fifth and sixth years of primary education. Hence, a bird’s eye view of the results obtained by the same learners confirms the same tendencies disclosed in the present study. Since the 1990s research on gender and foreign language education has shifted away from differences towards the study of the construction of gender identities in educational contexts. In this movement, it has been suggested that quantitative approaches should give way to qualitative ones. I agree with the need to study emerging identities in foreign language classrooms, particularly when foreign language classrooms are a meeting point for EFL learners of different nationalities. However, I do not agree with the idea that adopting the constructivist approach should
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be at the cost of abandoning the quantitative approach. In my view, both are necessary in the study of gender in foreign language classrooms, particularly in countries like Spain where English is a compulsory subject throughout primary and secondary education (from age 6 to 18) but has neither a function in the daily life of ordinary people nor in its institutions. Although in the last decades ELT has improved greatly in Spanish primary and secondary schools, English is still a compulsory subject, as are Maths and History. In this learning context, it is doubtful whether EFL classrooms will have a greater influence on the construction of females’ and males’ identities than the Maths or History classroom. In primary and secondary education English language learning is measured by means of learners’ outcomes and these are of greatest importance for students, teachers and parents. Spanish EFL classrooms usually comprise between 25 and 35 students. ELT Teachers at secondary education usually have four groups of 25–35 students each. Among their duties are getting to know learners well, helping them to learn as much as possible, identifying their learning difficulties, watching over underachievement and gender inequalities. This quantitative study has revealed patterns of similarity and patterns of difference in 210 EFL learners; these tendencies would be difficult to uncover by means of case studies, for the simple reason of ELT teachers’ lack of time for conducting one to one case studies. Thanks to the quantification and descriptive and inferential analyses applied to the data, differential patterns have emerged that point to boys’ underachievement in EFL productive vocabulary in the community in which I work as a teacher and researcher. A first step in the diagnostic description of these foreign language classrooms has been taken. But it is necessary to complete this descriptive analysis by means of other approaches if we wish to get insights into the relation of girls’ and boys’ performances and their emerging identities as language learners in a context where English is a foreign language. However, adopting this new approach should not be at the cost of either denying patterns of similarities or differences when they really appear in foreign language classrooms, or denying the potential of the quantitative approach to identify tendencies when this approach proves to be useful. As Holmes and Meyerhoff (2003:16) remark:
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All research is an attempt to get a best fit between intuitive conceptions and insights about the specific details of an interaction, and a satisfactory and illuminating theoretical account of interaction. Yet we are all aware of the fact that research is unavoidably
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Acknowledgements This study has been carried out under the auspices of two consecutive research projects funded by MEC and MYCT and FEDER. We acknowledge Grants BFF2003-04009-C02-02, and HUM2006-09775C02-02/FILO.
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Chavez, M. (1996) ‘Non-revised writing, revised writing, and error detection by learner characteristics’. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6, 2, 3–38. Ehrlich, S. (1997) ‘Gender as social practice: Implications for second language acquisition’, SSLA, 19, 121–446. Ehrman, M. and Oxford, R. (1989) ‘Effects of sex differences, career choice, and psychological type on adult language learning strategies’, The Modern Language Journal, 73, 1–13. Germany, P. and Cartes, N. (2000) ‘Léxico disponible en inglés como segunda lengua en instrucción personalizada’, Estudios Pedagógicos, 26, 39–50. Faerch, C., Haastrup, K. and Phillipson, R. (1984) Learner Language and Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 14. Fan, M. (2000) ‘How big is the gap and how to narrow it? An investigation into the active and passive vocabulary knowledge of L2 learners’, RELC Journal, 31, 2, 105–119. Graham, S. (1997) Effective Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hellekant, J. (1994) ‘Are multiple-choice tests unfair to girls?’, System, 22, 349–352. Holmes, J. and Meyerhoff, M. (2003) ‘Different voices, different views: An introduction to current research in language and gender’, The Handbook of Language and Gender. London: Blackwell Publishing. Jacobs, H. L., Zingraf, D. R.,Wormuth, S. A., Hartfiel, V. F. and Hughey, J. B. (1981) Testing ESL Composition: A Practical Approach. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. and Ojeda Alba, J. (2010) ‘Girls’ and boys’ lexical availability in EFL’, ITL International Applied Linguistics. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. and Terrazas, M. (2009) ‘The receptive vocabulary of English foreign language young learners: Data from Spanish primary schools’, Journal of English Studies, 5, 171–189. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. and Ojeda Alba, J. (2008) ‘The English vocabulary of girls and boys: Similarities or differences? Evidence from a quantitative study’, in Gender and Language Research Methodologies. Harrington, K., Litosseleti, L., Sauntson, H. and Sunderland, J. (eds) London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. and Moreno Espinosa, S. (2005) ‘Promoting vocabulary research in primary and secondary education: Test review and test selection criteria’, ES Review, 25 (2003–2005), 171–187. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. (2003) ‘Sex differences in L2 vocabulary learning strategies’, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13, 1, 54–77. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. (2002) ‘La representación del factor sexo/género en manuales y revistas en la lingüística aplicada’, in Género, Sexo, Discurso. A. Vigara Tauste and R. M. Jiménez Catalán (eds) Madrid: Editorial El Laberinto. Colección Hermes, 229–262. Jiménez Catalán, R. M. (1992) Errores en la producción escrita del inglés y posibles factores condicionantes. Madrid: Editorial de la Universidad Complutense. Colección Tesis Doctorales, 73/92. Koda, K. (1993) ‘Task-induced variability in FL composition: Language-specific perspectives’, Foreign Language Annals, 26, 3, 332–346. Laufer, B. and Nation, I. S. P. (1995) ‘Vocabulary size and use: Lexical richness in L2 written production’, Applied Linguistics, 16, 307–322. Laufer, B. (1998) ‘The development of passive and active vocabulary in a second language: Same or different?’, Applied Linguistics, 19, 255–271.
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Laufer, B. and Paribakht, S. (1998) ‘The relationship between passive and active vocabularies: Effects of language learning context’, Language Learning, 48, 3, 365–391. Linnarud, M. (1986) Lexis in Composition: A Performance Analysis of Swedish Learner’s Written English. Malmö, Sweden: Liber Förlag Malmö. Lumley, T. and O’Sullivan, B. (2005) ‘The impact of test taker characteristics on speaking test task performance’, Language Testing, 22, 4, 415–437. Morris, L. (1998) ‘Differences in men’s and women’s ESL writing at the junior college level: Consequences for research on feedback’, The Canadian Modern Language Review, 55, 2, 219–238. Nation, I. S. P. (1983) ‘Testing and teaching vocabulary’, Guidelines, 5, 12–25. Nation, I. S. P. (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. New York: Heinle and Heinle. Nation, I. S. P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norton, B. and Pavlenko, A. (2004) Gender and English Language Learners. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Inc. Ojeda, J. and Jiménez Catalán, R. M. (2007) ‘The worlds children’s words build’, Didáctica (Lengua y Literatura), 19, 155–172. Oxford, R. and Niykos, M. (1989) ‘Variables affecting choice of language learning strategies by university students’, Modern Language Journal, 73, 291–300. Pavlenko, A. (2001) ‘Bilingualism, gender, and ideology’, The International Journal of Bilingualism, 5, 2, 117–151. Read, J. (2000) Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmitt, N., Schmitt, D. and Clapham, C. (2001) ‘Developing and exploring the behaviour of two new versions of the vocabulary levels test’, Language Testing, 18, 1, 55–88. Scott, M. (1996) WordSmith Tools. Version 2.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shohamy, E. (1984) ‘Does the testing method make a difference? The case of reading comprehension’, Language Testing, 1, 147–180. Shohamy, E. (1997) ‘Testing methods, testing consequences: Are they ethical? are they fair?’, Language Testing, 14, 3, 340–349. Sunderland, J. (2000) ‘Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education’, Language Teaching: The International Abstracting Journal for Language Teachers, Educators and Researchers. Special feature, 203–223. Waring, R. (1997) ‘A comparison of the receptive and productive sizes of second language learners’, Immaculata (Notre Dame Seishin University, Okayama) 1, 53–68. Wolf, D. (1993) ‘A comparison of assessment tasks used to measure FL reading comprehension’, The Modern Language Journal, 77, iv, 473–489.
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Boys’ and Girls’ L2 Word Associations Soraya Moreno Espinosa
Introduction Word association is regarded as an important dimension in second and foreign language learners’ lexical competence. Since Richards’s (1976) article on word knowledge, it has been claimed that second and foreign language (L2) learners need to know the different associations established by words, as it is one dimension of word knowledge. Word association tests have been used in the field of applied linguistics for a wide range of purposes. Following Moreno’s (2009) review of word association studies in L2, we can trace at least four tendencies that are summarized as follows: (i) studies that look at the relationship between L2 word association patterns and the nature of the mental lexicon (Meara, 1983; Söderman, 1993; Fitzpatrick, 2006; 2007a); (ii) studies that focus on the measurement of L2 productive vocabulary (Fitzpatrick, 2000; Meara and Fitzpatrick, 2000; Clenton, 2005; Jiménez and Moreno, 2005; Moreno, 2009); (iii) computer simulations to identify L2 lexical networks (see Wilks and Meara, 2002; Wilks et al., 2005); and (iv) comparative studies to identify tendencies in the word associations elicited by: (a) male and female learners (Sökmen, 1993; Jiménez and Moreno, 2004); (b) native and non-native speakers (see Kruse et al., 1987; Sökmen, 1993; Schmitt, 1998; Namei, 2004; Wilks et al., 2005; Fitzpatrick, 2006; 2007a); and (c) L2 young learners in two different learning contexts, that is, learning English as an L3 through Content Integrated Language Learning (CLIL) versus learning English as a subject in the Spanish primary school curriculum (Moreno, 2009). With regard to the variable gender in foreign language learning, research is still inconclusive as we come across studies that point to significant differences depending on the gender of testees, and research
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that shows a lack of significant difference between male and female L2 learners. Specifically as regards this variable and L2 word associations we find a scarcity of studies (Sökmen, 1993; Jiménez and Moreno, 2004). Sökmen found that there were significant gender differences on the basis of primary responses in a word association test. Jiménez and Moreno’s preliminary results were also in line with Sökmen’s; however, they did not undertake inferential statistics to check whether the differences were deemed significant or not. In the light of previous studies on L2 word associations, the following findings can be outlined: (i) L2 word associations are rather heterogeneous (Meara, 1983; Read, 1993; Fitzpatrick, 2006) and many of them are culture-specific (Fitzpatrick, 2006); (ii) In the learning process, there is a shift from syntagmatic to paradigmatic associations which reflects an increase in lexical knowledge (Sökmen, 1993); (iii) L2 clang responses are not very frequent (Maréchal, 1995; Moreno, 2009) and tend to be elicited when presented with unfamiliar cues (Meara, 1983; Söderman, 1993; Namei, 2004); (iv) There does not seem to be any relationship between L2 word associations and language proficiency (Kruse et al., 1987; Wolter, 2002; Fitzpatrick, 2006; Moreno, 2009); and (v) There are significant differences in L2 word associations according to the gender of test takers (Sökmen, 1993). Bearing all this in mind, in our study, we aim at describing and analysing the characteristics of the productive lexical profile of 225 young Spanish learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the end of primary education in three different grades on the basis of boys’ and girls’ L2 word association responses in order to get information on our L2 learners’ lexicon and its development. The present study builds on our previous study (Moreno, 2009) in which we analysed the L2 word associations elicited by two groups of informants in two learning contexts (CLIL versus non-CLIL), but introduces important changes with regard to our previous investigation: (i) it is a longitudinal study lasting through three grades; and (ii) it compares boys’ and girls’ L2 word associations. Four research questions are posed in this investigation: 1. Do male learners produce a similar or different productive lexical profile from females and vice versa throughout the three-year period on the basis of: (i) types and tokens, (ii) Lex30 scores and (iii) word class of L2 association responses? 2. Do boys elicit a changing or similar L2 word association pattern to girls and vice versa while passing through the three grades?
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Method Participants Two hundred and twenty-five Spanish learners of EFL enrolled in fourth, fifth and sixth grade of primary education participated in this longitudinal study. All informants have studied EFL in four different co-educational schools in La Rioja’s capital city. Their ages ranged from nine and ten to 11 and 12 years old. Our informants have been divided into two intact sub-groups of learners: (i) Group A comprises a group of one 124 male students; and (ii) Group B subsumes 101 female students. Our two subgroups of informants are a rather homogeneous sample of urban middle class population regarding age, hours of exposure to formal English instruction and method of instruction. Both subgroups started learning English when they were three, and they are learners of English as a curricular subject at the rate of three hours per week. In the time of eliciting the data in fourth grade they had received about 419 hours of English instruction; in fifth grade, 524 hours of English instruction; and in sixth grade, 629 hours of English instruction. Instrument and data collection An experimental test of productive vocabulary, that is, Lex30 (Meara and Fitzpatrick, 2000), was the tool used to elicit learners’ L2 word association responses. Learners were asked to do the test in class with no access to any reference material. Lex30 measures discrete, selective and context independent vocabulary based on a free word association task format, which contains 30 highly frequent stimulus words. It was not originally designed as a word association test but as an instrument to identify productive vocabulary size on the basis of word frequency bands. However, we decided to use it because of different reasons: (i) its potential to explore the following dimensions of word knowledge: word association, word form, word morphology, word form and meaning and collocation (Fitzpatrick, 2007b); (ii) the suitability of the prompts for the age and level of our students – as they are highly frequent; and (iii) their potential to elicit information into EFL learners’ lexicon in a short time span, as learners
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3. Do gender similarities and/or differences change as learners’ proficiency level increases? 4. Do the L2 word association tendencies and responses convey information about the gender of the learners?
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are asked to recall a maximum of four responses to each prompt in 15 minutes. Thus, thanks to its task format and to the characteristics of its stimulus words, we thought that its promise as a test of productive vocabulary could be enhanced by exploring its potential in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of informants’ responses aimed to trace L2 vocabulary development throughout a three-year period. L2 word associations’ framework of analysis L2 word association responses were analysed by taking into account: (a) word frequency; and (b) word association categories. With regard to word frequency, we used the electronic instrument Lex30 scorer to sort L2 associations into four categories: (a) Level zero words, which embrace highly frequent structural words, proper names, numbers and any blank which was left by learners so as to conform to a text which comprised an average of four responses per 30 stimulus words; (b) Level one words, which subsume the 1000 most frequent content words in English; (c) Level two words that include the 2000 most frequent content words in English; and (d) Beyond two band, which contains words which are not found in the previous bands. In order to calculate the final Lex30 index, it should be noted that each word sorted into Level two words and Beyond two scores one point, up to a maximum of 120; any word outside those two bands scores zero. Regarding the analysis of L2 word association responses, we have used Moreno’s (2009) adaption of Fitzpatrick’s (2006) model for analysing word associations. Thus, L2 word association responses have been classified into five different categories: syntagmatic, paradigmatic, clang, misunderstandings and uninterpretable associations (see Figure 6.1 for a definition of categories and subcategories). Note that ‘stimulus word’ is represented by x, and ‘word association’ by y.
Results and discussion General characteristics of vocabulary in the word association task With regard to our first research question, and specifically for each subgroup of subjects, we intend to ascertain: (a) the number of types and tokens recalled in the word association task on an individual basis; (b) the characteristics of word association responses indicated by the lexical frequency profile reported by Lex30; and (c) the part of speech of associations.
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CATEGORY
MAIN FEATURES
SYNTAGMATIC
Position-based associations that include: consecutive yx, collocation; phrasal xy collocation; and different word class collocation. E.g. teacher – school, dog – bark, sun – hot. Meaning-based associations that include: synonymy (e.g. quick – fast), antonymy (e.g. silly – intelligent), hyponymy (e.g. cat – animal), co-hyponomy (e.g. table – chair), hypernymy (e.g. fruit – apple), meronymy (e.g. bedroom – house). Form-based associations including orthographic (e.g. there – three) as well as phonological associations (e.g. dog – bog, think – thank). This category also includes responses that are simply a repetition of the stimulus word. Responses based on: false cognates, mistaken cues for another English word. No clear relationship has been identified between the prompt and the word association response.
PARADIGMATIC
CLANG
MISUNDERSTANDINGS UNINTERPRETABLE RESULTS
Figure 6.1
Definition of Word Association Categories (Moreno, 2009:101)
Table 6.1 contains the total number of occurrences of words (that is, tokens) and the lemmatized types produced by each group of informants in the word association test on an individual basis throughout the threeyear period, as well as the data they have provided regardless of their Table 6.1 Mean Number of Tokens and Types Reported on an Individual Basis 4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade
Tokens
Types
Tokens
Types
Tokens
Types
Group A and Group B (N = 225)
18.79 (S.D. 10.82)
17.12 (S.D. 9.01)
23.51 (S.D. 12.12)
22.42 (S.D. 11.40)
28.37 (S.D. 12.98)
26.72 (S.D. 11.80)
Group A: Boys (N = 124)
17.24 (S.D. 9.90)
15.89 (S.D. 8.98)
20.74 (S.D. 11.06)
19.81 (S.D. 10.67)
27.96 (S.D. 14.38)
26.25 (S.D. 12.89)
Group B: Girls (N = 101)
20.68 (S.D. 11.62)
18.63 (S.D. 8.85)
26.90 (S.D. 12.55)
25.62 (S.D. 11.52)
28.88 (S.D. 11.07)
27.30 (S.D. 10.35)
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gender. It can be seen that the number of tokens recalled by Group A range from 17.24 to 27.96 and the number of types, from 15.89 to 26.25. With regard to the tokens and types recalled by Group B, the former ranges from 20.68 to 28.88; and the latter from 18.63 to 27.30. Thus, on the one hand, both sub-groups of informants seem to evince an increase of vocabulary acquisition on the basis of the mean number of tokens and types recalled in the task throughout the three-year period. However, their rate of vocabulary acquisition does not seem to be the same throughout the different grades. Thus, in fifth grade whereas girls’ mean number of types grew by almost seven words with regard to the ones recalled in the previous grade, boys’ mean number of types only increased by almost four words. This fact may be due to biological reasons, as it is widely acknowledged that boys take longer to mature than girls. Therefore girls’ maturity may have had a bearing on their L2 vocabulary growth in fifth grade, whereas boys were still growing towards it. However, in sixth grade, boys’ rate of vocabulary acquisition seemed to increase at a faster pace than that of girls. Boys’ mean number of types showed a spurt, growing by almost six and a half words; whereas girls’ mean number of types only increased by almost two words in the same period of time. Our assumption is that in sixth grade, boys’ journey to maturity brought them up almost equal to girls on the basis of L2 vocabulary acquisition. In Table 6.1 we can observe some further variance between the groups as there is a difference in the mean number of types and tokens in favour of girls. Hence, Group B recalled a higher number of tokens and types than those produced by Group A throughout the three school grades. However, no significant difference has been found to exist between boys and girls insofar as types and tokens in our free-association task are con2 cerned, except in the number of tokens in sixth grade (Chi = 81. 7; df = 54; p < 0. 05). These data are not in line with Jiménez’s results (this volume), which did find a significant difference between the genders in the number of types and tokens produced in a lexical availability task. Following Jiménez’s assumption that there is a task effect on girls’ and boys’ vocabulary performance, it is not surprising that our results differ from hers, as the tasks are completely different; although both studies make students recall words on the basis of different cues. On the one hand, our informants had 30 seconds to produce associations which were constrained to a maximum of four responses per prompt. On the other hand, subjects sitting the lexical availability task had two minutes to recall words per prompt and they had no constraint
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on the number of responses that could be produced. Hence, the constraints imposed on Lex30 with regard to the number of responses and the time to elicit the data may have put forward a rather homogeneous lexical pattern, which does not reflect any significant difference between both sub-groups. However, in the lexical availability task, as they had more time and no response restrictions, the differences between the genders were more evident, as girls produced more types and tokens than boys, and a significant difference was found between them. Therefore, we do agree with researchers (for example, Jiménez, this volume; Sunderland, 2000; Fitzpatrick, 2007) that have pointed out that a task effect may influence test results, as can be observed in our two different experiments. Word association responses were further analysed by means of Lex30. In Table 6.2, we can see its mean profile. Level zero words represent the great majority of words recalled throughout the three grades. In both subgroups we can observe a declining trend, with Level zero words decreasing steadily over the three-year period. Thus, Group A’s Level zero words tailed off from 86.57 per cent in fourth grade to 76.06 per cent in sixth grade; whereas Group B’s Level zero associations decreased from 83.5 per cent to 76.61 per cent. It can be argued that the great number
Table 6.2 Mean Lex30 Lexical Frequency Profile Following the Three-year Period Group A and Group B
Group A: Boys
Group B: Girls
(N = 225)(%)
(N = 124)(%)
(N = 101)(%)
4th Grade LEVEL 0 LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 BEYOND 2 LEX30 INDEX
85.19 4.90 1.97 7.54 9.51
86.57 4.52 1.84 7.08 8.92
83.50 5.38 2.12 8.12 10.24
5th Grade LEVEL 0 LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 BEYOND 2 LEX30 INDEX
80.80 7.01 2.73 9.40 12.12
82.98 6.15 2.52 8.28 10.81
78.12 8.07 2.97 10.76 13.73
6th Grade LEVEL 0 LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 BEYOND 2 LEX30 INDEX
76.31 8.54 3.36 11.21 14.5
76.06 8.30 3.11 11.26 14.37
76.61 8.84 3.67 11.15 14.81
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
of Level zero words – as they also include blanks – may indicate that the prompts were not suitable for our sample of testees. However, it should be noted that when taking into account our 225 subjects regardless of gender, every single stimulus word was able to elicit L2 word associations. This issue puts forward that all the cues were suitable for their level, as their L2 word association development could be plotted and compared throughout the three school years. As Kruse et al. (1987) state, Riegel et al. (1967) demonstrated that the number of blanks in a word association test could be correlated to learners’ proficiency levels. Similar findings were put forward by Jiménez and Moreno (2007), who showed that the higher the proficiency of testees, the lower the number of Level zero words elicited in the test. Thus, our present results seem to broadly follow the same tendency. We correlated the Level zero words provided by Group A and Group B (n = 225) with a different and independent measure of proficiency – the Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt et al., 2001) – and we found a positive correlation in all the grades (see Table 6.3). Hence, results seem to evince an increase in productive vocabulary size, which can be observed in the relationship between Level zero words and proficiency throughout the three school grades. With regard to the analysis of results according to the variable gender, we found a positive correlation in all the grades in both subgroups of informants, except in Group B in sixth grade (see Table 6.3). The fact that there is no correlation in sixth grade between the number of Level zero words and an independent measure of proficiency may be due to the fact that Group B’s vocabulary growth does not seem to follow the same pace as in fifth grade, as there is a slight increase of vocabulary, as has already been mentioned. Taking a closer look at the data (see Table 6.2) we can observe that both subgroups follow a similar pattern throughout the period. Thus, Table 6.3
Correlations between Level zero words and the Vocabulary Levels Test 4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade
Group A and Group B (N = 225)
r = −. 370 (p <. 001)
r = −. 535 (p <. 001)
r = −. 204 (p <. 005)
Group A: Boys (N = 124)
r = −. 460 (p <. 001)
r = −. 557 (p <. 001)
r = −. 457 (p <. 001)
Group B: Girls (N = 101)
r = −. 288 (p <. 01)
r = −. 563 (p <. 001)
r = −. 154∗
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Note: ∗ Correlation is not significant.
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as proficiency increases: (i) Level zero words decrease; and (ii) all the other levels increase (that is, Level one, Level two, Beyond two and the Lex30 index). In Table 6.2, we can see that the percentage of Level one words produced by Group A increased from 4.52 per cent in fourth grade, up to 8.3 per cent in sixth grade. The percentage of Group B’s Level one words also grew from 5.38 per cent in fourth grade, to 8.84 per cent in sixth grade. We can observe that the difference in the proportion of Level one words between the genders decreases as proficiency increases, producing a very similar percentage of Level one words at the final stage of primary education. With regard to Level two words, we can observe that the percentage produced by both subgroups of informants is lower than the one produced with Level one words (see Table 6.2). These results were expected as Level two words are more infrequent than Level one words, and therefore they imply a higher difficulty for our sample of informants to recall. Thus, we can see that Group A’s percentage of Level two words increases from 1.84 per cent in fourth grade, to 3.11 per cent in sixth grade, and Group B’s Level two words go from 2.12 per cent in fourth grade to 3.67 per cent in sixth grade. Regarding Beyond two words, what calls our attention is the fact that both subgroups of informants provide a higher percentage of this category of infrequent words than the highly frequent Level one words. Thus, the percentage of Beyond two words increases in fourth and sixth grade, from 7.08 per cent to 11.26 per cent in Group A; and from 8.12 per cent to 11.15 per cent in Group B. Our assumption is that our informants produced a great number of English words derived from Latin, which are easily recalled by test takers whose mother tongue is a Romance language, but which are considered to be infrequent by Lex30 and categorized as Beyond two words. Lex30 index also grew over the three-year period. From fourth to sixth grade, Group A’s scores ranged from 8.92 per cent to 14.37 per cent; and Group B’s went from 10.24 per cent to 14.81 per cent. Inferential statistics were used to determine whether gender produced differential effects in the productive vocabulary of our sample of informants according to Lex30 scores. However, no significant differences were found between both subgroups, despite Group B’s higher means in almost all the different bands of the test. Table 6.4 shows the classification of responses according to the four traditional classes distinguished within content words: nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. As can be seen, nouns are the most frequent word class category elicited by our subjects, followed at a great
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4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade
N (%)
ADJ (%)
V (%)
ADV (%)
N (%)
ADJ (%)
V (%)
ADV (%)
N (%)
ADJ (%)
V (%)
ADV (%)
Boys and Girls (N = 225)
82.06
8.93
8.44
0.57
79.52
8.64
10.85
0.99
79.26
8.60
11.58
0.56
Group A: Boys (N = 124)
80.24
9.31
9.66
0.79
78.93
9.38
10.59
1.10
78.59
9.21
11.83
0.37
Group B: Girls (N = 101)
84.04
8.52
7.12
0.32
80.27
7.72
11.18
0.83
79.95
7.96
11.32
0.77
Note: N = nouns; ADJ = adjectives; V = verbs; ADV = adverbs.
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Table 6.4 Mean Percentage of Associations by Class Word
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distance by verbs, adjectives and adverbs in almost all the grades. The overwhelming majority of nouns in the productive lexicon of both subgroups of young learners is in line with previous research on L2 vocabulary acquisition and development carried out within the GLAUR research group (Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008; Moreno, 2009). We believe that the distribution of the other word class categories (that is, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) in the L2 word associations of our subsamples of informants may be either due to the input our sample of informants have received in their formal instruction (Källkvist, 1999) or, as Sökmen (1993) and Fitzpatrick (2006) state, they may be influenced by the word class of the stimuli, as nouns tend to produce nouns, adjectives are prone to elicit nouns, and verbs tend to produce verbs. Hence, taking into account that a great majority of nouns are to be found within the cues, our results are not surprising, but in line with previous investigations. In this section, we see that despite the existing differences regarding the rate of vocabulary acquisition and the mean number of types and tokens and Lex30 scores, boys and girls produce a rather similar productive lexical profile throughout the three grades on the basis of Lex30 results, as no significant difference has been found. L2 word association responses Regarding our second research question, we aim to discover the patterns of association responses so as to find out similarities and/or differences at the stages of L2 vocabulary development according to gender. Hence, we have classified word association responses according to five different categories: syntagmatic, paradigmatic, clang, misunderstandings and uninterpretable associations (see Figure 6.1 for a definition of word association categories). Not only have L2 word associations been examined from a quantitative point of view, but also from a qualitative one. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations In Table 6.5, we can see that the syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations were the foremost response categories for both subgroups of informants throughout the three-year period, being syntagmatic associations the leading category. Group A elicited 41.87 per cent of syntagmatic responses in fourth grade, 43.17 per cent in fifth grade and 43.41 per cent in sixth grade; whereas Group B recalled 44.19 per cent, 44.98 per cent and 45.19 per cent respectively. These findings seem to be in line with previous studies (Söderman, 1993; Moreno, 2009)
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Group A and Group B (N = 225)(%)
Group A: Boys (N = 124)(%)
Group B: Girls (N = 101)(%)
4th Grade
SYNTAGMATIC PARADIGMATIC CLANG MISUNDERSTANDINGS UNINTERPRETABLE RESULTS
42.99 41.06 2.63 2.65 10.68
41.87 40.93 3.82 2.92 10.46
44.19 41.19 1.34 2.36 10.93
5th Grade
SYNTAGMATIC PARADIGMATIC CLANG MISUNDERSTANDINGS UNINTERPRETABLE RESULTS
43.97 39.87 1.60 4.12 10.44
43.17 40.33 2.06 3.87 10.57
44.98 39.29 1.02 4.44 10.27
6th Grade
SYNTAGMATIC PARADIGMATIC CLANG MISUNDERSTANDINGS UNINTERPRETABLE RESULTS
44.28 43.79 1.46 4.01 6.46
43.41 44.18 1.73 3.73 6.96
45.19 43.39 1.19 4.30 5.93
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Table 6.5 Mean Percentage of Responses Given by Both Groups of Informants
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which pointed to the fact that frequent cue words and low-level learners usually produce syntagmatic association responses. On closer inspection of Table 6.5, we can observe that Group B’s syntagmatic associations were followed by paradigmatic responses in all the grades. That tendency was also followed by Group A in fourth and fifth grade, but not in sixth grade, when Group A produced a slightly larger number of paradigmatic responses (44.18 per cent) than syntagmatic ones (43.41 per cent). These results are in line with previous investigations (Sökmen, 1993; Moreno, 2009) that refer to the syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift between less proficient and more proficient stages of L2 development in the mental lexicon. It seems as if the syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift might already have started for Group B in sixth grade. However, we should interpret this with caution, as it may also be due to a random fluctuation of L2 association patterns, as throughout the time, similarities rather than differential tendencies are found between the two subgroups. Thus, by having a look at the appendix, which contains the top four most frequently recalled words in each of the grades, we can see that despite a certain number of idiosyncratic responses, both subgroups of informants share a great deal of identical responses in common. For instance, with regard to the stimulus word fruit, the top three most frequent paradigmatic associations (that is, apple, orange and banana) are repeated sequentially throughout the three grades by both subgroups. Furthermore, similar L2 paradigmatic word associations (that is, tomato and vegetable) are shared by both subgroups on the basis of the prompt potato for all three years. Regarding the prompt close, the following identical responses have been called out by both subgroups throughout the three grades, the paradigmatic association open and the syntagmatic associations, door, window and book, probably influenced by the input they have received in their formal instruction, as it is very common to listen to EFL teachers making the following requests, ‘Could you open the window, please?’, ‘Could you close the door, please?’ or ‘Close your books’. Hence, we should be wary of concluding that the syntagmatic– paradigmatic shift might already have started for Group A at the end of primary education, as no significant difference has been found between both subgroups and they also share many similarities.
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Clang associations The results of clang associations displayed in Table 6.5 show that they are the least frequent of all associations, except in fourth grade when
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Group A elicited a higher number of clang responses (3.82 per cent) than misunderstandings (2.92 per cent). Different studies (Meara, 1983; Söderman, 1993; Namei, 2004) point to the fact that unfamiliar words tend to elicit clang associations. Hence, this may be the reason why our sample of subjects did not elicit a great percentage of clang responses, as the prompts were highly-frequent. We find clang responses to different prompts, for instance dirty – thirty, kick – chick, spell – sell, amongst others. These L2 responses have not been called out as a result of unfamiliar cues, but they seem to have been recalled through what is metaphorically referred as ‘the bathtub effect’, that is, associations which share similar beginnings or endings (Aitchinson, 2003). Misunderstandings With regard to misunderstandings, we can see that they slightly increase from fourth to fifth grade, and then slightly decrease from fifth to sixth grade in both subgroups of informants (see Table 6.5). Our assumption is that in fourth grade, students did not provide any response to the stimulus words they did not know. However, in fifth grade their increase in lexical knowledge led them to confuse the cues with other English words they had been exposed to. Such input may have made them provide associations based on misunderstandings, as they had not fully achieved the full knowledge of the vocabulary they were being taught. The misunderstandings our informants have elicited can be classified taking into account the following traits: – Stimulus words may have been mistaken for words that share some phonological similarity with the prompt (Meara, 1983). Thus, informants mistook hold for old. It should be taken into account that the ‘h’ is not pronounced in Spanish, therefore we assume that due to their mother tongue influence, some of our informants took for granted that hold was pronounced ‘@uld’, and they provided responses such as granddad and granny. The prompt board was mistaken for its homophone bored, and they produced responses such as sad, happy and tired. The prompt hope was mistaken for hop and they provided L2 associations such as jump, play, rope, run, skip and game. Other examples can be found with regard to the stimulus word furniture which was probably mistaken for future and triggered responses such as robot, spaceship, fortune teller, aliens and earth, as these associations are semantically linked to future but not at all, really, to furniture. Other misunderstandings were elicited by the word cloth, as informants called out responses such as as quarter, o’clock, they probably
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mistook it for the word clock. Furthermore, the prompt habit was mistaken by rabbit and subjects elicited associations as lion, animal, dog, bird, tiger and elephant, amongst others. This misunderstanding was also reported by Fitzpatrick (2006) with a different sample of subjects. It is noteworthy that all these misunderstandings were expected, because as Fitzpatrick (2006) states, the lower a learner’s proficiency level, the more likely he or she is to elicit an association by a word which is similar in form but shares no meaning with the given prompt. L2 associations can be elicited through a cognate or a false cognate in the L1. Thus, as Moreno (2009) already noted, the stimulus word real looks like a Spanish word that means ‘royal’, and therefore it is not surprising to find responses such as John Charles, the name of the Spanish king rendered into English, or Madrid, the name of a Spanish football team, that is, Real Madrid. This type of association, based on subjects’ mother tongue rather than set off by their L2, has been labelled ‘interlingual semantic assimilation triggered by formal similarity’ (Singleton, 1999:165). Uninterpretable associations Regarding uninterpretable associations, we can see that both subgroups provide a high percentage of this type of association, as it is the third type of association in the ranking out of the five possible categories (see Table 6.5). Following Fitzpatrick (2006), who stated that L2 word associations may be related to learners’ own experience and therefore particular to each subject, our assumption is that all those words which seem to be uninterpretable for an adult researcher, do actually show some kind of link to the stimulus words, and they are opening a window into their L2 lexicon and their world, which we – as adults – are unable to interpret. According to Ojeda and Jiménez (2007), a better understanding of the world children inhabit through their choice and use of words can ‘help educators in the choice and design of pedagogical strategies and educational materials for the teaching of second languages’ (2007:162). Hence, had a think-aloud protocol been carried out, the percentage of such associations might have been almost non-existent, as we would have referred back to testees for elucidation (Fitzpatrick, 2006). For instance, both subgroups of informants provided a wide range of idiosyncratic L2 responses to the stimulus word disease, whose relationship was deemed to be uninterpretable by the researcher (see appendix).
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
However, it called to our attention the recurrent triggering of responses such as lamp, Aladdin, genius and magic by boys throughout those years (despite not being found within the most frequent words). All these responses share some semantic link in common; unfortunately, we have been unable to figure out which is the existing relationship between the stimulus word and these L2 word associations. It should be noted that as members of our sample of informants get older, uninterpretable associations decrease. This may indicate that as they become more mature, adults are more able to understand the links between the words they have used. Thus, we take into account our second research question, which aims at discovering similarities and/or differences in the patterns of L2 associations according to gender. Our findings seem to suggest that the L2 association responses put forward by our sample of informants mainly follow the same pattern in fourth and fifth grade, but in sixth grade, boys start to produce a different pattern, as they provide slightly more paradigmatic than syntagmatic associations. Hence, they have followed the same stages of L2 vocabulary development in fourth and fifth grade, which also permeates through the wide number of responses that informants share in common. With regard to the third research question, which addresses the issue of whether the similarities and/or differences found between both subgroups of testees, change or remain stable as their proficiency increases, results suggest that they seem to change as students’ proficiency increases, as boys enrolled in sixth grade seem to be in the incipient stages of the syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift, although we should be cautious with this possible interpretation. As regards our fourth research question, we aim to ascertain whether any developmental pattern of gender identity is shown by the L2 word associations made by each sex throughout time. In a study carried out by Ojeda and Jiménez (2007), in which they analysed words that could reflect politeness, they did not find any noteworthy gender identity difference in regard to the L2 productive vocabulary recalled by a group of male and female learners enrolled in fourth grade of primary education and neither do we in their L2 word associations in fourth grade. However, what does call our attention is the presence (despite infrequent) of swearwords or impolite language that seems to characterize some of the L2 word associations put forward by pre-pubescent boys in regard to the prompt stupid in fifth and sixth grade. This seems to be in line with boys’ greater use of humour in compositions than girls’, as
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reported by Ojeda in this volume. Thus, although both subgroups can use swearwords in their speech, it seems as if only boys dared to use them in written speech as part of a writing task. Hence, in fifth grade they put forward sissy and prostitute and in sixth grade they elicited even stronger responses such as whore, son of a bitch and son of a prostitute. We cannot really know if girls knew the words but they did not dare to use them, or they just simply did not know those English words, which definitely are not taught in the English classroom. It is boys who may probably have become autonomous learners by looking them up to satisfy their curiosity. With regard to the prompt attack, boys seem to provide a larger number of types, probably because they are used to playing computer war games. Amongst their L2 associations, we would like to highlight several responses which are unique to their group and have not been put forward by girls such as: pistol, explosives, grenade, weapon, punch, offensive, tank, conquest, destroy, terrorist, gladiator, strategy and tribe. All these responses denote the strong relationship between boys and war games. Somehow boys are pulled to the violence of war play through war toys and video games. Hence, it is quite normal to see a group of boys playing with toy soldiers, castles and guns, while it would not be so common to see a group of girls in the same situation, probably due to the different stereotypical roles that society imposes on boys and girls. Boys also elicit some adjectives which are unique to their group to denote their feelings and attitudes. Thus, whereas the stimulus word attack triggers derogative adjectives including silly, stupid and dangerous, shared by boys and girls in common, it is drawn to our attention that it is boys who also put forward positive adjectives such as good and very good, which are not elicited by girls. Furthermore, we would like to highlight the fact that the L2 associations elicited by both subgroups of informants on the basis of the prompt attack can be grouped into a wide range of semantic fields such as: (a) sports (for example, match, football, basketball, judo); (b) crime and terrorism (for example, war, sword, bomb, ETA, invasion, Irak); (c) wild animals (for example, lion, elephant, tiger); (d) outer space (for example, alien, UFO, Mars, galaxy); and (e) TV programmes (for example, draw, art, ball pen, crayon, pencil, paint). The relationship between attack and the last group of responses may be based on the British children’s television series Art Attack, which is also broadcast in Spain and shows children how to produce works of art step by step.
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Soraya Moreno Espinosa
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Leaving aside the use of impolite language, and the associations put forward by the stimulus word attack, similarities rather than differential tendencies are revealed by the L2 word associations put forward, which enable us to depict the environment that surrounds their everyday life. Thus, their world seems to be influenced by television, games and L1 culture, regardless of their gender. The influence of the audiovisual media is also reflected in the responses elicited by the prompt television, which can be grouped into three main domains: (i) Stereotypical responses used as watch, programme, cartoon and film; (ii) Video game trademarks such as playstation or gameboy, which reflect the activities that informants, regardless of their gender, love doing in their free time; and (iii) The name of specific programmes namely: The Simpsons or Spanish serials broadcast on television at the time, rendered by children into English such as Anne and the Seven, Paco’s Men and The Serrano (that is, Ana y los siete, Los hombres de Paco and Los Serrano). In addition, it is also worth noting the associations that put forward some of the cultural and sociolinguistic aspects of their environment. Thus, it is revealing that the primary response to the cue map by both subgroups of informants throughout the three-year period is Spain. Had our sample of informants been living in other European countries, they would probably have elicited the name of the country where they lived. Furthermore, the influence of L1 culture can also be seen when they elicit the response ETA to the prompt attack, as it is a Spanish terrorist group. Thus, we have seen that although some L2 word associations have brought to light some stereotypical patterns of gender identity, taking everything into account boys and girls seem to share more similarities than they have differential tendencies in common.
Conclusion The results reported in this chapter are in the line of investigations that point to a lack of significant differences between male and female L2 learners as far as vocabulary in foreign languages is concerned (Agustín, this volume; Grace, 2000; Yazdanpanah, 2007; Agustín and Gallego, 2008). Thus, our findings suggest that although girls provided higher means with regard to the number of types and tokens and also, on the basis of Lex30 scores throughout the three-year period, their productive vocabulary is rather similar to that of boys, as results from different chi-square tests attest.
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With regard to the categorization of the words into frequency of occurrence, we have observed that the slight difference in the percentage of words used by each gender decreases as proficiency increases, producing in both genders a very similar percentage of words and of Lex30 scores at the final stage of primary education. We have also addressed the issue of whether female and male primary school students showed a similar or different L2 association pattern throughout the time and whether there was any change as their proficiency level increased. In fourth and fifth grade both subgroups of informants elicited a similar pattern by triggering more syntagmatic than paradigmatic responses and very few clang responses. These findings are in line with previous investigations (Sökmen, 1993; Moreno, 2009) which refer to the syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift when lexical knowledge increases. In sixth grade, it seems as if boys were only in the early stages of that shift, because they elicited but a slightly higher number of paradigmatic than syntagmatic responses, whereas that change is not found in girls. However, a clear syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift cannot be established in regard to boys, as it is evident that the differences between groups were not found to be of significant value. The L2 word associations elicited by our sample of informants also point to the depth of their receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge, as can be seen by the wide range of semantic fields put forward by the stimulus word attack and the ones elicited by other words as spell, in which most of the informants recalled associations related to its meaning as ‘to form a word or words with its letters in the correct order’, and just a few of them elicited words related to its meaning as ‘a piece of magic’. Thus, the L2 word associations reported in this chapter indicate that not only similarities but also some differential tendencies are found between boys and girls. Although L2 learners provide idiosyncratic responses (Meara, 1983; Read, 1993), they share some of the most frequent ones in common, evincing that the world children inhabit is highly influenced by television, and cannot be studied in isolation from their L1 culture, as some of the responses they have elicited are culturally-bound. Our findings also suggest that the gender variable may have affected some L2 associations. Furthermore, our analysis of L2 word associations has revealed the influence of their formal instruction as it is somehow reflected in some responses. This finding is in line with our previous investigation
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
(Moreno, 2009), in which we demonstrated that the type of instruction had a bearing on the type of L2 associations recalled. The misunderstandings put forward by our sample of informants provide support for the view that new L2 vocabulary is not structured from scratch (Wolter, 2006). This finding has some implications for foreign language teaching. If teachers know learners’ deficiencies, they will be better able to help them in their learning process. Thus, by taking into account Nation’s (2001) dimensions of what it means to know a word, we have observed that our sample of L2 young learners have not fully acquired the written knowledge of some words as, for instance, some informants have confused hold and old. Therefore, EFL teachers should devise learning strategies to help them cope with this type of weaknesses that young L2 learners may have, when learning new vocabulary. Further research should be carried out, since boys’ and girls’ patterns of association deserve further consideration at different proficiency levels to ascertain whether significant differences between the genders are found in a different association task. Thus, we should measure boys’ word associations at later learning stages, to see if the shift has actually taken place and we should also use a different word association task, to ascertain whether there is a task effect acting on L2 word associations as has been shown in studies on test effect on males’ and females’ language performance.
Acknowledgements The research reported here has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology and FEDER (BFF2003-04009-C02-02, HUM2006-09775-C02-02). This grant is hereby gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank Prof Paul Meara and Dr Tess Fitzpatrick for their generosity in providing us with Lex30 v2.1 before this needed instrument was posted on the net. We highly appreciate their invaluable assistance in clarifying our questions when dealing with this electronic tool, and their honesty in warning us about the Lex30 not being a properly validated experimental tool. However, as Meara and Fitzpatrick (2000: 28) concluded that it ‘might be used alongside with other tests as part of a vocabulary test battery’, we thought it might be worthwhile to explore its potential to uncover word associations in EFL learners and used it as part of a larger battery of tests to analyse L2 vocabulary development of young learners from a longitudinal perspective. Any error in the use of this instrument is only our responsibility.
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Appendix
PROMPT
GROUP A (BOYS)
GROUP B (GIRLS)
ATTACK BOARD
Animal, crayon, elephant, fire Blackboard, car, water, plane
CLOSE CLOTH
Defence, animals, football, gun Blackboard, cupboard, car, skateboard Open, door, window, cupboard T-shirt, jumper, jeans, jacket
DIG DIRTY
Small, pig, close, do Clean, camp, new, old
DISEASE EXPERIENCE FRUIT
Birthday, cat, bear, car Football, climb, play, read Apple, orange, banana, strawberry Robot, chair, wardrobe, big House, animal, lion, hobbit Cold, granddad, granny, hot Jump, door, fridge, run
FURNITURE HABIT HOLD HOPE KICK MAP OBEY POT POTATO REAL REST RICE
Kitchen, football, chick, princess Spain, Spanish, book, mountain Disobey, burger, fat, boy Flower, popcorn, rose, ant Tomato, vegetable, banana, carrot King, fantasy, false, euro
SCIENCE SEAT SPELL
Point, sum, sit-down, sleep Spaghetti, meatballs, salad, tomato sauce Maths, English, music, gym Car, maths, chair, stand Letter, speak, play, smell
SUBSTANCE
Water, science, big, bone
STUPID TELEVISION TOOTH TRADE WINDOW
Silly, clever, idiot, sister Cartoon, programme, TV, radio Teeth, mouth, tongue, eyes Card, late, like, love Door, close, chair, open
Door, open, window, book T-shirt, jumper, trousers, jacket Small, horse, food, game Clean, thirty, number, beautiful Get, chocolate, fruit Science, book, excellent, good Apple, banana, orange, strawberry Apple, dinner, lemon, play Window, rabbit, animal, bed Big, small, sun, cold Cupboard, door, window, mountain Run, cook, kitchen, castle Spain, river, mountain, city No words recalled Flower, potato, flowerpot, fish Tomato, salad, vegetable, carrot Princess, dragon, football, king Book, more, people, orange Meatball, tomato, spaghetti, soup Maths, music, art, gym Table, chair, stand-up, bed Letter, alphabet, speak, spelling Water, mountain, river, science Silly, clever, idiot, tall TV, programme, cartoon, sofa Mouth, teeth, head, lip No words recalled Door, table, close, chair
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Table A.1 Fourth Grade: Top most frequent word association responses
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PROMPT
GROUP A (BOYS)
GROUP B (GIRLS)
ATTACK BOARD
Defence, kill, gun, arm Snow, skateboard, snowboard, cupboard Open, door, window, book Trousers, t-shirt, jumper, shirt Small, mole, dog, pig.
Pencil, defence, kill, art Car, sea, cupboard, plane
CLOSE CLOTH DIG DIRTY DISEASE EXPERIENCE
Clean, pig, beautiful, ugly Beautiful, bicycle, car, ice-cream. Science, run, adventure, doctor
FRUIT FURNITURE HABIT HOLD HOPE KICK MAP OBEY
Apple, banana, orange, pear Bed, money, rich, present House, football, city, kitchen New, hot, hotel, cold Jump, hop, play, rope Run, ball, kitchen, kite Spain, island, treasure, England Fat, tall, thin, basketball
POT POTATO
Pet, cook, flower, kitchen Tomato, vegetable, chips, salad
REAL
King, prince, queen, Madrid
REST
Sleep, dead, fingerprint, maths
RICE SCIENCE SEAT SPELL SUBSTANCE
Spaghetti, tomato, food, salad Maths, music, gym, art Car, chair, sit-down, sofa Speak, letter, say, write Water, mineral, explosive, experiment Silly, clever, idiot, intelligent Programme, cartoon, TV, radio Teeth, mouth, brush, head Trading, give, park, sunny Door, close, open, table
STUPID TELEVISION TOOTH TRADE WINDOW
Door, window, open, book T-shirt, trousers, skirt, jumper Crocodrile, elephant, do, detective Clean, hat, fat, water Chips, ketchup, knife, like Science, experiment, good, adventure Apple, banana, orange, pear House, money, game, robot House, dog, read, animal Cold, sun, hot, sunny Jump, game, run, skip Quickly, slow, attack, ball Spain, England, city, sea Basketball, football, people, tennis Knife, saucepan, spoon, pet Tomato, vegetable, carrot, lettuce King, prince, fantasy, academy Animals, classroom, exam, sleep Tomato, food, eat, spaghetti Maths, English, music, art Chair, stand, lion, door Letter, speak, say, alphabet Water, scientist, acid, mineral Silly, idiot, intelligent, crazy Programme, cartoon, film, TV Mouth, teeth, arm, ear Mouth, tongue, chair, class Door, close, open, table
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Table A.2 Fifth Grade: Top four most frequent word association responses
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PROMPT
GROUP A (BOYS)
GROUP B (GIRLS)
ATTACK BOARD
Defence, kill, art, gun Skateboard, snowboard, blackboard, skate Open, door, window, shop T-shirt, trousers, jumper, shirt Dug, hole, dog, earth Clean, beautiful, water, pig Want, cake, cook, dog
Kill, war, art, lion Blackboard, skateboard, cupboard, car Open, door, window, book Trousers, t-shirt, skirt, jumper Dog, small, animal, cat Clean, cloth, water, car. Bed, blackboard, difficult, exam Good, teacher, football, bad
CLOSE CLOTH DIG DIRTY DISEASE EXPERIENCE
HABIT
Adventure, teacher, experiment, Maths Apple, orange, banana, pear Wardrobe, cupboard, table, spaceship House, city, home, hotel
HOLD HOPE KICK MAP OBEY POT
Big, wind, torch, table Jump, walk, rope, skipping Ball, run, person, tin Spain, treasure, city, country Fat, thin, disobey, basketball Flower, coffee, kitchen, put
POTATO
SEAT SPELL SUBSTANCE
Tomato, vegetable, chips, carrot King, queen, Madrid, prince Time, fish, division, minimum Tomato, spaghetti, food, fish Maths, English, language, music Chair, car, sofa, table Speak, word, spelt, talk Water, milk, juice, chemical
STUPID TELEVISION TOOTH TRADE
Silly, idiot, intelligent, clever Programme, cartoon, TV, sport Mouth, teeth, hair, nose Center, money, change, world
WINDOW
Door, close, open, table
FRUIT FURNITURE
REAL REST RICE SCIENCE
Apple, orange, banana, pear Chair, table, cupboard, sofa House, inhabitant, animal, bathroom House, cold, flag, torch Jump, dance, fast, rope Leg, ball, ill, attack Spain, England, city, country Fat, football, got, disobey Kitchen, yogurt, flowerpot, flower Tomato, vegetable, carrot, chips King, queen, princess, prince Maths, solution, stop, class Spaghetti, food, tomato, eat Maths, music, art, English Chair, car, stand, lion English, letter, word, Spanish Water, science, chemical, danger Silly, intelligent, boy, peopl Programme, film, watch, TV Teeth, mouth, arm, nose Center, early, morning, mountain Door, open, close, table
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Table A.3 Sixth Grade: Top four most frequent word association responses
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Gender Tendencies in Lexical Acquisition and Use
Agustín Llach, M. P. and Terrazas Gallego, M. (2008) ‘Gender differences in receptive vocabulary size in EFL primary school learners: A longitudinal study’, Paper presented at XXXII AEDEAN Conference, Palma de Mallorca, 13–15 November. Aitchinson, J. (2003) Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Clenton. J. (2005) ‘Why Lex30 may not be an improved method of assessing productive vocabulary in an L2’, Studies in Language and Culture, 31, 47–59. Fitzpatrick, T. (2000) ‘Using word association techniques to measure productive vocabulary in a second language’, Language Testing Update, 32, 68–71. Fitzpatrick, T. (2006) ‘Habbits and rabbits: Word associations and the L2 lexicon’, in EUROSLA Yearbook. Foster-Cohen, S. H., Medved Krajnovic, M. and Mihaljevi´c Djigunovi´c, J. (eds) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 6, 121–145. Fitzpatrick, T. (2007a) ‘Word association patterns: unpacking the assumptions’, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17, 3, 319–331. Fitzpatrick, T. (2007b) ‘Lex30’, Paper delivered in the Seminar ‘Assessment of the teaching and learning of vocabulary in foreign languages’ held at University of La Rioja, 3 May 2007. Grace, C. (2000) ‘Gender differences: Vocabulary retention and access to translations for beginning language learners in CALL’, The Modern Language Journal, 84, 2, 214–224. Jiménez Catalán, R. and Moreno Espinosa, S. (2004) ‘L2 word associations and the variable sex: An outline according to an electronic tool’, in Proceedings of the 27th International AEDEAN Conference. Celada, A. R., Pastor García, D. and Pardo García, P. J. (eds) Salamanca: Editorial Ambos Mundos. Jiménez Catalán, R. and Moreno Espinosa, S. (2005) ‘Using Lex30 to measure the L2 productive vocabulary of Spanish primary learners of EFL’, Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics (VIAL), 2, 27–44. Jiménez Catalán, R. and Moreno Espinosa, S. (2007) ‘Lex30: Vocabulary development of primary school learners in a three-year longitudinal study’, Paper presented at ELIA X Conference, University of Seville. Jiménez Catalán, R. and Ojeda Alba, J. (2008) ‘The English vocabulary of girls and boys: similarities or differences? Evidence from a corpus based study’, in Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Gender and Language Study. Harrington, K., Litosseliti, L., Sauton, H. and Sunderland, J. (eds) London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jiménez, R. M. and Terrazas, M. (2005–2008) ‘The receptive vocabulary of English foreign language young learners: Data from Spanish primary schools’, Language Testing. JES, 5–6, 173–191. Källkvist, M. (1999) Form-Class and Task-Type Effects in Learner English: A study of Advanced Swedish Learners. Lund: Lund University Press. Kruse, H. Pankhurst, J. and Sharwood Smith, M. (1987) ‘A multiple word association probe in second language acquisition research’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 9, 141–154. Maréchal, C. (1995) Study of French and English word association responses of advanced learners of French.The bilingual lexicon Dissertation: Unpublished M. Phil. University of Dublin.
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References
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Meara, P. (1983) ‘Word association in a foreign language: A report on the Birkbeck vocabulary project’, Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 11, 2, 29–38. Meara, P. and Fitzpatrick, T. (2000) ‘Lex30: An improved method of assessing productive vocabulary in an L2’, System, 28, 19–30. Moreno Espinosa, S. (2009) ‘Young Learners’ L2 word association responses in two different learning contexts’, in Content and Language Integrated Learning in Europe. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. and Jiménez Catalán, R. (eds) Bristol, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 93–111. Namei, S. (2004) ‘Bilingual lexical development: A Persian–Swedish word association study’, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 3, 363–388. Nation, I. S. P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ojeda Alba, J. and Jiménez Catalán, R. (2007) ‘The worlds children’s words build’, Didáctica (Lengua y Literatura), 19, 155–172. Read, J. (1993) ‘The development of a new measure of L2 vocabulary knowledge’, Language Testing, 10, 355–371. Richards, J. (1976) ‘The role of vocabulary teaching’, TESOL Quarterly, 10, 1, 77–89. Riegel, K.F., Ramsey, R. M. and Riegel, R. M (1967) ‘A comparison of the first and second languages of American and Spanish students’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 3, 536–544. Schmitt, N. (1998) ‘Quantifying word association responses: What is native-like?’, System, 26, 389–401. Schmitt, N., Schmitt, D. and Clapham, C. (2001) ‘Developing and exploring the behaviour of two new versions of the Vocabulary Levels Test’, Language Testing, 18, 1, 55–88. Singleton, D. (1999) Exploring the Second Language Mental Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Söderman, T. (1993) ‘Word associations of foreign language learners and native speakers – different response types and their relevance to lexical development’, in Problems, Process and Product in Language Learning. B. Hammarberg (ed.) Abo: AfinLA, 157–169. Sökmen, A. J. (1993) ‘Word association results: a window to the lexicons of ESL students’, JALT Journal, 15, 2, 135–150. Sunderland, J. (2000) ‘Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education’, Language Teaching: The International Abstracting Journal for Language Teachers, Educators and Researchers, special feature, 203–223. Wilks, C. and Meara, P. (2002) ‘Untangling word webs: graph theory and the notion of density in second language word association networks’, Second Language Research, 18, 303–324. Wilks, C., Meara, P. and Wolter, B. (2005) ‘A further note on simulating word association behaviour in a second language’, Second Language Research, 21, 4, 359–372. Wolter, B. (2002) ‘Assessing proficiency through word associations: Is there still hope?’, System, 30, 3, 315–329. Wolter, B. (2006) ‘Lexical network structures and L2 vocabulary acquisition: The role of L1 lexical/conceptual knowledge’, Applied Linguistics, 27, 4, 741–747. Yazdanpanah, K. (2007) ‘The effect of background knowledge and reading comprehension test items on male and female performance’, The Reading Matrix, 7, 2, 64–80.
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Soraya Moreno Espinosa
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Gendered Words: Representation and Identities
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Part II
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
A Case Study of Mrs Smith’s Words and Her Quiet Girls Allyson Jule
Introduction For one year, I sat in on morning classes at a unique Canadian elementary school: an all Punjabi-Sikh private school. Here, all the students shared their Punjabi-Sikh heritage. Only a handful of such specifically heritage schools exist in Canada; all are sponsored and run by the immigrant communities, and all are protected by Canadian education law and policy concerning cultural accommodation in a deeply pluralist and diverse country. Whilst advocates for such heritage instruction have been long-standing and numerous (see Toohey, 1996a, b and Cummins, 2000), Canada has had very little reported research experience with culturally specific schools other than French or English (in Quebec). The main objective of schools like this Punjabi-Sikh one is to preserve the cultural heritage of the immigrant parents. As such, all students in Mrs Smith’s grade two classroom were Punjabi-speaking and all were of the Sikh faith. All were Canadian by birth, spoke Punjabi fluently as their first language and were emergent English speakers through their experiences with the larger English speaking world around them and through the language of the school – English as the language of instruction. Mrs Smith herself was a white Anglophone Canadian and spoke no Punjabi. In this way, she was unique because the other teachers in the school were Punjabi-speaking, as were the temple leaders who oversaw the morning worship before classes began each day. The hallways of the school (also part of the Sikh temple) were filled with portraits of the ten gurus of Sikhism and other holy Sikh shrines. The temple dining hall served as a very dynamic school cafeteria during the lunch hour because of its being the central focus of the larger community. Punjabi-Sikh
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community members and family members were all welcome for a daily meal service. Occasionally a grandmother or a visiting uncle joined the class or were seated at a neighbouring table in a casual, friendly manner. Within the classroom itself, the classroom displays looked much like other primary school classroom, with colourful board displays, a reading corner, Maths corner and so on. The few high windows of the classroom looked into the temple walls and between it and the temple there was a pathway. The room was filled with English children’s books. Various classroom projects were posted on the many bulletin boards. Also, building block toys and a playhouse area were in the room and each day the room seemed to buzz with activity. There were also marginally more boys than girls (11:9). All the students had known each other their whole young lives because of the way the temple served as a community focus for their parents and extended families. Their mothers and fathers were close friends and associates. Throughout the school day, the students’ cultural and immigrant identity and cultural sense of belonging were being reinforced by the community members around them and around the temple: this was a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant community. Because of this culturally specific environment of relative cultural unity, the English language-learning experiences were unique, in contrast to mainstream Canadian schools where there exists more linguistic and cultural diversity. In this way, the classroom was both an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom as well as an ESL one (ESL often referring to the learning of English within more assimilationist environments).
Research methods within the classroom I cannot claim that my analysis of the words used in relation to gender identity in this language classroom can present an all-embracing picture of the girls’ fuller lives outside the classroom. It is not possible to respond to the enormous complexity surrounding the construction of a gendered identity that comes from society at large, from the media and from family dynamics or individual temperament or psychology. The particular focus on classroom language here excludes their language experiences elsewhere, such as at home or with neighbourhood friends. As such, the focus here is on describing, understanding and analysing the construction of silence and the impact a teacher’s spoken words on gendered behaviour in a language-learning classroom. Because of the tremendous amount of talk that children encounter on a daily basis, and the ways in which talk may be encouraging of or antagonistic toward
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their participation, an analysis of the teacher’s words is one important means of exploring gender in language learning experiences (Bell et al., 1993; Carspecken, 1996). Cameron (2001) identifies ‘ethnography of speaking’ as using ‘situations and events’ and a particular methodology of participant observation. When I, the researcher, use the role of a participant observer, I am saying that I was immersed in the everyday life of this community, as well as remaining outside, trying to understand it, trying to respond to the question: how do words contribute to the girls’ silence in this unique language classroom? Segments of twelve literacy lesson times were isolated and analysed in a stratified random sample so that similar lessons of teacher-led discussions were selected. These monthly samples were chosen so as to scan the experiences throughout the school year. As such, I pulled out similar-type 12 segments from the video transcripts and counted the word tokens of teacher-talk and student-talk for 30 minutes of lesson time and measured for percentages of linguistic space. Within studenttalk, I counted word tokens of both boy-talk and girl-talk to focus on the amount of linguistic participation of the seven year old girls in these classroom moments. Following from such analysis, I looked at the type of ‘speech acts’ to gain a sense of linguistic context (Searle, 1969). (Such analysis is further explored in Jule, 2004.) Because the girls ultimately spoke so rarely, these sections of the data were obvious and any researcher would have noticed a similar quiet habit among the girls. I believe that these girls lived in a unique classroom, different than that of ESL girls attending public, mainstream schools. But I also wanted to know if teacher promptings (or lack of them) mattered. Their classroom experiences were closely related to their position within a particular ethnic community and the fact that all their classmates shared their cultural heritage. In this regard, they had much in common to position them into certain and shared gendered performances during classroom lessons. But to say that they were quiet because such silence was a cultural value discounts the power of the teacher to reinforce this silence.
Linguistic space: The girls as silent
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The teacher-talk which surrounded the students in their language classroom was an integral part of their classroom experience and, therefore, a central element in their learning of English. That Mrs Smith’s students were in a language classroom to learn to speak English problematizes
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the lack of speech production, particularly on the part of the girls in this context, making their silence both ironic and upsetting. If these nine girls were in an ESL classroom, why were they rarely speaking? Mrs Smith expressed her views about teaching, ethnicity and gender in an hour-long interview with me at the end of the school year. She also revealed her views in the conversations with her students, as evidenced in what she said to the girls. I seek here to track the particular currents at work in this classroom and the meanings which informed and drove the learning climate and the performance of silence among the girls. Mrs Smith had been a qualified teacher for eight years at the time of the study. Mrs Smith did not have any specific preparation in her teacher training for teaching ESL, though she said that she saw her role as uniquely involved with the language learning for this group of children, supported by a wide range of institutional and curricular goals, particularly concerning phonics. In each of the ten segments of teacherled classroom time used for measurement of linguistic space, Mrs Smith used 89.4 per cent of the linguistic space – the girls spoke for roughly 2 per cent (in most classes, they said nothing at all). This lack of linguistic space for students in general supports Flanders (1970) observations that nearly ‘two-thirds’ of classroom-talk is done by the teacher: Mrs Smith talked more than this. My findings also relate to the (slightly) greater use of linguistic space used by boys in comparison to the girls – a 9:1 ratio (differences also found in the earlier work of Soskin and John, 1963; Stubbs, 1976; Mahony, 1985; Graddol and Swann, 1989). The full-class discussions or lessons in this language classroom regularly involved Mrs Smith talking to the class or interactions of Mrs Smith with her male students; the girls appeared most often as observers of the classroom-talk. The discrepancy in the amount of talk used by boys over girls over the full school year may alert ESL teachers to gender as an important variable in language production in language learning classrooms. Also, perhaps the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) method is not as effective a method for girls concerning speaking out in mixed classes (Nunan, 1987; Thornborrow, 2002). Of the students’ speech events, 9.5 word tokens on average were spoken at one time, and only the boys had such a duration – though all student contributions were of lower-order-only responding to teacher-directed promptings. Girls only reached an average of a 5.5 word response, though one girl said a full ten words at one time. Such counting follows the educational research trend to pay attention to such identifiers of participation (Meara et al., 1997). From counting the words, hence capturing the silence, it seems clear that the linguistic production on the part of all the children is
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minimal with the girls in particular as almost non-existent in their own classroom lessons. It would have been clear to anyone watching that the conversations in this classroom were dominated primarily by Mrs Smith and, secondarily, by the boys. In fact, in the first ten minutes of the data, one girl spoke only four times to the 22 contributions made by several boys in the class. This imbalance was consistent throughout the data. The lack of linguistic space remained a constant.
Speech acts I counted each word token spoken by each participant and then organized these utterances into classifications of what Searle (1969) and Cameron (2001) called ‘speech acts’. The categories in the breakdown of language used in this classroom come from a combination of Searle’s and Cameron’s work. In this, I am following an ethnography of speaking model (Cameron, 2001) to organize the types of speech acts relevant to this particular classroom setting (that is, I have used some of my own categories that seem best able to match with the classroom discussions), see Table 7.1 and 7.2. The most frequently used speech act by Mrs Smith was questioning (79 occurrences). She generally directed her questions to the class as a whole (67 times), then to the boys (11 times) and only once directly to a girl. She often repeated a student’s comment as recognition of their contribution (a total of 59 times). This was most often done in response
Table 7.1 Teacher Speech Acts Speech act Question Repetition of a student’s comment Explanation Negative response to a question Instruction/guidance Positive response Direct order Ignoring student’s comment Criticism Praise/reinforcement General comment Story-telling
To the class
To a boy
To a girl
Total
67 10 32 7 28 5 1 0 0 1 3 2
11 44 1 20 0 14 10 10 8 3 0 0
1 5 0 4 0 5 2 2 2 0 0 0
79 59 33 31 28 24 13 12 10 4 3 2
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Gendered Words: Representation and Identities Table 7.2
Student Speech Acts
Speech act Response to a question Uninitiated comment Question to teacher Storytelling
Group
Boys
Girls
Total
15 0 0 0
57 21 1 1
8 3 1 0
80 24 2 1
to a boy’s comment (44 times) while only a few times to a girl (five times). The teacher also used explanation and instruction in her talk, followed closely by negative or positive comments (negative responses: 31; positive: 24). Of her responses, most were directed to boys (24 times) over girls (only nine times) or 2.5:1. Negative comments were directed to boys more often than to girls (20:4 or 5:1) as were positive comments (14:5 or almost 3:1). Mrs Smith offered praise four times: once to the whole class and three times to a boy. There was no speech act of praise given to a girl. The students’ speech acts were usually responses to Mrs Smith’s questions – this teacher IRF strategy matches Thornborrow’s (2002) study of common teacher practice. However, the boys were the usual and consistent responders to such a method. The boys called out answers (21 such acts in boys to only three in girls, 7:1). Only two questions originated with the students themselves – one from a boy and one from a girl. There was one speech act of a student sharing information and this was a boy’s. It was only in the smaller activity groups that one can get a sense of the girls’ speech at all. The girls’ speech production was primarily located in one-to-one peer interactions and rarely did these one-to-one conversations involve the teacher.
Teacher-talk Much of what Mrs Smith herself said suggested that her view of her students’ ethnic identity was somewhat limited regarding immigration and the complex reality of the immigrant experience. She said, ‘They have to live here because they know it’s better,’ perhaps implying that Canada provides the Punjabi immigrants with a ‘better’ life from one possibly experienced in India. But she also adds the instruction to ‘them’ that they need to ‘obey rules’ (implying that ‘they’ do not obey rules):
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Allyson: Do you think they see themselves as Canadians or . . .? Mrs Smith: I’m not sure because it’s hard to tell at this age. Uhm, as people they take the best of everything which is what we do and so I don’t know how that really works, for some, they still hold onto India. They have to live here because they know it’s better but I think they still hold on tightly without adapting a little bit so that they can enjoy it. And I’m not saying give up that, I’m saying adapt with that. Don’t lose that! Keep your traditions, keep your celebrations, keep your history and whatever, but add on some of the nice things, and obey rules and things that are made for the safety of all. (Teacher interview) Further evidence of the teacher’s views of ethnicity follow, particularly her claim that future employers (presumably ‘white’ Canadians) may not be satisfied with Punjabi employees because they are not ‘smart’: Mrs Smith: Language arts is the main thing that has to be taught. And I will give up other things to get that done. They have to be able to read and write English in order to get jobs, in order to survive in the future. It is a life skill they must have if they’re going to live in Canada. So that is my educational priority, they have to speak it, they have to read it, they have to write it. And I’m forever telling them you know, when you say that it makes you look stupid when you’re not. You have to say it properly you have to say it, you know. And with enough confidence that people will believe you. Because your employer will say, ‘yeah right! I want him!’ And I say, you’re just as smart as everybody else, you have as much chance but you have to think and say things that are showing that that’s smart and that’s something this whole group is really bad at, as a group. They will say, like I will say, ‘okay, we’re going swimming, you need a bathing suit and a towel and a bathing suit and we’re going to the pool and we’re going to have waves.’ Three kids will put up their hand and say, ‘where are we going Mrs Smith?’ That’s not smart. (Teacher interview)
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Mrs Smith’s statement, ‘I’m forever telling them you know, when you say that it makes you look stupid when you’re not’ may suggest that she understands social racism and seeks to make her students aware of what they may face in future situations – situations not as
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homogeneous as their classroom. She may also hold to an assimilationist view that the Punjabi language is a negative element, a feature that needs to be masked or hidden away from mainstream ‘Canadian’ culture so that an ‘employer’ (a white Canadian, perhaps) would not view these Punjabi children as ‘stupid’ if overheard speaking Punjabi or speaking English incorrectly. Perhaps Mrs Smith says this because she acknowledges that society views the Punjabis as marginalized, less important, less significant, less valuable than other ‘Canadians’, She says, ‘That’s something this whole group is really bad at, as a group.’ She goes on to say that ‘they’ don’t listen well or remember things; ultimately, she says, ‘that’s not smart.’ (Teacher interview) Perhaps Mrs Smith is trying to help her Punjabi students. Mrs Smith also expressed strong opinions about the girls, Davinderjeet in particular, explicitly saying that Davinderjeet’s family was ‘dysfunctional’, that Davinderjeet was not encouraged or guided or led or supported by them. Mrs Smith highlighted Davinderjeet’s new earrings and dress, while at the same time she did not recognize that such gifts were most likely from her ‘dysfunctional’ family. Why did Mrs Smith see herself as a savior of sorts to Davinderjeet, that Davinderjeet was ‘rock bottom’ and needing saving? Mrs Smith displayed knowledge and understanding of Davinderjeet’s background but did appear to encourage her and praise her. The following transcription reveals these competing views: Allyson: Tell me about Davinderjeet. Mrs Smith: Davinderjeet, basically I would tell you I would like to take her home and basically spend some time and whatever spoiling her and loving her and whatever. She has a family that’s dysfunctional. Mother is working hard but Davinderjeet has excuses why she can’t do this, that and the other. She is not encouraged, she is not guided, she is not led and supported. So therefore she hasn’t learned responsibility, she hasn’t learned how to get things put in a . . . I don’t know how you put it. Now, I told you she got new earrings, wore a dress, I praised her and spoiled her for this because it shows a feminine thing which she wasn’t allowed to have. She has a brother who’s a behavior problem, caused a lot of problems for the school, running with some other boys who were a bad influence and he had to be on discipline all day every day. And she’s running that with no sort of catch up – no praise for her to be different, no encouragement for
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her to be different – to be more academic, to be better, and whatever. So I have mainly encouraged her to be a little girl, encouraged her to be responsible, encouraged her to show pride in what she does, not to just drag around and let everything happen. Academically, extremely low when she came, very rock bottom when she came – no reading, no understanding. She has no background in that kind of stuff, I think, I’m sure. Now if she does it’s very limited. Uhm, I’ve done a lot of extra thing in saying you know, look you can’t do that, that is not the way you’re going to do it, you’re a very smart girl. All of a sudden, in math, she has gone almost to the top. She does not pick up a concept easily but once she gets it – she gets it. In adding and subtracting for a while she was the top student, no mistakes. So that encouraged her to try a little bit more in reading. And although she is low because she can’t follow directions and she can’t choose words and she doesn’t have the academic background to know what it means and what things are she has picked up like 2000 per cent since the beginning of the year. And she is beginning to get it. The problem with that is that it’s late now, it should have happened earlier, but at least it did happen. And if she is encouraged next she may just run with it and she may be able to overcome the family things she has that are still holding her back. (Teacher interview) Mrs Smith seemed to want to make clear to me that she knows much, including the past experiences of Davinderjeet. She knows much about Davinderjeet’s family but, also of significance, is the definition she offers of ‘feminine’, saying that the new earrings and dress needed Mrs Smith’s encouragement. She says, ‘it shows a feminine thing which [Davinderjeet] wasn’t allowed to have’. If she was not allowed these things, then how did she get them? And why does the teacher hold these out as symbols of being female or as signals of being cared for as a girl? She also communicates that ‘to be a little girl’ means to be ‘responsible’. My request was simply, ‘Tell me about Davinderjeet.’ It was Mrs Smith herself who wished to communicate that gender was contributing to Davinderjeet’s weaknesses as a student: she was not being a very ‘good girl’. The conversation continued:
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Allyson: What about her friends? Mrs Smith: Uhm – Davinderjeet sticks with the kids but they don’t really like her because of some of her deviant behavior. Allyson: Like what?
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Mrs Smith: Annoying little things that she does, picky, picky, picky. One thing she does is she gets right your face and she just yells at you and I’m sure that’s a family thing. That’s probably what her brother does, her mum does, her dad does and I’m sure that’s how you do it. So she’ll get right in your face really close and she’ll just yell at you, even if you’re a friend of hers. So it’s really . . . I’ve talked to her about that. Do you want to be treated like that? And I’ve done it to her and she hates it. But I thought, ‘you’ve got to see how it feels from the other side’, . . . so that you know but I monitor that behavior very carefully because I do not want it to stick. Right now she’s with NP, um, SN, and JE. Okay she’s sitting with them in that group. But tomorrow she could be kicked out of the group and gone because of her annoying naggy little whatevers. Okay? (Teacher interview) Mrs Smith’s claim, ‘I’m sure that’s a family thing,’ is perhaps evidence that she sees Davinderjeet as a problem which results from her life in a dysfunctional family, one that is unable to adequately support her. Is this why Mrs Smith says in this next excerpt that it is her role to ‘really love her’ and ‘to give her a different lifestyle’? Allyson: What about her personality? Mrs Smith: Personally she’s very hard to get along with because of this blast and, or whatever; she has a lot of behaviour of her brothers which she doesn’t need to have but it’s not discouraged at home. So that’s why I would like to take her home, really love her, and give her a different lifestyle and I’m sure she’d be a totally different kid. You know, in a year you’d see totally different things because it’s not there built in for her. And the mom says, you know, ‘well I’m a single mum’ and I say, ‘well I was too.’ You know that not an excuse, you have to work harder, ‘well I work all day, all night.’ So she doesn’t get her books back because she was at uncle’s last night and she was up late and she couldn’t find them. And she doesn’t get her homework back because she couldn’t do it because they dragged her here and dragged her there; I mean there’s a lot of things in her lifestyle that do not allow her to gain academic progress. And that’s sad. It’s sad. (Teacher interview)
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In these lengthy comments, perhaps the language teacher sees the young girl as an aggressive and annoying child who needs the love and
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attention of an adult (one like herself) who could train her in more feminine behaviours. Mrs Smith expresses the inadequacies of the mother in particular as the reason for Davinderjeet’s improper conduct. In the collected video data, there is no evidence of the behaviour the teacher describes, the kind of ‘in your face’ yelling that she isolates as a problem in Davinderjeet’s demeanour. The teacher says Davinderjeet needs training to become more appropriately female, ‘a little girl’. She expresses Davinderjeet’s failure in this regard and supports the earlier claim emerging from other feminist research that such views of femaleness (as quiet, reserved and responsible) cross ethnic lines (Brah and Minhas, 1985; Paechter, 1998). The teacher displays a gender stereotype toward her ESL students. Is this exaggerated by their Punjabiness? It seems safe to say that Davinderjeet may be constructed as a problem or at least as a special case needing correction. The characters in Davinderjeet’s world, such as her mother, her brother, her father, are viewed as problems. Davinderjeet’s life is defined as inadequate in permitting her or preparing her to function as a learner. The teacher wants to correct her, wants to take her home and wants to provide her with proper guidance. Perhaps such an attitude is a common view of some teachers: to serve as social workers. Perhaps the teacher sees Davinderjeet’s entire world as flawed and not valuable – or perhaps her views are more motherly and protective. But Mrs Smith, in either option, provides some affirmation regarding Davinderjeet’s potential, saying that she could be taught through her problems and be made better, made more ‘female’ and more ‘Canadian’.
Mrs Smith’s classroom-talk Mrs Smith reveals her attitudes towards gender and/or ethnicity in classroom-talk with all her students. In the following excerpts, examples of many such in the transcripts, it is clear that the boys are interacting with Mrs Smith with ease and that she sees herself as the source of all things Canadian. She does not seem to be as responsive to the girls in her classroom as she is to the boys, a pattern also seen in the work of Paechter (1998) Lakoff (1995), Mahony (1985), Stanworth (1981), and Spender and Sarah (1980). Mrs Smith often ignores the girls or interacts with them by correcting them or dismissing the contributions they do make. It is through such practices that the silence is understood and these methods may help explain why the girls remain so quiet.
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Mrs Smith often seemed to ignore the girls’ questions. In this passage, the students are at their desks and working independently on class work. When the girl asks a question, it is ignored while the boy’s question is responded to: Girl: Mrs Smith? Can we do these by ourselves? Mrs Smith: Now, in the middle part here, in the middle part here, you have three stamps. (Slowly and loudly) You have to find the one that has the MOST the one . . . the BIGGEST number, MOST!! BIGGEST!! Alright? Is it a three, a seven or a five? And please circle it ‘cause it’s much easier for me to mark. Circle it? Boy: Nine! Mrs Smith: Shh! Shh! There is no nine – there’s a three, a seven or a five! Boy: Where are . . .? Mrs Smith: Right here. Okay? You have to look at me to find out where we are, okay? Alright we’re in the middle. Eight, six, nine! Circle the one. Boy: Nine. Mrs Smith: Shhh! (says boy’s name) Okay and the last one in that row . . . five, three, four. Which one is the most, biggest!! Boy: Five. Classroom visit number 2 She is also sh-shushing the boy and yet the boy continues to speak to the teacher anyway. The sh-shushing gesture then seems to be one that may work differently with the girl (it silences her) than with the boy (it does not silence him). In this next excerpt, the girl’s questions are dismissed as ‘silly’ or even ridiculous, while the boy’s question is given due attention: Girl asks Mrs Smith a question – but it is unheard by the researcher and unclear in the videotape.] Mrs Smith: Silly question [says name of girl], silly question! How do you think it’s going to stay there?? [taps her head] [Mrs Smith begins moving through class and addressing students individually] Just go right . . . don’t worry about that! Just go right . . . You already did that, don’t worry!
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Ignoring girls
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Boy asks Mrs Smith a question] Mrs Smith: Hurry up and go because [begins wagging her finger at him, playfully] you were supposed to go AFTER Punjabi and Sikh studies, not now!! A boy] approaches Mrs Smith and asks a question I will help you, that is what I mean! Mrs Smith] approaches another girl who asks her a question Mrs Smith: [exclaims] Oh!! [With a teary voice] Should I get out my Kleenex? Girl] looks up, perplexed Classroom visit number 2 When the boy presumably asks for permission to use the toilet, Mrs Smith offers a slight scold for his not remembering to go earlier, yet she offers no similar connection with the observations of Corson (1993), Spender (1980a) and Zimmerman and West (1975). The next two excerpts again illustrate Mrs Smith ignoring or silencing the girls’ contributions. With the boys, the teacher repeats their response as a validation of their contribution. Girl: Any side? Mrs Smith: Okay, can you put your sheet going up and down? Up and down. Not flat-wise but up and down? Okay? And . . . in the middle of that sheet we’re going to try and draw an apple, okay? [draws on a large sheet of paper at the front of the class] So we sort of need a round shape and not really small . . . just nice . . . Yes, please. Where’s your paper? Okay . . . JT (boy)! No! Okay, not too small because you’re not going to be able to work with it if it’s too tiny. Now, what does it have on top?? Boy: A little stem. Mrs Smith: A little stem so let’s make a little stem on the top. And what did AR’s have on it yesterday – was it yours AR? Boy: A leaf! Mrs Smith: A leaf. Can we make a leaf on the stem? Classroom visit number 2 Girl: I coloured the inside. Other students announce that they coloured the inside.] Mrs Smith: And what colour is the leaf going to be? Girl: [rather gleefully] Mrs Smith I coloured the inside. Mrs Smith: Over there you know you’re going to have to do it again if you weren’t listening! (. . . 20 seconds). And the little stem is brown. The little stem is brown. Some of you have to do it again because
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you weren’t paying attention to what I was talking about. You were just doing whatever you wanted to do. Classroom visit number 2 However, with a boy Mrs Smith’s response is to the point: Boy: Can you write right on it? Mrs Smith: As soon as you get to the paper. Do not make an ‘a’ that way – good boy! Classroom visit number 2 Examples of the teacher routinely praising the boys and supporting their development are numerous. Such examples of boys being privileged while the girls are silenced suggest that these girls may be constructed by their language teacher into saying nothing: the girls are gradually being silenced by a classroom that generally offers more significance to male contributions. Some boys in this room are also quiet and some girls are more talkative than others but, in light of the linguistic space measured in Tables 7.1 and 7.2, it is the girls who are generally quieter. The evidence in these few classroom moments might give a reason as to why: they tend to be ignored. This is in part because of the teacher’s practice and it is a common teaching method (Flanders, 1970; Thornborrow, 2002). Interacting with girls through correction In the following excerpt, Mrs Smith is responding to students’ work on their Thanksgiving assignment. To the girl, she makes explicit corrections, minimizing her efforts in many respects, by saying, ‘And what is “happing”?’. To the boy she responds with, ‘Great’. The girl has received the teacher’s attention but the response is corrective only, not supportive; the boy in a similar situation receives praise: Mrs Smith continues to assist students individually while camera focuses onto individual students’ papers. Mrs Smith approaches girl’s desk] Mrs Smith: Now. We need a period at the end of each one of these and then you can read them for me. And what is ‘happing’? Girl: I forgot. Mrs Smith: [laughs] You forgot what? But it says happing which I don’t know what ‘happing’ is. Alright. Go ahead. Girl begins] reading and Mrs Smith interrupts Mrs Smith: Why do you put the DOT on top of the T??? Oh no. Put it down beside. Girl: [reading] Thank you for making the families . . .
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Mrs Smith: All right, you don’t need the ‘e’ in there; erase the ‘e,’ you don’t need it. Yes please, all right, thank you for the house. Girl: Thank you for the toilet(?). Mrs Smith: Got it. Boy: Thank you for. Mrs Smith: Good! [Camera changes its focus to that of another student’s paper, whom Mrs Smith is assisting] Boy: Thank you for a toy. Thank you for a house . . . [continues to thank for a turkey, a drink and a book] Mrs Smith: Great! All right, NOW you may go. Classroom visit number 20 In the following excerpt, Mrs Smith responds to the boys’ comments but ignores the girl in the conversation that follows: Mrs Smith: Okay, uniforms. Is there anyone else who does not have it on? Boy 2: I do! Boy 3: I do! Mrs Smith: So that’s two? All right, twenty-five take away two? You got what? All right so twenty-five . . . Girl: He’s got his sweater on . . . Boy 3: He’s got his shirt! Mrs Smith: He’s got his shirt, all right take away two . . . Twenty-five take away two, anybody got an idea? Students: Twenty-three! Twenty-three! Mrs Smith: Twenty-three. Seventeen? I don’t think so. Student: Seventeen! Who said that? Classroom visit number 6 Dismissing girls In this other ‘Show and Tell’ excerpt, Davinderjeet’s attempt at participation is possibly mocked as something grade one or kindergarten children might enjoy but not a seven year old child: the children laugh in response, prompted by Mrs Smith:
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Mrs Smith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. [Boy 1 sits back down.] Yeah. They make them just like the real ones. [Davinderjeet goes up for sharing.] Don’t talk in your bag, though. Talk up, okay?
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Davinderjeet: It’s white and it’s red. Mrs Smith: Perfect. White and red. [excitedly] Candy cane? Davinderjeet: [shakes her head] Mrs Smith: Aahh. Mrs Smith: Is it? Is it . . . ? [Davinderjeet pulls out a Santa hat and puts it on.] A Santa hat! Wonderful! A Santa hat! Can I borrow it when we do singing time? With the kids? [Davinderjeet gets up, looking pleased, and walks off-camera.] Oh, that would be so much fun! The grade ones would love it, wouldn’t they? Class: [laughing] Yeah! Mrs Smith: And kindergartens? Class: Yeah! Mrs Smith: They would love it! Any more sharing? Classroom visit number 13 Another interpretation of this segment is that Mrs Smith is encouraging and recognizing Davinderjeet’s contributions, even asking to borrow the hat. I, however, saw the moment as a painful one for Davinderjeet who did not engage more fully. She smiled but she did not enter dialogue. To me, Davinderjeet appeared remote and embarrassed and, as a result, remained as quiet as possible. In the next piece, Mrs Smith stops at Davinderjeet’s desk after an attempt to convince one student that Punjabi people do not use bibs, and she questions Davinderjeet’s work: Mrs Smith: That’s easy. Alright. Number 8. DN, how about you try this one. Boy: A baby wears this. What is it? Mrs Smith: That was a bib, ‘member we were trying to learn what that is? Because Punjabi people don’t use it, but Canadian people use it lots. Boy: I use it. Mrs Smith: Some people do, but basically you don’t. So that’s a bib, goes around your neck, right. Keeps your clothes all neat and clean and tidy. Alright, Davinderjeet. Davinderjeet: I . . . Mrs Smith: Ball. Davinderjeet: Ball with it. What is it? Mrs Smith: What is it? Class: Mitt. Mrs Smith: A mitt. Not a mitten. A mitten goes on your hand for winter-time. This is just a mitt. Now, print the words on the line.
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OK? Print the words on the line. OK? Don’t forget your hangerdowners, sticker-uppers, or whatever. [stops at Davinderjeet’s desk] What is that? What is that word? Davinderjeet: [inaudible, but she’s obviously made a mistake.] Mrs Smith: Alright. That is not what it says. [Walks away.] Classroom visit number 6 Do Punjabi people not use bibs on their babies? That they may not seems a strange thing to have said, especially when a Punjabi student suggests that they do. Again, Mrs Smith appears to be saying sweeping things about the children’s ethnic group. When Mrs Smith approaches Davinderjeet’s desk, she asks, ‘What is that? What is that word?’ The buckling of Davinderjeet is painful to watch on the video. At times, the teacher appears dismissive of the girls in general in her class and is particularly uninterested in Davinderjeet’s attempts to participate in the classroom: she creates a high rather than a low affective filter (Krashen, 1982; 1995). Also, the teacher offers little language opportunity here: there is little evidence of a comfortable learning environment or provision for frequent interactions with Davinderjeet (Gibbons, 1998). However, there are moments when Mrs Smith responds kindly to the girls’ comments as this next excerpt demonstrates: Boy: Do you write the word or do you draw a picture? Mrs Smith: . . . what? Thank you for what? Thank you for what? And thank you for what? Good question, do you write the word or do you draw a picture? You may choose. If you want to write the word, go ahead. If you want to draw the picture, go ahead. [slowly] You may choose what you want to do. Girl: Do you have to colour it? Mrs Smith: You do not have to colour, no, that’s a good question. You do not have to colour it if you do not wish to. BUT when I ask you to read it, you have to know what you draw or drew, I mean. You have to know what you drew . . . okay? Because you’re going to be reading it for me even though there’s a picture there. Okay? When you’re finished, I will put colour turkeys on my chair and then you may come and get this and colour on it while I am working with these ones. Okay? Classroom visit number 3
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Mrs Smith says, ‘that’s a good question’ to the girl but this was unusual discourse. In fact, this particular example of clear, positive interaction was one of the very few I found in the year’s data.
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The teaching methods used in this ESL classroom do not appear to provide a comfortable learning environment. There is also little suggestion that there are opportunities for smaller or more meaningful interaction between the students themselves. There is little evidence of structured activities for students to problem-solve or create meanings from new language models or to develop meaningful, collaborative relationships with each other. There are few opportunities for interaction between the teacher and her individual students and there is little variety around language use and questioning. However, the position of the teacher is also a constructed identity in the room and she has her own sense of agency as well as her own limitations that may be beyond her conscious control. Teachers play different roles in classrooms. Maguire (1997) explores the complexity of teachers’ identities, including ethnicity, age, gender and the impact of various experiences on the teachers themselves. Maguire (1993) says, Much research into teacher education is concerned with how to ‘do it better’ or with comparing and contrasting particular routes on models for the preparation of teachers . . . But there are other things too. (270–271) Maguire cites gender as an element of the teacher that may impact perception, career opportunities, respect and support. Perhaps Mrs Smith’s teacher practices are influenced by her own worries about exercising authority in the classroom and her particular situation as the only ‘white’ participant in the room. The chief point, however, is not an examination of or argument against Mrs Smith as a person or even a teacher but on the nature of language teaching that is going on which might rehearse gendered silence. If the girls’ ethnicity were an explanation of their silence (as some may suggest), then perhaps all girls of Punjabi heritage would be designated by all their teachers as ‘like that’. There are two arguments against this. First, many young girls are relatively silent, irrespective of ethnicity, in most studies of gender in classrooms; and, second, the girls in this study were not always silent. The data reveals that context and teaching methods matter and that teachers as classroom authorities have an amazing amount of power in controlling particular experiences, including the amount and kind of language used by particular participants.
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‘Good’ language teaching
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The teacher’s attitudes are revealed in the words she uses. Others might see Mrs Smith as confident, direct and in control of her classroom or be critical of her attitude of assimilation as opposed to diversity. Regardless of one’s response to her, the linguistic space of the classroom is certainly hers. She seems to control the class by often ignoring the girls in particular, by interacting with them mainly through correction and often dismissing them out of hand. In my interview with her, she said that she is devoted to language teaching and yet she provided little room for actual speech production on the part of her students, particularly that of the girls. What may be missing in this language classroom is an understanding of connection between Mrs Smith and her Punjabi Canadian students. The classroom-talk of Mrs Smith indicates a lack of student inclusion and belonging, particularly seen in the lack of linguistic space used by the girls in her classroom and the ways she appears to silence them through the use of certain speech acts and speech patterns. There is little talking by students in this classroom and there is little said by the girls in the classroom lessons. This language teacher, in her quest to be a cultural informant to her ESL students, underestimates the role the students play in the interactions. It may be her own attitudes and teaching practices that keep the girls so quiet. The girls are saying so little because the boys in this room may be allowed a different and privileged language learning experience. The boys clearly take up a greater amount of the linguistic space possible and, as a result, they have more language opportunities than the girls. These opportunities appear, partly at least, provided for the boys by their teacher. In certain ways, Mrs Smith does not appear to use ‘good’ language teaching practices of questioning, creating a comfortable learning environment, providing comprehensible input or creating frequent opportunities for interaction between herself and her students and rarely with the girls.
Conclusion It was the intention of this chapter to explore how the words of a teacher may impact on a consistent silence among this set of girls in an ESL classroom. In this way, the silence is examined through examining recurrent discourse patterns and interpreting the possible functions of these speech strategies within the classroom experience. By exploring ordinary day-to-day classroom talk, gender can be seen to be a strong variable in linguistic experience. To what extent gendered speech tendencies contribute to the construction or revelation of gender is up to
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interpretation. Like most teachers, Mrs Smith dominates the linguistic space and, because the girls in general take up so little of the remaining linguistic space, it was difficult to document many moments they did speak in the large classroom lessons but easy to document their silence. When a girl did speak, she revealed some of the predictable gendered speech strategies. As such, she is in keeping with a socialized gendered self. The nine girls in Mrs Smith’s classroom have provided some identification of recurrent discourse structures in silence. The particular interpretation of this silence is partially subjective and intuitive on my part but, nevertheless, it is convincing that there could be systemic teacher-led forces in the room that create the silence. This ESL classroom experience has at least partly participated in constructing certain girls of this classroom into silence and it is within this silence that girls attempt to belong by saying very little. The few attempts to speak show a willingness to belong but classroom practices do not allow her to speak. It is possible that these girls may be quiet in other circumstances too, or that most of the girls in this class happen to be not very talkative. This situational possibility is why single case research cannot offer generalizations to other circumstances; this is just one case. What is revealed is that classroom talk can and does construct participants to a large extent, and that gender is a powerful variable in this regard. Language teachers need to be concerned with the linguistic opportunities allowed all students. However, the linguistic choices within classroom life reveal that some may need particular attention and particular teacher practices to elicit more language use.
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Gibbons, P. (1998) Learning to Learn in a Second Language. Marrickville, NSW: Southwood Press. Graddol, P. and Swann, J. (1989) Gender Voices. Oxford: Blackwell. Jule, A. (2004) Gender, Participation and Silence in the Language Classroom: ShShushing the Girls. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Krashen, S. D. (1995, 1982) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Lakoff, R. (1995) ‘Cries and Whispers: The Shattering of the Silence’, in Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. Hall, K. and Bucholtz, M. (eds) London: Routledge, 25–50. Maguire, M. (1993) ‘Women who teach teachers’, Gender and Education, 5, 3, 269–281. Maguire, M. (1997) ‘Missing links: Working-class women of Irish descent’, in Class Matters: ‘Working-class’ Women’s Perspectives on Social Class. P. Mahony and C. Zmroczek (eds) London: Taylor and Francis, Inc., 87–100. Mahony, P. (1985) Schools for the Boys?: Co-education Reassessed. London: Hutchinson. Meara, P., Lightbown, P. and Halter, R. (1997) ‘Classrooms as Lexical environments’, Language Teaching Research, 1, 1, 28–46. Nunan, D. (1987) ‘Communicative language teaching: Making it work’, ELT Journal, 41, 2, 136–145. Paechter, C. (1998) Educating the Other: Gender, Power and Schooling. London: Falmer. Searle, J. R. (1969) Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soskin, W. and John, V. (1963) ‘The study of spontaneous talk’, in The Stream of Behaviour. Barker, R. (ed.) New York: Appleton-Century-Croft. Spender, D. (1980a) Man Made Language. London: Routledge Kegan Paul. Spender, D. (1980b) ‘Talking in the class’, in Learning to lose: Sexism and Education. D. Spender and E. Sarah (eds) London: The Women’s Press, 148–154. Spender, D. and Sarah, E. (eds) (1980) Learning to Lose: Sexism and Education. London: The Women’s Press. Stanworth, M. (1981) ‘Gender and schooling: A study of sexual divisions in the classroom’, in Explorations in Feminism No. 7. London: Women’s Research and Resources Centre. Stubbs, M. (1976) Language, Schools and Classrooms. London: Methuen and Co. Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk. London: Longman. Toohey, K. (1996a) ‘Learning ESL in a Punjabi Sikh School: A community of practice perspective’, in Research proposal – Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Integration. Burnaby, BC, Canada: Simon Fraser University. Toohey, K. (1996b) ‘Learning English as a second language in kindergarten: A community of practice perspective’, The Canadian Modern Language Review, 52, 4, 549–576. Zimmerman, D. and West, C. (1975) ‘Sex Roles, interruptions and silences in conversation’, in Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Thorne, B. and Henley, N. (eds) Massachusetts: Newbury House, 105–129.
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Gender Identity in Words for Professional Titles in Textbooks Mercedes Bengoechea and José Simón
Introduction1 The literature on textbooks in Spanish for Spanish as a Foreign Language (henceforth ELE) analysed from a gender perspective is very scarce. Not only has it not dealt with the six dimensions covered by Sunderland (1994b:55) in the analysis of stereotypes – visibility, occupational roles, relationships, personal characteristics, discourse roles and female degradation – but most analyses have been superficial. The pages of the proceedings of the annual conferences of the Association for the Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ASELE) outnumber 15,000 but during the 20 years of the Association’s existence, only one paper has dealt with sexist representation in ELE textbooks (Galiano Sierra, 1993); one other paper has shown concern for the treatment of gender in five entries of professional titles in ELE dictionaries (Gallardo Saborido, 2005); and four papers have put forward some practical exercises addressed to ELE students to raise consciousness on sexist language in Spanish (Izquierdo Merino, 1998; Sitman et al., 1999; Portal Nieto, 2000; Guerrero Salazar, 2003). Outside ASELE, research on the representation of gender identities in ELE materials has also received the scantest attention: De Santiago Guervós (1996) investigated sexist roles, negative representations of women and their contribution to disempowering women in eight ELE textbooks published between 1976 and 1994. Recently Robles Fernández (2007; 2005) analysed men’s and women’s presence in illustrations, and women included as celebrities in 13 textbooks published between 1991 and 2005; and Barceló Morte (2006) studied verbal and graphic representations of men and women in four textbooks for beginners. As for lexicon specifically, in a comprehensive bibliography on the teaching of the lexicon in ELE published by one of
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the most relevant ELE Journals, there was not a single reference on how to deal with gender, stereotypes or sexism (Larrañaga Domínguez, 2004). Only students of EFL exceed students of ELE in the world – in 2006 there were over 14 million students of ELE.2 ELE is a salient industry in Spain3 – for example, students of ELE who came to Spain in 2000 left some 255 million euros; in 2006 Erasmus Students represented some 140 million euros in the national GDP (Carrera Troyano and Gómez Asencio, 2007). Consequently, in the last two decades ELE textbooks have multiplied; concern for gender representation has not. Despite the fact that most of the studies mentioned above concluded that stereotypes were pervasive and men and women were not portrayed symmetrically or with identical attributes, the concern for gender identity in ELE materials is practically non-existent. Suffice to say that publishers lack guidelines for gender-neutral language or images. Our aim We will analyse how ELE materials have approached gender and occupations in the last decade. We are interested in the words for jobs for males or females portrayed in ELE materials. We take as a starting point that in Spanish stereotyping can be achieved through the choice of occupations for the men or the women depicted in textbooks, and through the presentation of the lexicon of professions. In the present survey we will place our emphasis on the latter. Instead of counting the number of jobs associated with men or women throughout textbooks, we will look into how professional titles are presented in the sections devoted to ‘professions’ or ‘occupations’ in textbooks and grammars. We are also interested in professional gender identities depicted in grammars and teachers’ textbooks. In the last two decades, the processes of ideological production of female professional identities in Spain have been linked to the very name of the profession in the feminine or in the masculine: female identities were partly constructed through the names adopted by women or imposed on them by the ‘regulative discourse’ (Bernstein, 1996). This has been the source of an intense debate which still continues. We will thus focus attention not only on the ‘name’ assigned to certain professional women, but also on the way teachers’ textbooks deal with that issue. Sunderland et al. (2002; 2001) have suggested that we turn our attention from the sexist bias ‘in the text’ to teacher-talk or discursive practices around the text. Although we basically agree with this proposal, we think that perhaps, in the case of ELE, before focusing on teachers’ responses to textbooks, we should focus on how textbooks help teachers to deal with
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the complex issue of gender jobs and professions in Spanish. In our experience, most teachers of ELE, especially non-native Spanish speakers, eagerly search teachers’ textbooks for guidance on how to approach sociolinguistic and socio-cultural matters. In fact, explanations about current debates, recommendations on present-day usage and discussion on meanings associated with present-day job labels would be more than welcome. Teachers do need them to provide students with a picture of the situation and to face debates and discussions in the classroom. We will start by presenting the linguistic debate on gender names of professions that has taken place in Spain in the last two decades, stressing how some language institutions and their ‘regulative’ discourse have held back the process of feminization of job titles. Then we will analyse the way textbooks and grammars present the issue to teachers who will teach gender and jobs to ELE students, considering whether ELE materials have adopted a critical stance which might allow students to question issues of language, gender and identity.
The Spanish background The linguistic debate on gendered names of professions In order to fully understand what follows, we must introduce a few notes on grammatical gender in Spanish and on the construction of gender in the lexicon. In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. When the noun stands for a living creature, its gender depends upon whether it is male or female. The morpheme or ending is not enough to identify gender category (the determiner is), although there is a tendency for consonant or -o endings for masculine nouns, and -a endings for feminine ones: profesor/profesora (‘teacher-he/teacher-she’); abogado/abogada (‘lawyer-he/lawyer-she’). Some nouns that refer to people use the same form (frequently with an -e ending) for both masculine and feminine – in this case, gender is indicated by the masculine or feminine definite article, el or la [for example, el estudiante/la estudiante (‘the-he student/the-she student’)]. But the issue is far more complex, as will be shown in this section, especially concerning gender of the occupations and professions. As a result of the centuries-old refusal to admit women in certain jobs and a prohibition to belong to some professions (the Church, the army, law, politics and so on), for some time the standard language lacked certain feminine professional terms, such as jueza, magistrada, senadora, obispa and so on (‘judge-she’, ‘magistrate-she’, ‘senator-she’, ‘bishop-she’). Nevertheless, common non-standard speech has never
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shown reluctance to coin feminine titles by using a final -a: either in a metaphorical way [the Virgin Mary was named abogada del pueblo (‘people’s lawyer-she’) or capitana de la tropa (‘the troop’s captain-she’] or to designate women practising jobs unofficially, such as joyera (‘jewellershe’)]. But normative Spanish has resisted including within the standard the feminine title of those professions with few numbers of women in their ranks or stereotypically not exerted by women [and conversely, it has not included masculine terms for occupations which have not been stereotypically male, for example, prostituto (‘prostitute-he’) or amo de casa (‘house-husband’)]. Language has always been the arena for gender identity construction, even more so in the last decades. The boost to transform language has moved alongside social change. Since the beginning of the 1980s, European directives have strongly recommended that the Spanish Administration use the feminine of professional titles for women as ‘Language has a fundamental role in forming an individual’s social identity’.4 So, instead following the policy of English, which encourages the banning of job titles marked with feminine suffixes (‘actress’, ‘poetess’) and advocates making terms neutral or unmarked for sex (‘chair’ versus ‘chairman’), Spanish has attempted to make women visible by feminizing all job titles for women and making sex-specific female terms. A solid feminization of written European Spanish has thus been achieved, as can be seen in the dynamic entrance of feminine terms (mostly ending in -a) for jobs, professions, occupational titles and public offices, from government and organizations [for example, presidenta (‘president-she’, ‘chairwoman’)], to sports [e.g. árbitra (‘referee-she’)]. Opposition to feminization of jobs and positions has come from above, as can be seen in the fact that military officers are feminine for a lot of ordinary people. The Real Academia Española (‘Royal Spanish Academy of Language’), henceforth ‘the Academy’, has been especially notorious for its resistance to the feminization of job terms for women. Its role as watch-dog of the purity of Spanish has influenced ideological constructs and language policies over its almost 400 years of existence. Only five women have been members of the institution, but its maleness, ideology and linguistic prejudices are not challenged and have caused little damage to its reputation, power and unquestionable authority. Just one episode may serve to illustrate its consistent ideological bias. In the spring of 2004, the announcement of the Spanish government to submit a bill against violence against women, the proposed title of which was ‘Law against Gender Violence’, triggered a prompt
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plenary session (19 May 2004) of the Academy which concluded by strongly recommending that the government avoid the term Violencia de género (‘gender violence’), adopting instead the title Violencia doméstica (‘domestic violence’,)5 something that women’s associations interpreted as inappropriate, unwanted and unjustified interference. The Academy’s most pre-eminent work has always been its Dictionary, which is the normative dictionary of Spanish, a model for all dictionaries of Spanish, including ELE dictionaries, and which has the final say on any matter of usage. A word not included in the Dictionary is not to be used in any standard work. The normative Dictionary has shown a deep-seated resistance to change. This is especially so in women’s issues, where the Dictionary seems to labour to protect not only language, but society, from a transformation away from patriarchal mores. The latest edition (Real Academia Española, 2001) stands out for its omissions. The Academy decided to simply and blatantly ignore words and social ways of expression clearly established in the language, such as dramaturga (‘woman playwright’), amo de casa (‘househusband’), familia monoparental (‘single-parent family’), género (‘gender’, in contrast to biological sex) or violencia de género (‘gender violence’). But its ideological resistance can especially be seen in its unwillingness to accept feminine job titles.6 The 2001 edition of the Academy’s Dictionary incorporated 30 ‘new’ feminine terms for posts, positions, jobs and professional titles which had appeared only in the masculine or were defined as only for men in its previous 1992 edition. Although one might see this as an indication of their positive stance towards feminine nouns, it is not, because most of these professions, such as antique dealer, colonist, manager, olive planter and many others enjoy a long-lasting tradition of women practicing them. And the point is that in 2001 the Dictionary still refused to provide the feminine term of 397 terms for positions or jobs which appear only in the masculine or only for men. Among them are alfarera∗7 (potter-she) or dramaturga∗ (playwright-she), yet it is well-known that there have been women making and baking vessels, or writing plays for centuries (and named accordingly). The decision to incorporate into its Dictionary 30 feminine job titles and ignore 397 was taken by the Academy after entrusting three female lexicographers (Lledó et al., 2004) to write a report on the matter. The report recommended incorporation into the Dictionary of the feminine term for all jobs and professions. According to the authors of the report, these titles were to be formed following the morphological rules of Spanish (normally changing the final -o of the masculine term into an -a (dramaturgo-dramaturga, ‘playwright’) or adding an -a if
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the masculine ends in a consonant (peón-peona,∗ ‘labourer’). The reasons why the Academy decided to incorporate only 30 of the potential 427 feminine terms have not been established. Maybe it was a question of tiredness, as in the Introduction to the Dictionary (2001) it is claimed that the incorporation of the 30 new feminine terms is the result of ‘considerable effort’ on their side (2001: xxix). One may wonder why incorporating (only) 30 terms into the standard, when some have been in use for centuries, ‘takes such considerable effort’! Further resistance of the Spanish Academy to feminization of professional titles is revealed in the incorporation into the Dictionary of 13 illustrations of usage of the masculine term for 12 professional titles for women (one of the titles has two examples of usage of the masculine term for women), for which the Spanish Academy had formerly acknowledged a feminine term as well. See, for instance, the entries for physician and architect: médico, ca. . . . 2. m. y f. Persona legalmente autorizada para profesar y ejercer la medicina. MORF. U. t. la forma en m. para designar el f. Julia es médico. (physician-he, -she, m. and f. A person licensed to practise medicine. MORF: U.a. the m. form to designate women. Julia is a physician-he.) arquitecto, ta. 1. m. y f. Persona que profesa o ejerce la arquitectura. MORF. U. t. la forma en m. para designar el f. Laura es arquitecto. architect-he, -she. A person who practises architecture professionally. MORF: U.a. the m. form to designate women. Laura is an architect-he The other ten entries following the same pattern are: abogado/a (‘lawyer’), aparejador/a (‘surveyor’), bachiller/a (student or graduate of secondary education), concejal/a (‘town councillor’), edil/a (‘councillor’), gerente/a (‘manager’), ingeniero/a (‘engineer’), perito/a (‘qualifiedtechnician’), técnico/a (‘expert’) and subjefe/a (‘deputy head’), all of them prestigious jobs or positions. In all 12 cases, the dictionary entry claims that the masculine term can be used for women as well. The phrase chosen contains some initial abbreviations which are to be read as: “Morphology: the masculine form also used to designate the feminine, as in ‘Julia is a physician-he”. As only initial letters t. u. are used, nonexpert users could take it as a prescription and read it as: “Morphology: Use also the masculine form to designate the feminine, as in ‘Julia is a physician-he”.
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There is no example of usage of any feminine professional term in the whole dictionary, only these 13 examples of masculine forms for women. Taking into account the normative role of the Dictionary, not only is the Dictionary validating the masculine term for women here, but almost prescribing it. This is more clearly perceived as strong unmitigated resistance to feminization of professional terms if one compares these new entries with the same entries in the previous edition of the Dictionary: médico, ca. . . . 4. m. y f. Persona legalmente autorizada para profesar y ejercer la medicina. (1992) médico, ca. . . . 2. m. y f. Persona legalmente autorizada para profesar y ejercer la medicina. MORF. U. t. la forma en m. para designar el f. Julia es médico. (2001) (physician-he, -she, m. and f. A person licensed to practise medicine. (1992) physician-he, -she, m. and f. A person licensed to practise medicine. MORF: U.a. the m. form to designate women. Julia is a physicianhe. (2001)) arquitecto, -ta.1. m. y f. Persona que profesa o ejerce la arquitectura. (1992) arquitecto, ta.1. m. y f. Persona que profesa o ejerce la arquitectura. MORF. U. t. la forma en m. para designar el f. Laura es arquitecto. (2001) architect-he, -she. A person who practises architecture professionally. (1992) architect-he, -she. A person who practises architecture professionally. MORF: U.a. the m. form to designate women. Laura is an architecthe. (2001) If in the 1992 edition there was a record of the existence of a masculine and a feminine term, supposedly for men or women respectively, in the 2001 edition the feminine term is explicitly marked as one of the options to designate a woman, together with the masculine. In addition, the illustration of the masculine usage alone, but not of the feminine, equals a recommendation of the use of the masculine for women. This recent contribution from the Spanish Academy is very difficult to interpret in terms other than those of a clear ideological stance and opposition towards feminization (Bengoechea, 2008). Some newspapers have ignored the Academy’s recommendations and adopted the habit of feminizing appointments, designations and
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professional titles. Médica (‘physician-she’), for instance, is used in newspapers such as El País, La Verdad de Murcia, Norte de Castilla or Diario de Navarra. But at the same time, the Spanish Academy’s prejudices against women’s titles has led to resistance towards the feminization in some other media, such as ABC or El Mundo, two conservative national newspapers which continue using médico (‘physician-he’) for women inspired by the Academy. The following references to Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean President, illustrate both usages: Bachelet se convierte en la primera presidenta de Chile/. . . Médica de profesión, separada, (El País 16 January 2006) (Bachelet becomes the first president-she of Chile. Physician-she, and separated) si el próximo domingo la médico socialista Michelle Bachelet gana la segunda vuelta. (ABC 12 January 2006) (if next Sunday the socialist physician-he Michelle Bachelet wins the second round) Michelle Bachelet, médico pediatra de 54 años, obtiene el 53,49% de los votos (El Mundo 16 January 2006) (Michelle Bachelet, physician-he and pediatrician, obtains 53,49% of the votes) Consequently, present-day job titles are an ideological arena where any choice is politically loaded. Examples are: women practising medicine or architecture professionally who do not dare to name themselves in the feminine, in compliance with the androcentric law that the masculine is more worthy; big corporations or organizations which force their female partners, executives and directors to use the masculine term on their business cards [técnico, secretario, jefe, abogado, consultor, socio and so on (‘expert-he’, ‘secretary-he’, ‘head-he’, ‘lawyer-he’, ‘consultant-he’, ‘partner-he’)]; women who challenge these policies and proudly refer to themselves using the feminine term; innovative Andalusian women, in the vanguard of language change, who have disseminated new feminine terms such as miembra (‘member-she’) – used by Bibiana Aído in her first appearance in Parliament, just after being appointed Minister for Equality in 2008. In recent years a new official institution has come onto stage to act as a transmission belt of the Academy: the Instituto Cervantes, which in its own words: ‘is the public institution founded in 1991 for the promotion and teaching of the Spanish language and for the spreading of Spanish and Spanish-American culture.’ Among its aims and functions
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we find: organization of general and specific courses of Spanish language; issuing of Spanish as a Foreign Language Diplomas (DELE) and organization of tests for obtaining these diplomas; and updating of ELE materials and teacher training. Since its publication, the Instituto’s huge Plan Curricular (‘Curriculum plan’) (2006b) has strongly influenced new and reprinted materials. Authors have been granted official justification for their choice of lexical items and their meagre grammatical explanations, while publishers have hustled to stamp the Instituto’s hallmark on the covers or back-covers of their materials as an irrefutable proof of quality and submission to the ‘received’ norm. Instituto Cervantes has entirely neglected the topic of gender identity in language materials. On close inspection we could not find a single indication of how to deal with gender issues, or even a mere mention of the term ‘sexism’, in its Plan Curricular. Transformation in the lexicon of professions and ELE materials As we have attempted to show, gender nouns for people in Spanish are arduous to tackle, and this difficulty increases for foreign learners of the language. An example may be illustrative: most ELE grammars explain that nouns ending in -ante or -ente are both masculine and feminine, and thus a one-form term, such as estudiante (‘student-she and -he’) or cantante (‘singer-she and -he’). But the vicepresident of the present government is called the vicepresidenta (if it were a man, he would be the vicepresidente), a woman who is a beginner is a principianta (a man would be a principiante) and the daughter of the King and Queen of Spain is an infanta (‘princess’; for a man it would be infante), and these three words are often presented at beginner level! The outstanding contributions by Aliaga Jiménez (2007; 2009) have already emphasized the difficulty of dealing with the grammar and description of grammatical gender in Spanish in the simplistic way most grammars and dictionaries do, overlooking its instability, especially now that it is subjected to fluctuating and innovating realizations. Any quality ELE grammar or teacher’s textbook should provide information on questions referring to people’s names and titles that any student may ask. Among hundreds of them, why is it that: terms such as anticuaria (‘antique dealer-she’) were not accepted as standard words until 2001; newly-created feminine terms for professional titles such as piloto (‘pilot’), cabo (‘corporal’) or soldado (‘soldier’) are, for the normative dictionary, the old masculine terms themselves, when, according to the morphological rules of Spanish and the rules provided in ELE
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textbooks, a transformation of final -o into final -a seems ‘obligatory’; testigo (‘witness’) is a masculine or feminine word which has not transformed itself into a two-form word (testigo, testiga∗ ) in Spain, whereas in Mexico or Chile the feminine testiga is of current usage; miembro (‘member’) was normatively only masculine to be used with a masculine determiner for both men and women until 2001, when the Spanish Academy changed its classification into a two-gendered word, masculine or feminine (and accordingly, from then onwards, it admitted masculine or feminine determiners and adjectives, la miembro/el miembro); ‘physician’ was a two-form term (médico,médica) which was often used in the masculine to refer to women, in spite of the fact that there was a feminine form to name women physicians (that is, a woman might be called ‘male physician’, la médico); one-form words such as modelo (‘topmodel’) or canguro (‘baby-sitter’) were first popular in the feminine in spite of their -o endings; young women in Andalusia challenge normative prescription by referring to themselves using an ‘illegitimate’ non existing feminine form of an up to now one-word term jóvenas∗ (‘young women’), instead of the normative non-sexed jóvenes, with a view to underlining their presence and enhancing their visibility; the national and local Administrations have disseminated glossaries of professional titles for women with a feminist perspective (for example, Lledó, 2006) which do not coincide with the titles in the normative dictionary; and so on, and so forth. It is essential that users’ grammars and textbooks adapt to social transformations and to new gender roles. On the one hand, authors of ELE dictionaries and grammars should provide information when a word is charged with socio-political connotations; on the other hand, the lexicon presented in ELE textbooks should permit the expression of new identities and incorporate the relevant changes in social roles that have occurred. As Sitman et al. (1999) pointed out, after noticing that an Israelite transsexual singer had been assigned different grammatical gender in Spanish depending on the newspaper and the country: [L]anguage is used in real situations to construct gender and gender relations through deliberate use of certain strategies and linguistic forms in order to reproduce or subvert social relations between the sexes. As teachers we must alert students to the existence and legitimacy of this mechanism underlying in speech, . . . and thus accommodate the complexity of multiple identities and express difference. (265; our translation)
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We wanted to investigate whether ELE materials have gone hand in hand with social transformations; whether non-sexist treatment of Spanish is part of the criteria to be transmitted and acquired at a time when gender issues and gender inequality have been some of the most fundamental social concerns in Spain. We also wanted to know whether the ELE community’s care or carelessness towards gender led to authors’ and publishers’ compliance with the ‘regulative discourse’ of the Spanish Academy. Our investigation looked specifically for answers to two main research questions: (1) Do new and/or old verbal usages concerning gender professional identities appear in the words contained in textbooks? (2) How have teachers’ textbooks depicted the current debate on the lexicon of professions? Corpus In order to find responses to our research questions, we compiled and analysed a corpus consisting of 60 ELE books published or reprinted in the last ten years, that is, after 1999. Of these, 49 correspond to general course-books, five address vocabulary specifically and six deal with grammar. For comparison purposes, we split the corpus into two subcorpora corresponding to two five-year periods: 1999–2003 and 2004–2008. The distribution of samples is as shown in Table 8.1. Data collection and data analysis Unlike previous studies, which have analysed sexist roles and women’s representation through verbal and graphic representations, we focused our attention on relevance given to gender through language when strictly talking about professions. We registered in our database all the occurrences of nouns referring to professions in the chapters devoted either to jobs, occupations and professions, or to the inflection of gender in nouns (when nouns of professions were given as examples), ignoring all other sections. The nouns were noted ‘as they occurred’
Table 8.1
Distribution of Samples (in our Corpus)
Publication date After 2004 Before 2004
Course-books
Textbooks on Vocabulary
ELE Grammars
26 23
2 3
3 3
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(in the masculine, the feminine or both and in the singular or plural). The determiners preceding the nouns or any other indicators of gender were also registered in separate fields. Finally, since we wanted to observe changes in trends along time, the year for each token was also taken down. Once the data were conveniently arranged and proofread, several queries were made that could provide relevant answers to our main research questions: is there any gender bias for the most common professions (those that tend to occur in all materials)?; how many terms, in general, were provided in the feminine and how many in the masculine, and what terms are they?; what are the new terms for professions introduced in the last five years for women and men?; how many of them are in the feminine?; are ‘old’ masculine professional terms still applied to women?
Results Research question: do new and/or old verbal usages concerning gender professional identities appear in the words contained in textbooks? In order to approach this question, and following Sunderland (1994a), we first analysed whether non-sexist guidelines had been followed in our corpus. The first proof of a lack of acquiescence with non-sexist guidelines observed was a prevalence of old-fashioned sexist denominations for ELE materials themselves. Whilst English denominations, ‘student’s book’ and ‘teacher’s book’, are non-sexist, their Spanish correlates, libro del alumno and libro del profesor (‘student-he’s book’ and ‘teacher-he’s book’) clearly are. The absolute figures corresponding to those materials that display either denomination printed on their covers are shown in Table 8.2. The ratio of one non-sexist to six sexist denominations (approximately) is roughly the same over the two periods. The printing of either label on a book’s cover is a publisher’s decision so the data do not leave room for much hope for change. In addition, our examination showed that all the materials except for one textbook (Cerrolaza et al., 1999) invariably used (sexist) masculine forms for all generic human references (el/los alumnos, el/los estudiantes, el/los profesores (‘the student-he/s; the teacher-he/s’) and so on throughout the text, a fact which foreboded the bias we would find in professional titles.
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Table 8.2
Sexist and Non-Sexists Denominations for ELE Materials
Sexist denominations Libro del profesor (‘Teacher-he’s book’) Guía del professor (‘Teacher-he’s guide’) Guía didáctica para el profesor (‘Teacher-he’s didactic guide’) Libro del alumno (‘Student-he’s book’)
Published before 2004
Published after 2004
8
11
2
4
1
0
8
10
3
3
0
1
Non sexist denominations Guía didáctica (‘Didactic guide’) Libro de clase (‘Textbook’)
Table 8.3 displays frequencies for the 20 most common professions over both periods – these jobs and professional titles tend to be quoted in all the materials of our corpus as examples of gender usage. They are proof of the androcentric bias of ELE materials. For the books published before 2004 these 20 professions cover 321 tokens out of the total of 687; for books published after 2004 they cover 296 tokens out of 781. Calculating the ratios of tokens per gender to total tokens we obtain the figures in Table 8.4, which shows the increments for each category in the rightmost column.8 Tables 8.3 and 8.4 reveal the following facts: the percentage of professions in the feminine has decreased since 2004; the percentage of professions in the masculine remains roughly the same; the percentage of professions cited with a double gender has increased by nearly six times thus subsuming the decrease in the number of professions in the feminine. However, as men’s titles are also included in the mentions of both terms, adding these to both the feminine and masculine titles we see that masculine occupations before 2004 yield a total of 221 occurrences versus 105 of feminine titles, which gives a ratio of 2.10 job titles for men to one professional term for women. After 2004, the presence of professions in the masculine is even greater, as we find 227 occurrences versus 100 in the feminine, which gives a ratio of 2.27 job titles for men for each professional term for women. This means that more recently male jobs have been overwhelmingly exemplified, their visibility now being even greater than before 2004.
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Published before 2004 Most common professions Teacher Nurse Actor Physician Doctor Shop-assistant Secretary Student Employer Footballer Mechanic Dentist Singer Artist Architect Housewife Pupil Painter Director Lawyer
Fem. Masc. Both masc. and fem. (e.g. abogado, -a) 11 12 5 4 1 2 17 2 0 0 1 1 2 1 6 9 1 4 7 9
36 5 8 24 3 8 4 34 5 8 11 4 9 3 9 0 3 9 23 10
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Published after 2004
Masculine form for women 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1
Fem. Masc. Both masc. and fem. (e.g. abogado, -a) 11 4 5 3 5 1 7 4 0 0 0 0 1 3 3 2 0 1 11 7
26 6 13 16 2 10 6 28 4 7 6 13 10 4 10 0 4 12 10 9
Masculine form for women
2 3 2 4 0 2 3 2 0 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 0 2 1 4
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 201
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Table 8.3 Frequencies of the 20 Most Common Professions
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Table 8.4
Ratios (Percentages of Total Tokens for the Most Common Professions)
Feminine Masculine Both Masculine form for women
Before 2004 (%)
After 2004 (%)
29.59 67.29 1.56 1.56
22.97 66.22 10.47 0.34
Increment (%) −22.38 −1.6 +571.16 −78.21
It is only in three occupations – nurses, secretaries and housewives – that the number of tokens for women surpasses the number of tokens for men in the materials published before 2004. In the materials published after this date, a higher percentage of men has been incorporated in two of the stereotypically feminine occupations – nurses and secretaries. The opposite is not always true, although the percentage of tokens for women has increased for teachers, physicians, doctors, students and artists (also for directors and lawyers, as discussed below). The data in Tables 8.3 and 8.4 refer to the most common professions, but for all the tokens as a whole the percentages of professional terms for women over the two periods are even smaller. In the books published before 2004 there were 150 tokens mentioned in the feminine and 511 in the masculine out of a total of 687 tokens. That gives a ratio of one feminine to 3.41 masculine. As for those published after 2004, 136 professions were mentioned in the feminine versus 569 in the masculine, which gives a ratio of one feminine to three masculine. Calculating the ratios of tokens per gender to the total tokens for all the professional terms, we obtain the figures in Table 8.5, in which the increments have been calculated as for Table 8.4. We can appreciate a noticeable reduction of feminine terms over the last five years. Once again, we added those terms referred to as masculine
Table 8.5
Ratios (Percentages of the Total Tokens for All the Professions) Before 2004 (%)
Feminine Masculine Both Masculine form for women
21.84 74.39 2.48 1.32
After 2004 (%) 17.42 72.86% 8.33 1.41
Increment (%) −20.24 −2.06 +235.89 +6.82
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and feminine to both, feminine and masculine. The resulting ratio is of one feminine to three masculine, for the first period, and one to 2.99 for the second, roughly the same. In both cases, the number of professions named in the masculine noticeably exceeds that of the professions named in the feminine. We also wanted to trace how materials ‘fresh off the press’ approached professions not represented in previous editions, in particular, if they were equally attributed to women and men and if the masculine and feminine terms were presented symmetrically, in order to evaluate whether trends were changing over time. In the materials published since 2004, we found 130 professions that did not exist in previous course books or editions (when reprinted). Of these, only 27 occurred in the feminine; six more are introduced with double gender; four are referred to as sharing the same form for both genders; and there is another one, which will be discussed below, adjunto a la dirección (‘deputy director’), and which appears only once in the masculine referring to a woman. All these professions together give a total of 38; the remaining 92 ‘new’ professions are mentioned in the masculine only, even in cases stereotypically performed by women, such as empleado de hogar (‘cleaning man’) or auxiliar de vuelo (‘flight-attendant-he’). The ratio is then roughly one feminine to three masculine. Summarizing, we found that the number of feminine titles is much lower than the number of masculine ones, not only for the 20 most common professions (in this case the ratio is one feminine to 2.27 masculine for the last five years), but also for the rest of them (with a ratio of one to 2.99). Professions included for the first time after 2004 show a similar bias, though the feminine–masculine ratio is slightly smaller, one to 2.28, when adding professions mentioned with double gender or 3.29 when comparing strict feminine and masculine references. Last but not least, we were particularly concerned with the ‘names’ of the feminine titles that were supplied by textbooks and grammars, that is, whether the old sexist titles still remained and whether new feminine titles were introduced, especially in cases subject to controversy and fluctuation. Table 8.3 shows the amount of masculine titles for women of the most frequently mentioned professions. According to the results, the number of cases of masculine nouns applied to women was very low before 2004 and even decreased after 2004. The masculine title for women directors (director) and lawyers (abogado) disappeared
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after 2004; in fact, only one masculine title for women can be found after that date, médico (‘physician-he’). This seems to prove that ELE authors have somehow challenged the Academy’s recommendations of assigning masculine titles to women in prestigious professions, at least in the most common ones in ELE textbooks. The picture changes slightly if we consider our whole corpus together. We have found only 20 cases of masculine titles provided for women’s jobs. But this low figure does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that job titles in ELE materials have been feminized because most of the feminine titles given in textbooks correspond to those titles for which there is universal agreement on their formation. Titles subject to hesitation and political controversy are precisely those which either are part of the 20 cases in the masculine already mentioned, or are not introduced in the materials analysed. Among the 20 titles in the masculine for women found in our corpus, we can list: medico (‘physician), albañil (‘bricklayer’), jefe (‘head’), abogado (‘lawyer’), juez (‘judge’), gerente (‘manager’), adjunto a la dirección (‘deputy director’), conserje (‘receptionist’), fiscal (‘prosecutor’), guardia (‘policeman’) and soldado (‘soldier’). These examples are particularly relevant as some of them contradict the rules summarized in most grammars and, precisely for that reason, they are at the centre of the political and sociolinguistic debate. Of the words above, some – especially juez, conserje, fiscal and gerente – are still used in the masculine by most people; feminist guidelines recommend the usage of conserja, albañila, jueza, adjunta, fiscala and so on (Lledó, 2006); and in Latin-American countries in some cases the feminine forms (and not the masculine forms) are normative for women. We can thus conclude that most authors have opted for the feminine professional title in some occupations for which the Academy still maintains the masculine but accepts the feminine. However, they have not dared to openly challenge the normative discourse and feminize all titles and professions. And more importantly, dozens of feminine professional terms are lacking, especially some of the most controversial ones. We shall now proceed to our second main research question: how do teachers’ textbooks depict the current debate on the lexicon of professions? After scrutinizing the forewords or statements of intent and instructions given to teachers in the relevant chapters, looking for references to the open gender-and-professional-title debate, we can ensure that only one out of all the books analysed overtly alludes to the question, A Fondo, which suggests making students aware of the relationship between social evolution and the linguistic changes it entails:
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The issue dealt with in this section, gender variation in professional titles, is more sociological than purely grammatical. The fact that for centuries certain professions have been exerted only by men, and thus the professional title has been used only in the masculine, has caused in present-day times, when women also exert those professions, the co-existence of masculine forms (la médico [‘theshe physician-he’], la juez [‘the-she judge-he’]) and new forms with feminine endings (la médica [‘the-she physician-she’], la jueza [‘theshe judge-she’]) for women. It is a question in permanent revision which undergoes constant change, with different trends competing among themselves, which makes it difficult to provide stable usage standards. However, we consider that students should be provided with an approach to this question, precisely because of the relation between social transformation and linguistic form. (Coronado González et al., 2005:54–55, our translation) Another couple of books, led by a deep, tradition-rooted concern with grammatical correctness rather than with gender appropriateness, vaguely remind teachers that they should warn students to pay attention to grammatical gender when doing activities related to professions (Quiñones and Oliva, 2002:7; Buitrago et al., 2007:102). That’s it! Apart from these three cases, no further allusions to gender issues are found in the materials we have analysed, a fact which unquestionably indicates that the answer to our second main research question above is that the debate is utterly ignored. Both publishers and authors blatantly neglect the issue and seem to overlook existing regulations and suggestions. Why should publishers or authors care, we might ask, when, as is the case, even ‘official’ institutions completely ignore the issue? We have already mentioned the Instituto Cervantes’s Plan Curricular and how any reference to sexist language throughout its pages has been carefully avoided. The Instituto refers, in turn, to the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework for Language (2001) in which the term ‘gender’, as we understand it here, is only mentioned but twice in its 260 pages: the first one, ‘relations between sexes (gender, intimacy)’, in section 5.1.1.2, when enumerating learners’ sociolinguistic (‘interpersonal relations’) competences; the second,9 when suggesting methodological options for modern language learning and teaching. In neither case does the Council of Europe manifest any special interest or concern for the topic. We see then that this pervasive oblivion spreads over all the sides of a pyramid, from its apex, occupied by European and national institutions,
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down its sides, authors and publishers, to its very base, the ‘recipients’ of this legacy, the learners, who are thus unfairly condemned to sheer unawareness of the issue under consideration. Moreover, most, not to say all, of the books under examination show serious mistakes in the treatment of gender for sexed nouns, even when regarded from a strictly pedagogical perspective. Treatment of grammar topics in ELE books invariably follows an inductive approach, supplying students with a few examples out of which they are supposed to infer general rules. This inductive approach, however, has a major shortcoming that renders it inadequate, as it gives no account for exceptions which, as we stated above, are particularly complex, abundant and subject to variation in Spanish. Let’s illustrate our claim with a couple of enlightening examples. González Hermoso and Romero Dueñas (2007) succinctly ‘explain’ gender with the Table 8.6. This sort of explanation cannot stand by itself, as the rules in lines one and four are glaringly contradictory, as well as incomplete. We have found over 750 masculine titles ending in -or in Spanish, of which only four take the feminine in -triz, among them: Actor/actriz (‘actor’/‘actress’) and emperador/emperatriz (‘emperor’/‘empress’). By strict inductive application of the rule underlying the last example, no further explained, students would get non-existing words such as agricultriz, viticultriz or, even, borda(d)triz (instead of agricultora (‘farmer-she’), viticultora (‘vinegrower-she’) or bordadora (‘embroiderer-she’), a profession traditionally common among Spanish women). In our second example, taken from Cerrolaza et al. (1999), the authors, after epitomizing gender inflections in Table 8.7, put forward the following application activity (Table 8.8). Table 8.6 Gender Inflection (From González Hermoso and Romero Dueñas, 2007) SON MASCULINOS El conductor El periodista El cantante El actor
SON FEMENINOS -consonante -ista -ante -or
+ -a -ista -ante -triz
MASCULINE NOUNS The-he driver-he The-he journalist-he The-he singer-he The-he actor-he
La conductora La periodista La cantante La actriz
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FEMININE NOUNS -consonant -ista -ante -or
+ -a -ista -ante -triz
The-she driver-she The-she journalist-she The-she singer-she The-she actor-she
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Especiales -o/-a -ista -ante -or/-a
Special nouns -o/-a -ista -ante -or/-a
Masculinos
Femeninos
el hombre el padre el actor el alumno el tío el hermano el hijo el dentista el artista el estudiante el cantante el doctor el profesor
la mujer la madre la actriz la hermana la tía la alumna la hija la dentista la artista la estudiante cantante la la doctora la profesora
Masculine nouns
Feminine nouns
the-he man the-he father the-he actor the-he pupil-he the-he uncle the-he brother the-he son the-he dentist-he the-he artist-he the-he student-he the-she singer-he the-he doctor-he the-he teacher-he
the-she woman the-she mother the-she actor-she the-she pupil the-she aunt the-she sister the-she daughter the-she dentist-she the-she artist-she the-he student-she the-she singer-she the-she doctor-she the-she teacher-she
Table 8.8 Excerpt from Activity 1, unit 7 (from Cerrolaza et al., 1999, 16) 1. Write the feminine of: 1. marido (‘husband’)...................................... 4. actor.............................................................
The feminine for marido is mujer or esposa, something that cannot by any means be inferred from the examples given! While the feminine for actor would be (according to the last rule) wrongly constructed as actora (we have seen above it should be actriz).
Conclusions Our first conclusion is that the percentage of female occupations in ELE materials has decreased in the last five years. Male jobs are not only larger in number, but are also given priority (they normally precede female jobs) and thus they have more visibility. Despite the fact that non-sexist linguistic policies came into effect more than a decade ago in Spain, in most cases authors of ELE have
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Table 8.7 Gender Inflection (From Cerrolaza et al., 1999)
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not been brought into the language planning process, and very little has been done to implement non-sexist usage in schools, universities or educational establishments. As a result, and to a great extent due to the omnipresent influence of the Spanish Academy, to which every author and teacher must pay tribute, and due to the ideological constraints of the discipline of Spanish Philology itself, some authors of ELE materials disagree with the existing public policies on non-sexist language. Some others quite likely do not understand them, unaware as they may be of the research which supports the policies or the rationale behind them. This is especially evident in the permanent use of sexist masculine generic for human generic reference in all materials analysed but one (Cerrolaza et al., 1999), and in some authors’ use of masculine forms of professional titles and occupations for women, and conversely in the use of only the feminine form for certain occupations [ama de casa (‘housewife’)]. There seems to be no concern at all about the transmission of sexist wording. Our investigation seems to demonstrate that avoidance of a gender bias is not part of ‘thinkable’, official knowledge of pedagogical ELE discourse, which, as with any pedagogical discourse, is not ideologically free. As Berstein noted, and accepting that the ‘pedagogical device’ is a symbolic ruler of consciousness, ‘those who own the device own the means of perpetuating their power through discursive means and establishing, or attempting to establish, their own ideological representations’ (1996:117). Among university departments of Hispanic Studies (who control or supervise ELE materials and courses), dissent from normative grammar is looked upon very unfavourably. Yet Spain is an ever changing society, with one of the most advanced legislations for gender equality. Notwithstanding ELE authors’ representation of gender occupations and labels, the public world of contemporary Spanish society is a domain where gender identities are constantly being reshaped and stereotypes challenged. ELE textbooks tend to present a rigid and ‘fossilized’ society, which does not necessarily correspond to present-day Spain. By their lexical choices, and by the assignment of gender to appointments, jobs and occupations, authors of ELE textbooks construct an ideological world of professional women and men, where not only men’s jobs prevail, but in some cases men’s names occupy the whole professional semantic space, forcing women to adopt a male identity. On the other hand, ELE grammars and textbooks might have been expected to integrate the existing sociolinguistic discourses into their works but, instead, they keep them conspicuously absent. In their
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earliest exposure to the Spanish language, students should be presented with a fair picture of the current debate in ELE materials, and not hidden from it. Only one of the textbooks analysed provides students with tools to decipher the strategies used by contemporary speakers of Spanish to convey their message on gender identities. One of the functions of (absent) notes on gender usage would be to indicate to ELE learners what type of view on gender is being expressed by gender constructions. The strategies in ELE materials of hiding and veiling the debate which is currently taking place in the Spanish-speaking community seem to be geared to preserve the androcentric status quo. Whether this is a conscious ideological response or an unconscious decision is difficult to know. However, as Hartman and Judd remarked, ‘We bring to the forefront of consciousness only those cultural issues that we deem important, according to the dictates of our political consciences’ (1978:384).
Notes 1. Research for this paper has been carried out under the research project ‘Feminización del Lenguaje’, funded by the Instituto de la Mujer (I + D + I 37/2006). 2. Instituto Cervantes (2006a). 3. In this chapter we only analyse ELE materials published in Spain. LatinAmerican ELE materials are beyond our scope. 4. Recommendation n◦ R (90) 4, of the Committee of Ministers to State Members on the Elimination of Sexism from Language (21 February 1990). Council of Europe. 5. Real Academia Española. ‘Informe sobre la expresión violencia de género’. 19 May 2004. http://www.rae.es/rae/gestores/gespub000001.nsf/%28voAnexos %29/archBB81F7452A4355C0C12571F000438E7A / $FILE / Violenciadeg % C3 % A9nero.htm The Spanish Academy has maintained this report on its web since that date (date accessed: 26 February 2009). 6. For a more detailed description of the Spanish Academy’s resistance to feminization, Bengoechea (2008) can be consulted. 7. An asterisk next to a word shows that the term has not been included in the standard Dictionary; it is therefore non-standard. 8. Ratios have been calculated using the formula: value after 2004 − value before 2004 × 100 value before 2004
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9. ‘In some respects European peoples appear to share a common culture. In other respects there is considerable diversity, not simply between one nation and another but also between regions, classes, ethnic communities, genders and so on. Careful consideration has to be given to the representation of the target culture and the choice of the social group or groups to be focused on’ (Council of Europe, 2001: Section 6.4.6.2, p. 264).
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Aliaga Jiménez, J. L. (2007) ‘Descripción funcional y crítica feminista: lectura alternativa del género gramatical en español’, in International Perspectives on Gender and Language. Santaemilia, J et al., (eds) Valencia: Universitat de València, 217–232. Aliaga Jiménez, J. L. (2009) ‘El género en el análisis del género. El falso antagonismo entre lingüística y feminismo’. Lecture given at Universidad de La Rioja. May 2009. Barceló Morte, L. (2006) Los estereotipos de género en los manuales de ELE. Estudios de las representaciones de varones y mujeres en cuatro libros de texto publicados entre 2003–2004, http://www.mepsyd.es/redele/ Biblioteca2006/LolaBarcelo.shtml, date accessed 14 February 2009. Bengoechea, M. (2008) ‘Lo femenino en la lengua: sociedad, cambio y resistencia normativa’, Lenguaje y Textos, 27, 37–68. Bernstein, B. (1996) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London: Taylor and Francis. Buitrago, A., Díez, M. C., Domínguez, R. and Martín, E., (2007) Español lengua viva 2 – Guía del profesor. Salamanca: Santillana/Universidad de Salamanca. Carrera Troyano, M. and Gómez Asencio, J. J. (2007) ‘La industria de la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera’, Circunstancia, 13, Mayo. http://www. ortegaygasset.edu/circunstancia/numero13/art4.htm, date accessed 14 February 2009. Cerrolaza, M. et al. (1999) Planet@ ELE: Libro de referencia gramatical. Madrid: EDELSA. Coronado González, M. L., García, J. and Zarzalejos, A. (2005) A fondo – Avanzado. Madrid: SGEL. Galiano Sierra, I. (1993) ‘La mujer en los manuales de español para extranjeros’, in Actas del III Congreso Nacional de ESELE. Peydró, S. M. and Garrido Moraga, A. (eds) Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 119–125. Gallardo Saborido, E. (2005) ‘Los problemas de discriminación sexual en los diccionarios de L2: alcaldesas, albañilas y sargentonas’ in M. A. Castillo Carballo et al. (eds) Actas del XV Congreso Internacional de ASELE (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla), 365–369. Guerrero Salazar, S. (2003) ‘Propuestas no sexistas para favorecer la interculturalidad en ELE’, In Actas del XIII Congreso Internacional de ASELEM. Pérez Gutiérrez and Coloma Maestre, J. (eds) Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 393–402. González Hermoso A. and Romero Dueñas, C. (2007) Actúa A2+. Madrid: EDELSA. Hartman, P. L. and Judd, E. L. (1978) ‘Sexism and TESOL materials’, TESOL Quarterly, 12, 4, 383–393. Instituto Cervantes (2006b) Plan curricular del Instituto Cervantes. Niveles de referencia para el español. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva. Izquierdo Merino, S. (1998) ‘Enseñar E/LE en Europa Oriental. A vueltas con los contenidos socioculturales: El lenguaje para conductas no sexistas, no sólo os/-as’ en F. Moreno Fernández, M. Gil Bürmann and K. Alonso (eds) Actas del VIII Congreso Internacional de ASELE (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá), 473–478. Larrañaga Domínguez, A. (2004) ‘Aproximación a una bibliografía sobre la enseñanza de léxico en el aula de español lengua extranjera/segunda lengua’, Carabela, 56, 145–170.
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References
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Lledó, E., Calero Fernández, M. A. and Forgas, E. (2004) De mujeres y diccionarios. Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer. Lledó, E. (2006) Las profesiones de la A a la Z. Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer. Portal Nieto, A. M. (2000) ‘ELE: Género gramatical y sexismo lingüístico’, in Actas del X Congreso Internacional de ASELE. M. Franco et al. (eds) Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 2, 551–557. Quiñones, M. J. and Oliva, C. G. (2002) Redes 1. Madrid: SM. Real Academia Española (1992) Diccionario de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 21st edition. Real Academia Española (2001) Diccionario de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 22nd edition. Robles Fernández, M. G. (2005) La mujer en los manuales de español como lengua extranjera: del estereotipo al personaje real e histórico, mujeres insignes, mujeres comunes, mujeres sin más. http://www.mepsyd.es/redele/ Biblioteca2006/GorettyRobles.shtml, date accessed 14 February 2009. Robles Fernández, M. G. (2007) ‘Where are women in Spanish Second Language textbooks? What they do? Who they are?’, in International Perspectives on Gender and Language. J. Santaemilia et al. (eds) Valencia: Universitat de València, 553–569. de Santiago Guervós, J. (1996) ‘La discriminación en la enseñanza de lenguas’, Conferencia impartida en el Curso Superior de Filología Hispánica, Universidad de Salamanca. Available at [email protected]. Sitman, R., Lerner, I. and Schammah-Gesser, S. (1999) ‘¿Es generoso el género en español? De mujeres, hombres y otras hierbas . . .’ in Actas del IX Congreso Internacional de ASELET. Jiménez Juliá et al. (eds) Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago, 261–268. Sunderland, J. (1994a) ‘Pedagogical and other filters: The representation of non-sexist language change in British pedagogical grammars’, in Exploring Gender: Questions and Implications for EL. Education. Sunderland, J. (ed.) Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, 92–103. Sunderland, J. (1994b) ‘Introduction to quadrant II’, in Exploring Gender: Questions and Implications for EL. Education. Sunderland, J. (ed.) Hemel hempstead: Prentice Hall, 55–66. Sunderland, J. Rahim, F. A., Cowley, M., Leontzakou, C. and Shattuck, J. (2001) ‘From bias “in the text” to “teacher talk around the text”: An exploration of teacher discourse and foreign language textbook texts’, Linguistics and Education, 11, 3, 251–286. Sunderland, J. Cowley, M., Rahim, F. A., Leontzakou, C. and Shattuck, J. (2002) ‘From representation towards discursive practices: gender in the foreign language textbook revisited’, in Gender identity and Discourse Analysis. Litosseliti, L. and Sunderland, J. (eds) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 223–255.
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Humour, Vocabulary and Individuality in an EFL Task Julieta Ojeda Alba
Although a strand of distrust concerning humourous activities runs in Western countries (Palmer, 1993; Carroll, 2005), humour is a universal phenomenon in human communities. It has even been regarded as one of the attributes which essentially differentiate mankind from other animals. Its nature, however, eludes full understanding, as the profuse and often at variance theories demonstrate. The term still retains today the traditional meaning which denoted the four bodily fluids, the balance of which was believed to determine a person’s temperament or disposition, but it first and foremost activates thoughts of amusement and laughter. Can humour be explained and do all humourous situations share an essential element? Scholars have endeavoured to come up with a satisfactory definition, and different taxonomies have been envisioned, but most types of humour are framed within one of the three traditional theories: the Superiority theory; the Relief theory; and the Incongruity theory. The first one, reaching back to Plato, locates the core of humour in the pleasure man obtains from the degradation of others. Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan, offers an often quoted definition of humour: ‘the sudden glory arising from the sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly’ (1886:47). The Relief Theory, associated to Herbert Spenser (1860) and Sigmund Freud (1928), describes humourous laughter as generated by a release of previously existing repression or energy; and other versions of this theory claim that the humourous stimulus itself may be the cause of the accumulation of nervous energy which, in jokes, for instance, is liberated immediately after the punch line.
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Something absurd (something in which, therefore, the understanding can of itself find no delight) must be present in whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh. Laughter is an affection arising from a strained expectation being suddenly reduced to nothing. This very reduction, at which certainly understanding cannot rejoice, is still indirectly a source of very lively enjoyment for a moment. (Emphasis in original) (538) Schopenhauer, in addition highlights the surprise factor. He argues that humour is the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects, adding that the greater and more unexpected the incongruity is, the deeper the laughter. In a recent study on humour Salvatore Attardo expresses the essence of the incongruity approach anew, ‘The incongruity theories claim that humor arises from the perception of an incongruity between a set of expectations and what is actually perceived’ (2008:103).
Gender and humour Nevertheless, classical theorists of humour have been males: description and classifications by females might have added shades absent in conventional male representations. Perchance because humour may potentially subvert the status quo, women were for years almost entirely excluded from it, as they were almost entirely excluded from many other artistic fields. For a long time, the buzz phrase in relation to this topic was that women lacked a sense of humour, and we were periodically reminded of that fact (for example, Weisstein, 1973; Kramarae, 1981; Crawford and Gressley, 1991; Kotthoff, 2006). In 1991 Regina Barreca contended that women do have a sense of humour, although for a long while only ‘bad girls’ dared to exploit it because of its potentially subversive nature. Indeed, men’s expectations have conformed to an angelical image of women that rendered them incapable of exhibiting their wits without risking their social status. When a woman made the conscious choice of acknowledging her understanding of sexual innuendo, for instance, her awareness came to the forefront. This for many a
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The Incongruity Theory is the most widely accepted today, it functions as a kind of umbrella term which encompasses a great majority of cases. Indeed, when analysing a given humourous situation it is rare not to stumble upon some kind of incongruity (Kant, 1781; Schopenhauer, 1819; Kierkegaard, 1846). Kant, for example, believed that,
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man represented a deviation from her socially assigned role. The consequence was women’s routine veiling of their sense of humour in order to protect their ‘femininity’: most particularly when listening to sexually loaded jokes or witticism. Robin Lakoff observed in 1975 that ‘women don’t tell jokes’ (2004:80), and this female invisibility was conspicuous even in educational contexts: almost three decades ago, evaluating the appreciation of humour as a teaching tool by college students, Bryant et al. noticed that the use of humour by female professors often passed unnoticed (1980:80–81). In the eighties, scholarship detected that this long alleged female deficiency perpetuated women’s absence from comic scenarios (for example, Barreca, 1988; Walker, 1988; Walker and Dressner, 1988). Walker, for instance, surveyed American women’s literary humour in a number of anthologies, and noticed the paucity of its presence, while assessing some features that, from Walker’s point of view, might have contributed to that absence. Fortunately, by now, most women would agree with Barreca’s assertion: ‘It is no secret to women that women have a sense of humor’ (1991:103). Also in the eighties, it was noticed that changes taking place in society were being replicated in language. Nilsen Don and Alleen Nilsen observed that ‘cultural changes are reflected in both languages and humor’ (1987:76). Elsewhere, the emergence of new trends which would assist gender egalitarianism was detected. In a chapter dedicated to humour Mary Crawford notices the emergence of a specifically feminist women’s humour which, according to her, would be ‘a powerful agent of social change’ (1995:130). Not long ago Kotthoff declared that ‘The simplistic model of the actively joking man and the receptively smiling woman has lost ground’ (2006:4). The notion that there are qualitative differences is not disputed; it is widely accepted that both sexes tend to develop different patterns of interaction and, consequently, humourous interactions also differ. In fact, research demonstrates that humour is one of the areas where stylistic gendered differences are most often found (for example, Coser, 1960; Ervin-Tripp and Lampert, 1992; Hay, 1995). Jennifer Hay explored interactions between gender and humour, and she observed that ‘Men are more likely to use humor only for the general function of increasing status and solidarity and performing positive work on their personal identity’ (202). Kramarae, expanding on Ardener’s theory of the muted groups, (one of which would be women) claims that women have greater difficulties than men to communicate because of the imposed social requirement to adopt the system of the dominant
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group; owing to this fact, women were compelled to use more nonverbal modes of communication than men to express feelings which men typically do not care to express. In addition, Kramarae also attributes the widespread blindness in perceiving women’s sense of humour to the extended practice of measuring responses to ready-made humour, instead of measuring more spontaneous instances of generated humour which are routinely overlooked (1981). However, traditional discourses focusing on the gender differences paradigm have not proved that differences are necessarily symptomatic of worse female performance in the area of languages. On the contrary, we have been often reminded that it is precisely females who generally do better in languages (for example, Barton, 1998; Callagham, 1998; Ojeda and Jiménez, 2007; Jiménez and Ojeda, 2008). In addition, Jane Sunderland interestingly wonders whether the said linguistic superiority of females is indeed beneficial for them. This scholar advocates a more sophisticated approach to gender which, without losing sight of differences, avoids the simplistic concept of gender as a mere male/female binary opposition. She believes that closer attention to individual differences should be paid, while moving from quantitative to qualitative approaches (2000). Sunderland and Litosseliti expand these and other ideas and summarize the new trends when they conclude that gender studies in linguistics have undergone a radical shift of focus from ‘gender roles’ and ‘gender differences’ to a focus on variable identities (femininities and masculinities) and on gender not only as an individual, or even social, attribute, but also as a contextualized, changing set of practices (2002:31).
Children and educational contexts Children’s humour has received attention as well (McGhee, 1977; Führ, 2002; Bergen, 2007), and scholarly studies have been also devoted to humour in connection to education, expanding on the positive link between humour and learning. Humour and labour were thought to be mutually exclusive concepts, but in Janet Holmes words, now ‘companies are discovering that humor is an effective way of increasing productivity and assisting with stress, as well as promoting teamwork and creativity’ (2007:522): this has important applications as well in primary and secondary school contexts. Other scholars see humour as a catalyst of creativity (Cade, 1982; Murdock and Ganim, 1993; Carter, 2004; Torok et al., 2004). Many of their studies deal with adults and their work place (Morreall, 1991; Holmes and Marra, 2002; Holmes, 2006) but
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their findings can be equally applied to children and their workplace – school. Over the last three decades considerable evidence has been accumulated that the humourous, the comical and the funny, help educators to better communicate contents to apprentices (for example, Gorham and Christophel, 1990; Wanzer and Frymier 1999; Berk, 2002). Berk, for instance, gives teachers advice on how to exploit humour in interactions with their students (1998). Others correlate humour and gender in second languages contexts (for example, Gibson, 1992; Cook, 2000; Minchew, 2001; Nayak and Kehily, 2001). Cook, in Language Play, Language Learning argues for a playful and humourous approach to language learning, as opposed to the widespread idea that apprentices should be exposed to everyday language focusing on achieving practical serious language usage. However, it has been noticed that, again, empirical humour research in association to children has centred mostly on the informants’ appreciation of humour, rather than on the creation of it: the ability to make witty remarks or clever word associations, and the talent to conceive funny stories, has been much less studied. Abundant research has been carried out on humourous conversational interaction, but written discourse has been barely heeded. As far as we know, there is no research on the production of humour by primary school children in the context of formal EFL learning in Spain. And, although by 1996 Marilyn Droz and Lori Ellis had already discussed gender differences in school contexts, there is an even wider gap of research correlating humour, gender, primary and secondary school, and foreign language learners. Our own study attempts to fill some of these gaps by identifying individual tendencies and gender patterns in children’s humourous creation when writing in an L2. Should a predisposition reveal itself, we would aim at searching in the future for its practical educational applications.
Method Objectives The present study is ascribed to a longitudinal project which, beginning in 2003, has analysed the receptive and productive vocabulary of 283 primary school students in a number of tasks written throughout three consecutive school years (2003–2006), when the informants were attending fourth, fifth and sixth grades. The same team of researchers is now carrying out a follow-up of the said project initiated in 2007.1 The
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goal of this second stage is to analyse the vocabulary produced by the same sample in their first three years of ESO. Our first objective in this study is to identify the humourous statements, and the words that construct these statements, produced by Spanish primary and secondary school students when writing EFL compositions at two different levels of their mandatory education: when attending the fourth year of primary school and, three years later, when attending the first year of ESO (Mandatory Secondary Education). In addition, we want to ascertain whether the sex variable affects their performance in the two above mentioned cross-sectional slices. Finally, we aim at analysing individual cases in some detail and discuss the possible functions of the informants’ use of humour. We hope that in the future it may be possible to apply our findings to EFL instruction procedures, and to the designing of educational materials, namely the selection of classroom vocabulary input. All this is summarized in the following research questions: 1. Do primary school students use unprompted humour when writing EFL compositions? 2. Do the same students use this unprompted humour when writing an identical task three years later? 3. Does the implementation of humour increase or decrease as students get older? 4. What type of vocabulary do students apply in their implementation of humour? 5. What individual characteristics are detected in the study of cases and do any gendered or other patterns emerge? Informants, instruments and procedures Our informants for the present study are 204 EFL students (102 females and 102 males). This figure results from: first, excluding all the participants who have not completed the tasks; second, balancing gender distribution, which made the random exclusion of a number of males necessary. The test administered here is a letter composition to a prospective host family in England. The participants received the following written instructions in addition to the necessary oral explanation: Imagine you are going to live for a month with an English family (the Edwards), in Oxford. There are four members in the family: Mr and Mrs Edwards, and the children Peter and Helen. Write a letter to them in English in which you should introduce yourself and tell them about
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your town, your school, your hobbies, and any other thing of interest that you would like to add. Each student completes exactly the same task twice, after an interval of three years. The total number of compositions analysed is 408: two by each informant. The first set of compositions was written after students had attended an average of 340 hours EFL tuition (average age 10); the second letter after they had received an average of 670 hours tuition (average age 13). Once the compositions were decoded and Spanish words discarded, they were electronically transcribed, all the examples of humour were isolated and their characteristics, such as type of humour or vocabulary employed, manually analysed. To ensure that the selected passages were objectively categorized as humourous, and to avoid potential observer’s bias as much as possible, our selection of laughter-eliciting fragments was done as follows: after our own close reading and the choice of the items suspected of targeting at being humourous was done, the selected text pieces were proofread by two colleagues: one whose native language is Spanish but has proficiency in English; and one whose native language is English but who has lived in contact with Spanish culture for years.
Results Quantitative data In answer to the first and second research questions posed, ‘do primary and secondary EFL students use humour when writing EFL compositions?’, we must reply that, in variable proportions, ‘they do’, even though humour was not promoted by the nature of the task. In the first cross-sectional slice, administered when the informants were attending the fourth year of primary school, henceforth identified as ‘FS’, out of a sample of 102 participants, six boys are, or attempt to be, humourous; while out of the same size female sample we find merely one girl who uses humour. In the second cross-sectional slice taken when the participants were attending the first year of ESO, henceforth identified as ‘SS’, we find 30 boys and two girls. The answer to the third research question ‘does the implementation of humour increase or decrease as students get older?’ can be deduced from the above data. In the female sample the figure, though it doubles that of FS, continues to be small, with only one more informant who uses humour; while in the SS male corpus we find 24 more informants, a four times higher figure.
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Lexical field Proper nouns Relatives Grammar words
Types
Tokens
12 7 6
16 15 53
To our fourth question, ‘what type of vocabulary do students apply in their implementation of humour?’, we may reply that some curious recurring patterns emerge. In FS, where production is rather meager, the vocabulary found within instances of humour are formed simply by 36 types and 100 tokens. As seen in Table 9.1, the highest number of types belongs to the lexical field of proper names with 12 types and 16 tokens. The second place is occupied by the lexical field of relatives, with seven types and 15 tokens, and within this field the terms more often used are father, brother and uncle. The third position is for grammar words, with six types and 53 tokens: as customary, this category yields the highest number of occurrences. On the contrary, almost all common names which do not denote family members happen to be hapaxlegomena in both slides. The explanation for this high proportion of proper names is that participants regularly produce humour by picturing a scenario in which family members and they themselves are impersonating famous people. Out of the 12 proper names implemented, nine designate world famous footballers and the remaining ones are Victoria Bekham, James Bond and, finally, an informant’s uncle. The fact that football is mostly played by men explains why it is mainly male relatives whom informants choose as subjects of the impersonations. We speculate that Mrs Bekham is included in FS because of her relationship to the charismatic footballer David Beckham. Among the common names we find terms such as ‘millionaire’ which suggest the tone of these participants’ discourse. As we will see further down, the only female informant in this slice (student 175) produces five common names and seven grammar tokens and, contrary to the males, her production is not related to the world of sports. In the entire SS corpus there are 456 different types and, as can be seen in Table 9.2, the lexical field with the highest number of types is again that of proper nouns, and for similar reasons. However, while in FS most names designate famous sportsmen, mostly footballers, in SS wealthy
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Table 9.1 Lexical Fields with the Highest Number of Types in FS
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Lexical field Proper nouns Grammar words Places Sports Vehicles Numbers Relatives Taboo words
Types
Tokens
92 50 25 26 25 20 10 7
102 738 36 74 39 64 49 11
and famous people from several other areas are also included. More often than not names designate famous people associated with sports, but there are others from the political or the entertainment arena. In SS, curiously, female characters appear in their own right, although if truth be told, in the youths’ minds their value seems to be located mainly on the females’ sex-appeal. A cursory look at the common noun type list suggests what topics these informants seem to tease about most often. We find mainly sports related terms; objects they wished their families or themselves owned; and cars and houses famous people possess and they wish they themselves did too. The highest number of tokens corresponds again to the grammar category, with 738 occurrences, over half the number of the entire corpus of tokens implemented in the humourous examples that yield a figure of 1519. The answer to our fifth and central research question, ‘what individual characteristics are detected in the study of cases, and do any gendered or other patterns emerge?’, is a long one. In this section, with an eye on quantitative data, we examine and comment upon some passages produced by individuals of both sexes. In our commentaries and observations we often rely on methods of the literacy practice, trying to identify socio-cultural models that may have had a sway in the informants’ style of locating and establishing their own identity patterns. Quantitatively it can easily be inferred from the above data that females have a much smaller representation than males in both slices. In FS six males and one female are the subjects of humourous production; and in SS we find 30 males and two females. The above quantitative data support traditional notions of females’ absence from the humour
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Table 9.2 Lexical Fields with the Highest Number of Types in SS
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scenarios as subjects; and, in addition, some female participants become the objects of their male classmates’ attempts to be funny. We now focus on qualitative aspects, and on the specific individual humour production participants choose to use by means of an L2. In general, their efforts seem to be directed to the construction of their prowess and identity. The narrators seem to be on a quest to construct a self of their own choice, and they do it by means of humour for, as we observe below, it is a safe way to talk about one’s dreams. Our minuscule corpus of female ‘humourous’ fragments does not yield itself to putting forward much quantitative gendered trait comparisons. For instance, SS female 177, whose production has not been regarded as humourous, is unmistakably more down to earth than most of her male counterparts, as gender stereotypes might have predicted. She admits her lack of skills at aerobics and uses her clumsiness as a source of amusement for herself when she writes, Example 1: ‘I go to do aerobic . . . It’s very helthy and funny, because I’m not good at it’.2 Then, this female expresses her desires of having possessions beyond her reach, distinguishing clearly between what she can and what she cannot obtain. Example 2: ‘I want to have a big house with swimming pool and a Buggaty but they’re very expensive. I have Nintendo DS and I play a lot with it. I want go to Los Angeles to see Beveerly Hills.’ Most males in our corpus brag about what they do not possess, while being totally unaware of their shortcomings. A good instance is male 63 who declares, Example 3: ‘I’m living in Maroco. . . . I speak two lenguiches inglish and spanish’. His spelling and the fact that he attends a school in Logroño (Spain) deny or undermine both his statements. However, although these two individuals have very different methods of approaching their dreams, we cannot attribute their different discourses to gender, for the two other girls in the corpus are every bit as visionary as males, and both boast conditions quite unlikely to be true in their socioeconomic status.
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Except for the comical effect caused by unintentional malapropisms which will not be analysed here, our corpus of humourous examples is related to Superiority theory. Noëll Carroll observes, recalling Plato, that ‘we laugh at people who fail to realize the Socratic adage – “Know thyself” – and who instead deceive themselves, imagining that they are wiser than they are, or stronger, or taller: thus amusement contains an element of malice’ (344). Our informants seem to be quite good at deceiving themselves in relation to their accomplishments and possessions. SS male 163 makes some dubious declarations in the following example, Example 4: I’m very intelligent . . . but one of my best friends isn’t intelligent . . . This year I’m going to go to New York. Los Angeles, and Caribean sea . . . my father’s name is Iker Casillas, the goalkeeper of Real Madrid, he twenty-six and he is the best father of the world. My mother is Anna Kournikova the best female’s tennis player of the world. I’ve got two sisters Jamie Lynn Spears and Britney Spears the most beautiful in the world. In trying to rise over his own social milieu and tease and disdain those who are below him, this informant ironically becomes himself the object of entertainment for others who observe his simplicity. In some cases, however, the target of the banter is admittedly the joker himself. Hobbes’s explanation of this phenomenon is that the subject of humour who chooses himself as the object does that from a perspective in which he or she has already distanced him or herself enough from previous errors and foolish behaviour to stimulate his or her own amusement. Thus, the subjects become also the objects by laughing at their own former selves from what they reckon to be a new and superior self. Carroll (2005) explains, echoing Hobbes, that we laugh ‘putatively from a present perspective of superior insights that sees and savours’ (345), our former stupidity or absentmindedness exhibited by ‘the person’ we formerly were. We find here variants of this type of mental process: some informants laugh at themselves from a simultaneous understanding of their foolishness. Male 134, after informing that he is interested in football, immodestly declares,
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Example 5: ‘I play in the team of football T.A.T.U. I’m the best player, je, je . . .’ He adds a Spanish interjection which indicates a chuckle, mocking or incredulity by which he simultaneously laughs and scorns the part of
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Example 6: This summer I travel to China a enormous and beautifull country. The last year I travel to Portugal and Granada. Other years I travel to Egipt, Italy, Vatican, Turkey, France, Andorre, etc. All years I travel to Laredo, in Cantabria . . . and to Valdeavellano de Tera, in Soria. I’m the TRAVEL- MAN. Information gathered later about this subject authorizes us to safely conjecture that, except for Valdeavellano de Tera3 it is very unlikely that he had, at that point, visited the places he mentions. In the same key, SS male 144 laughs openly at his own football team, using a strategic mode of extricating himself from any serious alliance to what he considers a bad team, he observes, Example 7: ‘. . . I have a team the football his name is “Tatu” The team is very bat “ja ja” “he he” ’. His jocular intentions are highlighted when further down he addresses his potential hosts and solicits, Example 8: ‘Your family have very money, trae?’ [give it to me]. In example seven the informant struggles to find the right interjection to indicate laughter, so he uses a Spanish one and what he probably believes to be the English version of the onomatopoeic word representing laughter. In almost every case our male would-be-humourists play the role of Braggadocio, which may be facilitated by their low linguistic level: exaggerism and hyperbole being in linguistic terms relatively easy to implement. Nonetheless, it would be equally easy for them to assume the role of an Eiron, and not a single case of self-deprecation has been found in the corpus. Although this may have something to do with Pilar Alderete’s observation that Spanish language ‘does not use this technique of understatement as frequently as English does’ (forthcoming:8). Be that as it may, the most modest instance of impersonation we have found is that of SS male 127 who writes,
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himself that produces the bragging statement. Nonetheless, since his words are laughed at from a wiser or more advantageous retrospective standpoint, we can assume that he is fully aware of his own naivety. This informant’s jocular intention and his self-awareness are underscored and clarified when he continues writing,
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Most likely his father is not a policeman in Manchester, and in no way was he catching a plane at 12, but the picture he draws of his circumstances is modest enough in comparison with his classmates: in Spain, youths their age do not consider policemen as role models any longer. The braggadocio role is also adopted by females. FS female 175 fantasizes with her real estate possessions, and seems so eager to show off that she struggles hard with her sparse vocabulary and observes in Spanglish, Example 10: ‘My soy millonaria, tengo in my huse piscina and mayordomo and cocinera.’ (The intended meaning seems to be: ‘I am a millionaire, my house has a swimming pool and there is a butler and a cook’). SS female 74, after observing that her mother is beautiful and that her father and brothers are funny, thus unmistakably crediting traditional gendered roles (humour is a male characteristic and beauty a female trait) explains, Example 11: ‘My family and my live in a castle. In a very big castle. In the castle there are some swimmingpools, a restaurant, a gim, etc.’ SS female 57 displays her sense of humour with no help from bragging or fantasy when she confesses, Example 12: ‘The teachers are good, but they have bad luck with we. We make many silly jokes for the teachers.’ Then she continues expressing her appreciation of a friend’s sense of humour and her own:
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Example 9: ‘I like my life because is very funny. My father is a policeman in Manchester and my mother is a medic [doctor] . . . I catch the plane at twelve o’clock and he lands in Oxford at three o’clock. . . . I am very funny.’
Example 13: ‘Pepa is very beautiful and very funny, with her I’m going to shoping and we make jokes to María because she don’t called Pepa. Goodbye family.’ (the intended meaning is, with all probability, that the authoress and Pepa tease María because she had not phoned Pepa)
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Example 14: Hello, my name is Sasuke Uchiha . . . My clan is called ‘Uchiha’ and I don’t have family, only my brother. My Village name is very funny every body are ‘ninjas’. . . . I married with Elsa Pataky. ‘Pepe’ is my friend . . . is fucking everybody. ‘Pepe’ is stupid and isn’t funny. I’m studying in ‘ninja academy’. Carlos is other of my friends often is talking. ‘Ohhh lo que ha dicho.’ [oh my! what he said!] I’m very funny and my best friend is Kiba Inuzuku (Pedro Pérez) and my brother is called, Itachi, he killed my family (Clan Uchiha) My cars are Mitsubishi Cancer Evolution, Hummer H6, Wisson 350 Z, BMW 525, Lamborghini, Diablo, Lamborghini, Gallando, Porsche, ford, Peugeot, Ferrari, modern, Mustang GT, Citroen, Opel, Renault, Mclaren, and only of my cars have got turbo and N2O P.D. I’m Akaman. This boy launches into a feast of impersonations which leads him to see himself as a character of Masashi Kishimoto’s popular cartoon series Naruto, peopled by imaginary ninjas who can use supernatural abilities. Then he proceeds to a more real, though every bit as inaccessible, world by first linking himself to a real female, the sex symbol Spanish actress Elsa Pataky; and by listing the long list of his make-believe possessions, all extremely expensive luxurious cars. Who could ask for anything more? Another composition which serves as a showcase of the different modes of humour found in this corpus is that of SS male informant 161. The author begins with a deliberate attempt to be humourous by pretending that one of the recipients of his letter is Peter Griffin, the imbecile father and husband character of the well known TV adult animation series Family Guy. He then continues boasting a wide range of worthy characteristics and possessions for a teenager: beauty, wealth, connections to the best sport team in the world, lineage and sexual activity. His fantasy of being an offspring of the unlikely couple formed by the then American president George Bush and sexy Latin pop singer Paulina Rubio strengthens his prowess. Additionally, his explicit assertion of having sexual intercourse with Hermione Granger, one of the main characters of the Harry Potter saga serves to reinforce his own masculinity. The observation that Hermione is beautiful suggests that the informant is referring to Emma Watson, the actress who plays the role and who is not only the innocent and
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A good example of bragging, exaggeration and fantasy is the following composition written by SS male 173,
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clever Hermione, but also a teenage sex symbol. Then, he concretizes his dreams by taking the step from inaccessible to accessible characters when he observes that a classmate has got ‘big water melons’ (a common Spanish epithet for the female breast). Finally he says goodbye to the recipients of his letter with the politically loaded observation that he is going to defecate with the president of the Spanish government: the intended meaning is probably ‘defecate on’. As he probably has no scatological English vocabulary at hand, he makes use of a Spanish taboo term. Example 15: Hello Mr. and Mrs-Edwards are your son Peter the protagonist of Family Guy. My name is Juan and im a beutiful and a rich boy Ive got one milion of tuning cars two house on the beach and I’m a fanatic of the television and the play station. The best game of the world is ‘San Antonio’. My parents are ‘George Bush’ and Paulina Rubio and I love fooking with Hermion Greinger ‘The best beautiful girl. My brother is ‘Gregory House’ he is at work in a hospital and he is a big cnoici of medine. My best friend is Jesús Gonzalez is a gogo and a ‘Gay’. Pepa Pérez is a beautiful girl and she have got a big big big water melon. . . . And Good bye because I’m go to ‘cagar’ with Zapatero. As we have seen, this informant mixes fantasy with true information: besides mentioning Zapatero, Pepa Pérez is a name from the class list, and its holder is apparently an attractive youth since other informants also refer to her in positive terms. FS male 89 had innocently written three years earlier, Example 16: ‘My novia is Pepa Pérez’ [my girlfriend is Pepa Pérez] And SS male 158 observes, Example 17: ‘. . . I’m rich and my girlfriend is Pepa Pérez.’ The negative allusion to our current PSOE leader, in Example 15, is counterbalanced by the production of SS male 157 in example 18. He declares that he is going to perform exactly the same physiological function of defecation on our previous PP leader.4
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Example 18: ‘My brother Zidane. My father Beckam. My mum is Victoria. Of the light im fuckin. My frend is the Latin King . . . My
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The advantages of using a subordinate mode of discourse such as humour to accomplish serious goals are manifold. Speakers may use humour to articulate ideas or make proposals the reaction to which might be risky; thus, the message can later be denied or expanded further, depending on how it is received by the hearer. As Crawford puts it, ‘Because it is indirect and allusive, the humorous mode protects the joker from the consequences that his or her statement would have if conveyed directly in the serious mode’ (1995:134–135). Indeed, many of our jokers express their farfetched dreams and longings by means of humour, which protects them from daring confessions. A variant of this strategy is precisely what male 215 uses when, after referring to a number of taboo topics, and probably realizing that he has gone too far and that he cannot possibly avoid submitting his composition, gets clear out of the mess by using a disclaimer in Spanish: ‘Es todo mentira’ [it is all a lie], the implication being that it was all a big joke. Example 19: My room is big I play with gun I never do my homework I wach the lunnis my good friens are: Jaime, fat, Pedro, Robert etc. In the fly a terrorist kill a pilot and my dog is a new pilot. In Oxford I kill the new family and do the love always the twenty four hours the day, I eat hamburger and chips I love pizza and macarrons and Jesucristo go to my hoe and ask me ‘kill’ ‘kill’ ‘kill’. In the morning I breakfast cacao and panzeta [bacon] I am Jaccas and I am intelligent. Es todo mentira. (With this disclaimer the participants neatly removes the possibility that anyone may try to identify a speck of truth in his discourse: males don’t confess their feelings easily.) Traditional archetypes of masculinity represent men as lacking emotions or concealing them by means of distancing strategies (Scheff, 1979; Seidler, 1994; Jansz, 2000; Galasinski, 2004). What male 156 uses below may be a masking strategy to block out his feelings. Either that or gender should be read into the way he mechanically includes a Spanish film star reputed for being sexy and he ‘hides’ her within a list of games and activities when giving an inventory of his hobbies.
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hoobies is ride a horse and fucking. I go cageison of Jose Maria Aznar [defecate on]’.
Example 20: ‘My hobbies is a Play-Game, Play Station, PSP Avance, film Aventure, football, money, money, animal, Grafyti, Elsa Pataki, Play Station 2, Play Station 3 and Waih.’
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So, it seems that in spite of much improvement in the situation of women, old notions and attitudes do linger on in the minds of some youths. Old stereotypes are also detected in the production of male 168, who summarizes a number of traditional bragging topics in a gendered inventory of his possessions and circumstances which he exploits to conform and shape his social identity: in his utopia his dad contributes with enormous wealth; his mom with beauty; his brothers with political and intellectual power; one of his grandmothers with the art and glamour of cinema; and the other with nothing short of royalty. By way of his family’s social accomplishments, the youth locates himself within a social locus of recognition which is not only loaded with money, but also with pedigree. Example 21: My father’s is Bill Gates and mu mother is a famous model. I’ve got two brothers and a sister. My brother is Tony Blair and my other brother is a crazy cientific. He’s invent an a very strong gun. We live in a mansion with two swiming pool, eighty-three bedroom. fourty-six bathroom, twenty-seven cinema, eleven bank. My sister is a busness. She has got the BBC: I have twnety nine deportive car. The house in Logroño is the house for spring. I have one mansion in Hawai with a private beach and four restaurnat, one hundred bedroom, four pist for car. I have two hundred criaded [maids]. I have an other house in Swize. In this house I have fouteen, skiing station, fifty criaded, one cinema, three restauran, I have the best team of football, rugby, baseball, basketball, volleyball, swiming. I have a zoo ib Logroño. My grandads are Hitler and Stalin. My grandmams are Helen Mirren and Elizabeth 2nd of Windsor. It is unlikely that this informant has left anything out, all areas of interest for a teenager seem to be covered. While the informants picture themselves in dreamlands, teachers, as representatives of the domineering caste, are not so well portrayed. Norbert Neuß observes that ‘Primary school children frequently laugh about the mishaps of their teachers, parents, and other people in position of authority’ (2006:19): this statement finds echo in our corpus. The following observations found within humourous fragments are meant to tease teachers and challenge their authority and values. Although many students have written positive appraisals, many others have written somewhat ‘degrading’ humourous commentaries. For instance, male 65 does not seem to be too happy about the quality of his teachers.
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Female 235 is quite explicit in her opinions, Example 23: ‘The teachers of my school. are stupids.’ Male 240 adds in a post script, Example 24: ‘PD: My teacher is very boring’. Female 246 with her limited vocabulary manages to express her ennui, Example 25: ‘The teachers are a many “pesados [boring]” ’. Male 174 is carried away, perhaps by his desire of freedom, and envisions, Example 26: ‘In my school the King is Pepe Pérez, the teachers are dead and we play in the institute every time.’ Finally, male 157 after a series of degrading epithets for a number of people, stops short of calling his teacher names and simply opens the door to imagination, Example 27: ‘My teacher is very . . . [then he goes on to talk about his hobbies]’.
Discussion The quantitative evidence presented and discussed in this chapter demonstrates that humour is lightly used by primary students of around the age of ten, when writing EFL compositions, while it is more widely implemented by the same informants under the same conditions three years later, when in their first year of secondary school. These results at the same time support and challenge Beth Manke’s declaration that ‘children and adolescents lack the cognitive abilities and mastery of humor techniques required to appreciate and use specific humor behaviors, thereby rendering them ill-equipped to inject humor into social interaction’ (1998:363).
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Example 22: ‘My school isn’t nothing of the other world [my school is not so great]. There are . . .. Bad teachers like Pepe and Pepa but you are going to speak it him. True? [you will tell on me, won’t you?] are the worst of the world.’
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Despite Kotthoff’s avowal that, ‘The simplistic model of the actively joking man and the receptive smiling woman has lost ground’ (2002:4); despite the increasing presence of women in all areas of the public arena; and despite our own gut belief that females are as capable to appreciate and create humour as males, our corpus of school compositions shows no indication of this reversal of function as yet. We do not believe this evidence proves the notion that women do not have a sense of humour. However, it shows that in an equal task, coming from the same social-economic background, having received the same input in the EFL classroom; and the same exact directions prior to complete the assigned task, boys use humour in a much higher proportion and more freely than girls in both cross-sectional slices. Thus, we can safely assume that gender is the variable accountable for the differences found here. Nonetheless, it remains to be established whether it reflects socially learned attitudes, innate inclinations, genetics or whether it is simply the consequence of accident. Personally we believe it to be a matter of social habits regulating here individual choices: in agreement with Butler we consider gender to be something we perform (1990). As our informants have done, individuals are socially instructed to act out certain behaviours customarily, but not always, associated to their biological sex. Our qualitative analysis suggests that humour serves here to accomplish a variety of purposes and functions. Our informants of both sexes seem to use it to deal with social and personal disappointments and shortcomings, as a relief and as a strategy to confront adverse circumstances. In addition, informants also strive to construct their own identity by means of these humourous narratives. The Freudian idea that the underlying motive of all joking is to transform painful and frustrating experiences is what seems to be at work here. Some of the instances of humour we have seen are used by the subjects to moderate their discomforts in school: a response to ‘suffering’ in what they consider an oppressive institution. Some researchers believe that humour functions as a ‘coping strategy’ (Woods, 1990; Führ, 2002) and as ‘an antidote to schooling’ (Woods, 1976). Woods interprets students’ utilization of humour as a kind of therapy against ‘boredom, ritual, routine, regulations, oppressive authority’ (1976:185–186). Consistent with Woods’s interpretation seems to be the fact that, in our corpus, those participants who use humour seem to have a level of performance lower than average: and often the low academic performance of a student is connected to his or her degree of discomfort in class.
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Nilsen and Nilsen refer to canonical literary works such as Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Kipling’s Jungle Book or Alice in Wonderland where fantasy is blended with humour (1999:249–250). Indeed, fantasy in our corpus triggers comic situations, lending itself to the creation of absurd situations and characters that foster amusement. No doubt a way of eluding the harsh and boring reality of formal education can be by escaping into a world of fantasy and humour. Many of our informants exploit fantasy to transform themselves for a while into the offspring of the wealthiest, the most powerful and the cleverest men on Earth, the most famous sportsman and the most beautiful and sexiest ladies in the world. A strategy which seems to have a dual function: to escape dull reality and to enter into an exciting world where they are empowered and can symbolically mock their school mates who lag behind. Less daring individuals are content with exaggerating their circumstances and constructing more plausible scenarios. And, as we have seen, they are often fully aware of their bragging. Ervin-Tripp and Lampert observe that men’s self-directed humour is found to be different in character from women’s, ‘involving more exaggeration, more provocation, more display of attitudes, and less evocation of shared experiences’ (1992:116). Their description of males’ humour is supported by the examples we have provided. Indeed, our three female informants do use fantasy and exaggeration, but they don’t display quite so much imagination in the creation of their fantastic universes. As observed above, humour research has more often than not focused on the appreciation of humour, while the production has been comparatively neglected (Marlowe, 1989). However, we feel that one of our flaws in this study is precisely our own neglect to scrutinize our informants’ response to humour. Additional tests to measure their appreciation of, and reactiveness to, humour would have greatly helped to distinguish cases of unintentional humour. Some other tests directed to elicit humour would have also been convenient to assess their interest in doing that, since their L2 linguistic limitations may have deterred them from trying, thus affecting and distorting results: females, for instance, are more likely to have discarded any attempts to create humour for their greater fear of mistakes. Our participants might have completed a humour questionnaire including their own definition, or an example of humour to check it against their own production. Additionally, testing humour in a different task would have helped to evaluate the importance of our results for, as Jiménez Catalán points out in this same volume, the nature of the task usually determines final results. Finally, inferential statistics would have also been of value to test the significance of the results.
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After demonstrating that there is enough interest in humour among males, we might wonder what the rationale is for analysing its use in the EFL classroom. First and foremost, if we reflect on the platitude that humour facilitates fun, we have a very good reason for examining, implementing and even fostering humour in a classroom of any subject: for having fun fosters motivation; and motivation helps the acquisition of knowledge. But in first and second language teaching, we may also reflect on the fact that the understanding and explanation of jokes, puns, humourous anecdotes and so on, stimulates explicit thought upon language forms and, as Howard Gibson put it, we believe, That by institutionalising reflection, by revealing what is implicit, one generates within the pupil a growing awareness of why they, their friends, colleagues, the media, and so on, choose the language they do. The aim of reflecting upon jokes with children would engender the linguist’s habit of routinely questioning assumptions regarding discourses so that there gradually emerged a questioning, critical approach to the way language is selected and used. (1992:57) In addition, humour in second language learning and teaching is a quite successful strategy, for it allows students to get around their own inhibitions, to bring to an end their inner repressions and no matter how low their level is, to produce! All male informants who produce laughter-eliciting sections in FS do it once again in SS; in both cross-sectional slices their humourous endeavours are quite comparable, and in both cases they are mostly based on boastful exaggerated accounts of their wealth, abilities, possessions or prowess. However, in SS new elements of boasting are introduced, and four of a total of six introduce the topic of romantic involvements (numbers 158, 163, 168, 173). Male informant 167 is more interested in shocking and surprising the reader. He writes in FS, Example 24: ‘My fader is Raul Gonzalez blanco y my tio is Deivid Bekam y my primo i’s Casillas y mi hermano i’s Figo and Roberto Carlos and Zidane.’
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In a similar key the same subject three years later writes: Example 28: ‘My father is Casillas, . . . My brothers are: F. Alonso, Dani Pedrosa Ruund Van Misterooy, and Alejandro Valverde.’
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Then he adds a little down below,
Also, in both slices the informant abundantly practices name dropping and distinguished parentage. He obviously attempts to gain social acceptance on the bases of ascribed accomplishments, but at the threshold of adolescence, he is also attempting to shock the audience. The Hobbean idea that men laugh at the infirmities of others because by comparison their own abilities are exemplified, is detected in this corpus, many of our examples are laugh-eliciting because we, as readers, take pleasure in laughing at their futile desire of incarnating famed personalities of their choice: footballers, actors and even kings. We are allowed to look upon their dreams from the position of one who ‘knows better’ and understands the ineffectuality of their dreams. Although our results reinforce traditional collective belief systems, we have to say that, since we believe that females do have a sense of humour, we conclude that they are still constrained by the same gendered role models that constrained their grandmothers: men dare to express themselves humourously, while women mostly don’t. Unwritten unconscious assumptions about gender roles have indirectly ruled the performance of our participants’ humourous output. It cannot be nature, but nurture that has provided the stimuli, though differences of implementation are important enough to give us pause. If the creation and appreciation of humour brings along a more pleasant sojourn at school, a better understanding of language, and if understanding of the subtleties of language is boosted by humour, it seems our duty as instructors to make sure females are also encouraged to partake of it.
Notes 1. We would like to acknowledge here the financial support of FEDER and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through grant HUM 2006-09775C02-02. 2. Henceforth, examples will be quoted the way they were written, except when the errors are serious enough to prevent good communication. In those cases a ‘transcription’ will also be supplied. In addition, this and all other quotes, have been purged of identifying aspects and proper names have been masked. 3. Valdeavellano de Tera is a tiny village of 235 inhabitants in the Soria mountains around 60 miles from Logroño. Part of the comic effect is produced by the meaning of the word ‘valdeavellano’ which in addition to designating a
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Example 29: ‘My animas are: 20 anacondas, 19 cabras, [goats] 5o lizards, 5 spiders, 1.000 horses, 31 pitones [pythons]’.
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Marlowe, L. (1989) ‘A sense of humor’, in Representations: Social constructions of gender. Unger, R. K. (ed.) Amytiville, New York: Baywood, 145–154. McGhee, P. E. (1977) ‘Children’s humour: A review of current research trends’, in It is a Funny Thing. Chapman, A. J. and Foot, H. C. (eds) Oxford: Pergamon Press. Minchew, S. S. (2001) ‘Teaching English with humor and fun’, American Secondary Education, 30, 1, 58–70. Morreall, J. (1991) Humor Works. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, Inc. Murdock, M. C. and Ganim, R. M. (1993) ‘Creativity and humour: Integration and incongruity’, Journal of Creative Behavior, 27, 1, 57–70. Nayak, A. and Kehily, M. (2001) ‘Learning to laugh?’: A study of schoolboy humour in the English secondary school’, in What About the Boys?: Issues of Masculinity in Schools. Martino, W. and Mayenn, B. (eds) Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 110–123. Neuß, N. (2006) ‘Children’s humour: Empirical findings on primary-school children’s everyday use of humour’, Televizion, 1, 9, 16–20. Nilsen, A. P. and Nilsen, D. F. (1999) ‘The strawman meets his match: Six arguments for studying humor in English classes’, The English Journal, 88, 4, 34–42. Nilsen, D. F. and Nilsen, A. P. (1987) ‘Humor language and sex roles in American culture’, The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 65, 67–78. Ojeda Alba, J. and Jiménez Catalán, R. M. (2007) ‘The worlds children’s words build’, Didáctica, 1, 9, 155–172. Palmer, J. (1993) Taking Humour Seriously. London and New York: Routledge. Scheff, T. J. (1979) Catharsis in Healing, Ritual, and Drama. Berkeley: University of California. Schopenhauer, A. [1957 (1819)] The World as Will and Idea. Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. English translation. Schopenhauer, A. [2003 (1819)] El Mundo como Voluntad y Representación. Traducción, introducción y notas de Roberto R. Aramayo. Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores; Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica de España. Seidler, V. J. (1994) Unreasonable Men: Masculinity and Social Theory. London: Routledge. Spencer, H. (1860) ‘The physiology of laughter’, MacMillans’s Magazin, 1, 395– 402, http://www.t.hosei.ac.jp/∼hhirano/academia/laughter.htm, date accessed 4 February 2009. Sunderland, J. (2000) ‘Research into gender in language education: Lingering problems and new directions’, The Language Teacher Online, July 2000, 1–4. Torok, S. E., McMorris, R. F. and Lin, W. C. (2004) ‘Is humor an appreciated teaching tool?’, College Teaching, 52, 1, 14–20. Walker, N. (1988) A Very Serious Thing: Women’s Humour and American Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Walker, N. and Dressner, Z. (1988) Redressing the Balance: American Women Literary Humour from Colonial Times to the 1980s. Jackson and London: University of Mississippi Press. Wanzer, M. B. and Frymier, A. B. (1999) ‘The relationship between student perceptions of instructor humor and students’ reports of learning, Communication Education, 4, 8, 48–62.
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Weisstein, N. (1973) Laugh? I Nearly Died. Pittsburgh: PA: Know, Inc. Woods, P. (1976) ‘Having a laugh: An antidote to schooling’, in The process of Schooling. M. Hammersley and P. Woods (eds) London: Routledge. Woods, P. (1990) The Happiest Days? How Pupils Cope with School. London: Falmer Press.
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Lexical Encoding of Gender Relations and Identities Antonio García Gómez
Introduction Since Lakoff’s (1975) early efforts to connect language and gender by studying what women and men do or do not do in conversation, gender studies have moved away from regarding the language of women as a deficient version of men’s language towards constructivist and poststructuralist frameworks.1 Over the past two decades, the understanding of the relationship between gender and Second Language Acquisition has led to the flourishing of different studies on language learning as a gendered experience (see Sunderland, Introduction, this volume). In the same way, there is an abundance of literature that shows the many implications of gender in the teaching–learning process: differential teacher treatment according to gender (Sunderland, 2000a; Baxter, 2002); different ways children construct their gender identities and establish public alliances through same-gender friendships (Hruska, 2004); or potential teachers’ gender bias when assessing students (Sunderland, 2000b) or when interacting with boys and girls (Sunderland, 1998); among others. The motivation for the research reported here was twofold: (1) to explore the connection between these trainee primary English teachers’ subjacent ideologies and the lexical choices they make in order to describe their conception of gender roles and gender relations (that is, whether these students engage in polite social behaviour, make a stand against oppressive and sexist society or overtly argue in favour of perpetuating traditional gender roles); (2) to analyse these undergraduates’ gender ideologies and their lexical manifestation so that they can be aware of how their own gender (stereotyped) behaviours and attitudes may perpetuate stereotypes and emphasize unequal power relations in school.
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Underlying these intentions is the assumption that raising gender sensitivity in trainee primary English teachers does not only mean developing conscious agents in the education system but also developing ‘the potential to use their own voices strongly and to hear the voices of others clearly’ (McCracken and Appleby, 1992:119). A second related motive is that primary English teachers must learn to recognize difference as ‘multiciplity rather than dominant/other’ in order to empower students. My study is based on the notion of gender as a social and discursive project. Therefore, this chapter contributes to a growing body of scholarship which has demonstrated that gender is continually being constructed in every area of life and ‘Community of practice’ through discourse (see Sunderland, Introduction, this volume). In what follows, I will attempt to shed light on how these Spanish male and female EFL undergraduates construct gender relations and identities discursively through the use of particular words, namely the affectual and attitudinal positioning adopted in a creative writing task.
Method Participants At the University of Alcalá de Henares de Madrid (Spain), third year students training to be primary school English teachers are required to take a one-year course on English Morphology, Syntax and Semantics. In the last four academic years, these students were invited to get involved in the creative tasks of scripting two different television toy advertisements. Interested students were given a brief, informative oral overview of the nature and purpose of the study during a class session. The sample in the present study comprises 312 female and 144 male language learners (N = 456) of mixed socio-economic backgrounds. The mean age of the participants was 22.3 years, ranging from 21 to 25. The difference in mean age between males (22.5) and females (21.2) was not significant (t = 2. 064, p = 0. 041). Data collection and data analysis
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Participants were encouraged to design toy advertisements targeting boys and girls. In particular, male undergraduates were asked to design a toy exclusively for girls and a unisex toy, whereas female undergraduates were asked to design a toy exclusively for boys and a unisex one. In order to collect and process the data, two different steps were
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followed. First, all the advertisements were examined to identify the most frequent lexical items to appraise toys. This preliminary inspection revealed that advertisements fell into one of two categories: (a) those which were oriented towards the ‘appraised’. In these advertisements, the lexical encoding of these male and female undergraduates were mainly connected with evaluations of their emotional states – mainly by overusing positive and negative adjectives and adverbs of emotion; and (b) those which were oriented towards the ‘appraisal’. In this second group, undergraduates tended to make lexical choices in order to express positive or negative evaluations of the toy and the target audience. Second, a total of 240 advertisements were selected for detailed analysis. More precisely, the data examined consisted of 60 toy advertisements designed for boys, 60 toy advertisements for girls2 and 120 advertisements designed for unisex toy advertisements.3 As participants were asked to write two sheets for each advertisement, the mean number of clauses per advertisement was 79.5, ranging from 73 to 86 clauses. Advertisements were divided into clauses (N = 17, 490) and all the appraising items were identified. These items were largely realized lexically (that is, adjectives, verbs and adverbs of emotion). In the end, all these appraisal items were classified into a reliable and manageable taxonomy adapted from Eggins and Slade’s (1997) proposal. What emerged from this particular qualitative and quantitative study was a remarkable set of consistent patterns of lexical choice in order to construct both genders discursively. For the sake of clarity, data are presented in two separate tables as the analysis unfolds, even though statistical analysis was carried out using all data. As Sunderland has pointed out in the Introduction to this volume, the social construction of gender goes hand in hand with the possibility for us to have multiple and shifting identities (see also Sunderland, 2002; 2004). In this sense, it is worth pointing out that the unique properties of the data collected allow the analyst to examine how appraisal lexis is used to construct gender relations and gender identities in the toy advertisements these Spanish male and female undergraduates created. The need for developing a gender inclusive curriculum New Spanish standing legislation,4 as stated in its preamble, places special emphasis on the guaranteeing of equal opportunities and nondiscrimination regardless of sex, social and cultural background, religion, nationality, physical and psychological factors. In addition to the gender equality that the Spanish curriculum pursues, teachers have to take into account curriculum, personal and social aspects.
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The exploration of the discursive construction of gender roles in the different toy advertisements has as its main objective to raise awareness of the important role primary teachers play in the development of boys and girls’ gender identity and conceptualization of rights and duties. Although the theory says that the school contributes to diminishing the stereotypes and gender inequalities and doing away with prejudices, at a personal level, I am particularly concerned about how the school transmits ideology as contents. If trainee primary teachers are able to see the stereotypes, gender-biased attitudes that still influence their way of thinking, they will become active agents in the hard task of teaching for gender equality. Schmenk (2004:522) describes the importance of adopting a critical stance towards generalist statements about male and female learners and of developing a heightened awareness of gender stereotyping. Doing so will enable them to focus on individual learners as persons rather than as group members. All in all, a gender-sensitive teacher will be able to monitor for differential teacher treatment according to gender (Sunderland, 1998; Baxter, 2002). In Sunderland’s (2000b: 169) words: practitioners can of course take active professional steps to ameliorate disadvantage (though these will always be dependent on the actual classroom and cannot be simply prescribed through a list of ‘Do’s and Don’ts’).
Working hypothesis The present analysis derives from an overall conception of performativity (Butler, 1990). Central to this conceptualization of gender is the idea that gender is constructed discursively and performed. By asking participants to write two advertisements targeting different gendered audiences, as there is little doubt that we all write as gendered people (McCracken and Appleby, 1992), I intended to explore how each gender conceptualizes the opposite gender by designing a toy which must meet the other gender’s expectations and, at the same time, observe variations in this conceptualization when their own gender is included in the target audience. In doing so, this chapter observes lexical variations in the way these students encode their affectual and evaluative
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positioning towards the other gender according to whether or not their own gender in included in the target audience. Underlying this chapter is the shared assumption that gender identity is correlated with a particular cultural script that determines how each gender interacts and views the same and the other gender. This is clearly shown in the fact that gender becomes a social construction which is sensitive to variations in its meaning and content resulting from different cultural and social conditions (Sunderland, 2004). The main argument consists in showing that women and men alike have a choice about how to express themselves in discourse and how to perform the gender roles in which they would like to be perceived (Cammack and Kalmbach Phillips, 2002). In practical terms, this means that the analysis of these male and female EFL undergraduates’ lexical choices in the design of each toy: (a) helps the analyst understand these students’ affectual and attitudinal positioning towards their own and the other gender; and (b) sheds light on how these students construct gender relations and identities discursively at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Two main questions serve to guide the current research: Is gender produced and sustained through a particular lexical selection in these male and female undergraduates’ advertisements? Can the appraisal analysis of these undergraduates’ lexical choices be understood as a mirror to reflect the gender stereotyped behaviours and attitudes still present in their conceptualization of toys targeting boys and girls? In particular, I hypothesize that the interpretation of these Spanish male and female undergraduate students’ lexical choices to encode their affectual and attitudinal positioning towards toys in general and the target audience in particular can be understood as a(n) (in-)direct reflection of the (gender-biased) positioning. This, in turn, makes it possible not only to identify each gender’s differentiated attitudes but also to make these trainee primary English teachers aware of the gender-biased attitudes that still influence their thoughts and beliefs.
Theoretical background Generally, appraisal processes in constructing textual personas are relatively unknown compared to other theories such as Social Identity Theory or Self-Categorization Theory, which have been applied extensively (see Turner, 1982; Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Hogg and Vaughan, 2002; among others). The most significant works that have contributed to our explicit understanding of Appraisal Theory are Iedema et al. (1994) and Martin (1997; 2000). The central tenet of Appraisal Theory
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is that our individual subjective interpretation of events determines our positive and negative emotional predisposition toward these situations. Then Appraisal Theory analyses the connection between these evaluative dimensions and the emotions that may arise in response to our evaluations of reality. According to Martin and White, Appraisal Theory is a useful framework for analysing the way language, and more precisely lexical items, are used ‘to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relationships’ (2005:8). In this study greater emphasis is given to the understanding of how these Spanish male and female undergraduates’ discursive construction of gender relations and identities is mainly sustained by particular uses of the lexicon. This fact makes Appraisal Theory suitable for exploring these students’ encoding of their affectual and evaluative positioning towards own and other gender as embedded in their design of each toy advertisement. Although there are extensive studies that offer theoretical and practical discussions of this theory (Coffin, 1997; Eggins and Slade, 1997; Rothery and Stenglin, 2000; Painter, 2003; Martin and White, 2005; among others), there is still little literature on the relationship between appraisal and gender and identity construction. Furthermore, there is no study that encompasses both aspects in the field of foreign language acquisition. Therefore, the intention of this chapter is to fill this gap by providing detailed analysis of a range of linguistic strategies of Appraisal that enable the analyst to investigate two aspects. First, how the different lexical choices involved in students’ affectual and evaluative positioning of each gender acts to construct different text personas. Second, this chapter also analyses the connection between these differentiated lexical choices and the subjacent ideology which shapes and is disseminated by each gender in their advertisements by pointing out the different assumptions which each gender makes about the appropriate social behaviour for their respective intended audiences. The main building blocks of the theory can be summarized as follows: as Appraisal Theory has to do with all evaluative uses of language (that is, mainly expressed by means of adjectives and adverbs), the ability component being investigated in this chapter is attitudinal positioning5 emerging in these male and female undergraduates’ lexical choice in the design of toy advertisements targeting boys and girls. More precisely, the subcategories in this system are AFFECT, which is understood as the lexical expression of the speaker’s emotional response; JUDGEMENT as the exploitation of different lexical strategies to evaluate social acceptable
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behaviour; and APPRECIATION as the lexical means whereby people express their opinion of things and processes. According to Martin (2000), these three semantic categories are interrelated in so far as they have to do with the distinct lexical strategies people use in order to encode their feelings. Any of these subcategories can be expressed positively or negatively according to the cultural values of the speaker. In addition, each subcategory can be presented with more or less intensity. This process of INTENSIFICATION or AMPLIFICATION, in Eggins and Slade’s (1997) terms, allows the speaker, mainly through adverbs, to either intensify (that is AUGMENTING) or play down an opinion (that is MITIGATION). The theory also focuses on whether identifying appraisal is constructed in the text directly, or implied by the selection of ideational meaning which denotes the speaker’s or writer’s affectual meaning (Martin, 2000). Owing to the difficulty in delimiting the scope of both inscribed and evoked appraisal, this is still a matter of debate (Martin and White, 2005). In the remainder of this chapter, I will carry out a more detailed analysis of the lexical choices to encode affectual positioning (that is, advertisements oriented towards the ‘appraised’) and to encode attitudinal positioning (that is, advertisements oriented towards the ‘appraisal’).
Results AFFECT: An insight into gender differences in affectual positioning In general terms, AFFECT has to do with the words used to convey one’s own emotions towards people, things and state of affairs (Eggins and Slade, 1997). In the data, I understand this subtype of attitude as the analysis of both male and female undergraduates’ choice of lexical items in order to encode their affectual positioning towards each target audience toy. Given that affect is oriented towards the ‘appraiser’ rather than the ‘appraised’, I suggest that these university students not only embed within the description of each toy explicit evaluations of their emotional states, but they also encode their affectual positioning towards the other gender. Although affective appraisal is largely realized lexically (Eggins and Slade, 1997:129), some other realizations are also possible. Table 10.1 shows words representing categories of affect and frequency of each item found in the data.
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245 Words Representing Categories of Affect in the Data Male undergraduate students
Female undergraduate students
Girls’ toy
Unisex toy
Boys’ toy
Happiness Unhappiness Security Insecurity Satisfaction Dissatisfaction
809 1123 546 345 912 868
735 957 324 429 1087 679
901 984 378 349 930 837
1203 903 368 326 1093 874
Total
4684
4211
4379
4767
567 489 234 126 548 601
623 592 215 156 589 568
701 643 192 167 543 581
743 712 217 184 527 459
2565
2743
2827
2842
Happiness Unhappiness Security Insecurity Satisfaction Dissatisfaction
134 89 31 12 56 32
96 67 19 14 35 23
65 54 21 9 27 14
76 48 16 11 23 11
Total
354
254
190
185
Subject acts Subject is acted upon
237 939
696 1854
942 136
754 1295
Total
1176
2550
1078
2049
First person Second person Third person
3945 3289 135
2321 1892 1142
1029 4299 98
2367 2905 896
Total
7369
5355
5426
6168
16, 148
15, 113
13, 900
16, 011
2180
2183
2127
2198
Appraisal category: AFFECT
Adjectives of emotion
Verbs of emotion (mental processes)
Happiness Unhappiness Security Insecurity Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Total
Adverbs of emotion
Verbs of Action (material processes)
Pronoun Reference (subject/ object) Total Appraisal items: Total clauses:
Unisex toy
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Table 10.1
Source: Adapted from Eggins and Slade, 1997.
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Initially, both male and female undergraduates adopt similar affectual positioning strategies when targeting the other gender. By appraising the toys in emotional terms, they invite the target audience to share that emotional response, or at least to see that response as appropriate for a toy advertisement. Inspection of the data shows that male and female undergraduate students adopt two different affectual positionings. In particular, analysis of AFFECT, which is mainly realized through lexis, reveals two clear and opposing subjacent ideologies in both Spanish male and female undergraduates’ advertisements. It emerges that even though these male undergraduates seem to emphasize gender equality in girls’ toys, the lexical choices they make show that they seem to reveal, consciously or unconsciously, their own gender biased behaviours and attitudes (that is claiming that girls are inferior to boys and that girls are less capable than boys are). Being aware of the potential negative social image of making these gender biased attitudes explicit, their advertisements reflect and reinforce the language usage of ‘polite’ society (that is students seem to say what they are expected to say rather than what they may really think). However, a contrastive study of the lexical strategies used in the design of these male students’ girls’ toys and their unisex toys reveals a subjacent ideology which contradicts the apparently gender equality values presented in their advertisements. In unisex toy advertisements, a particular affectual positioning towards girls, in comparison with girls’ toys, highlights a number of ‘microinequities’6 that allow the analyst to explore these males’ conceptualization of the other gender. These Spanish male undergraduates’ advertisements show a recipient orientation (male writers = 86. 9 per cent and female writers = 11. 7 per cent). In the data, male writers prefer addressing the target audience directly (that is you know). Extracts 1 and 2 give an example of male affectual positioning towards the other gender: Extract 1. Male writer 1: 100 hoops! How many times you have been in your bedroom, alone, sad, so bored because you wanted somebody to play with? Your parents don’t want to give you a new brother or sister to play with and you are sick of playing with the same old dolls . . . You hate those awful dresses, you are fed up with getting dressed, feeding them. You’re not their mother! It high time you played with the best toy available on the market.
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Boys’ and girls’ toys: styling the other to define themselves
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Extract 2. Male writer 6: the revolutionary lab You don’t like playing with dolls anymore? Are you tired of playing with this ugly doll your sister gave you? Have you playing with the same boring doll your mother gave you for your present last time? Why can’t you have the revolutionary lab? You will have so much fun that you won’t believe you could have lived without it . . . You will really enjoy rebuilding used toys and be so pleased to see your friends’ happy faces because they will be able to play with their favourite toys again. You’ll be the happiest girl in town! Extracts 1 and 2 illustrate that these male writers’ appraisals are principally of affect. They are concerned with highlighting the outstanding characteristics of the toys. This persuasive strategy is based on the exploitation of affective appraisals which show how the toy can change the girl’s inner emotional state. Notice the emotional contrast strategies: (a) mental processes of affection that describe the way the girl feels because she does not have the toy (for example ‘be fed up with’, ‘don’t like’, ‘hate’) and how she can feel if she gets the toy (‘enjoy’, ‘have fun’, ‘delight in’, ‘love it’); (b) the contrastive use of adjectives of emotion also make the persuasive strategy more effective (for example ‘alone’, ‘sad’, ‘bored’ versus ‘happy’, ‘pleased’). In addition, the use of intensifiers amplifies affectual meaning (‘so’, ‘really’, ‘the happiest’). Although extracts show that male undergraduates care about the recipient emotions, it is interesting to note that these advertisements have no inclusive references which can create an emotional bond with the other gender. In a way, this may reflect male writers’ reluctance or inability to explicitly identify with the target group on the grounds of gender and can be interpreted as a strategy to draw boundaries between their in-group (that is boys) and the out-group (that is girls). Conversely, the lexical strategies exploited to encode affectual positioning by these female undergraduates are consistent in both boys’ toys and unisex toys. Being aware of the importance of fighting against unequal power relations, these female students’ conceptualization of the other gender shows an underlying ideology which demonstrates women’s interest in transforming society by fighting against discriminatory practices in terms of gender.
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You’re a very clever girl and you already know what it is . . . Yes, that’s right! 100 hoops . . . you will delight in playing with it and your friends will also love it!!
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Contrary to male writers’ sender orientation styles, these Spanish female undergraduates prefer exploiting a sender orientation style as an attempt to explore similarity and shared values with the other gender. A great number of advertisements targeting boys reveal a sender orientation (female writers = 89. 3 per cent and male writers = 13. 1 per cent), as it takes the female writer as its deictic centre (that is I know), and they tend to be affective or advice-giving in attitude and specific in reference. The personal involvement of these female writers is always reflected in the toy advertisement design. The following extracts illustrate this point. Extract 3. Female writer 12: a magic cooker Why are you so sad? Why are you bored? You don’t want to play with your new present? What’s wrong with your super magic cooker? You don’t like it? Let me tell you something . . . I know you are blue because you wanted something else . . . I understand how you feel but this is the best present any child can dream of . . . I know your friends have told you that this magic cooker is for girls, but I can tell they are totally wrong . . . I am sure you are going to have lots of fun times because I have played with it and I really enjoyed it . . . That’s better now I can see your beautiful smile. Don’t forget to play with whatever makes you happy. Extract 4. Female writer 7: Andrea, a boy’s best friend I know why you’re looking so sad. Look at me! I will give you something and you’ll never be bored again, never ever! . . . I know what it is like, long tedious summer days that seem as if they are never going to end. Here you are Andrea. She will be the best friend you can have . . . that’s what I wanted to see, a cheerful smile. In extracts 3 and 4, the affectual positioning relies on the exploitation of different appraisal items (see Table 10.1): (a) verbs of emotion, mainly cognitive mental processes, by means of which female writers emphasize the similarities between her and the target group and establish bonds by showing her empathy (for example ‘I know you’, ‘I know how you feel’, ‘I know why you’, ‘I know what it is like’); (b) adjectives of emotion which can be classified as belonging to two hyponyms: good and bad. This good–bad distinction underlines the advisory intention of boys’ toys. There is always a contrast between the feelings depicted before and after having the toy (for example ‘sad’, ‘alone’ versus ‘cheerful’, ‘happy’). This contrast is also intensified by means of adverbs that intensify both
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negative (for example ‘so sad’, ‘totally wrong’) and positive emotions (for example ‘best present’, ‘lots of fun’). Here I would hypothesize that both positive or negative emotional responses associated with each gender-differentiated toy show that male and female self want to evaluate their social category membership positively and this is achieved through social comparison between in-group (male or female) and out-group (female or male). This strategy may be a response to the belief that the relative status of each gender can be altered. This expectation means that each gender attempts to introduce some new dimension where the in-group may fare more favourably (García Gómez, 2006). Unisex toys: revealing subjacent ideologies in affectual positioning Apparently, all the advertisements seem to be aimed at selling toys which promote gender equality and empower women. However, the detailed inspection of the lexical strategies used reveals a differentiated subjacent ideology in these Spanish male and female undergraduates’ advertisements. Cameron (1998) makes the point that it is not only the way that a language names the world that might be seen as sexist. In her words, ‘Sexist language is not best thought of as the naming of reality from a single, male perspective. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon, taking different forms in different representational practices’ (11). Contrary to boys’ and girls’ toy advertisements, the script of unisex toys is created in a dialogic style where sender and recipient text orientations alternate in the same advertisement. Most texts start out either with a sender orientation or a recipient orientation as its deictic centre, then shift to the opposite orientation as a point of reference (that is from sender to recipient orientation or vice versa). It is worth pointing out that male writers mainly identify with the boy in the dialogue,7 whereas female writers use boys and girls to act and speak in an indistinct manner.8 By appraising the toy in emotional terms, these male and female undergraduate students show the lexical encoding of affectual positioning not only towards the toy itself but towards both genders as well. In most advertisements created by male writers, even though texts are supposed to celebrate boys’ and girls’ equality, selection of lexis appears to be based on the mainstream ideology that girls have no initiative and are overemotional. This male undergraduates’ lexical encoding of affectual positioning in unisex toys reveals that advertisements depict behaviours that communicate lower expectations for girls than for boys. In the data, it is common to find girls associated with verbs of emotion
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Extract 5. Male writer 3: a magic whiteboard Father: Why are you crying? You’re very sad, aren’t you? Tell me why you are alone in your room when all your friends are playing outside. Girl: I don’t know, dad. Father: You don’t know why you’re crying. I don’t think so. Everybody knows why they cry. Girl: I don’t know dad. I can’t understand why I feel this way. Father: Look at your brother. He’s playing with their new magic whiteboard Father Christmas brought him last month and having a great time. Why don’t you play with him? Girl: He won’t let me. Father: Come on! Go and play with him. Sure he’ll be happy to teach you how to play with the whiteboard . . . Come on! Don’t be shy and ask your brother if he wants to play with you. Extract 6. Male writer 9: Ethelbert the dinosaur Boy: I can’t understand why you’re always in your room playing with this boring dolls. You’re not fed up? Look at my dinosaur, isn’t it great! Girl: I sometimes feel bored. I don’t know Boy: Yeah! I’m as big as it is! Look I’m as strong as he is I bet you can’t catch me. I’m the strongest boy in the world. You could never do this! Girl: I don’t know Boy: Follow me! You say: you’re the master of the world! Girl: (repeating) You’re the master of the world! Can I play with Ethelbert? Boy: No, you can’t (he goes out of room running and shouting)
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(see Table 10.1), girls are usually crying, worried and/or scared because their toy is broken, they cannot play with their brothers or for no apparent reason. In addition, boys are presented as the ones who act and girls the ones who are acted upon. Extracts 5 and 6 illustrate this point.
Extracts 5 and 6 show how male undergraduates build up the dialogue as a means of exploring differences and assert values that the target audience must acquire in order to enter the group. In male undergraduate advertisements, characters show a competitive nature in so far as there is one male character (that is either a brother or a father) who
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a. material processes and agency are always connected with the male character (for example, ‘He’s playing’, ‘you could never do this’, ‘he’ll be happy to teach you’, ‘I sometimes feel bored’). In addition, notice the use of interrogative and imperative clauses which suggest a beneficial course of action for the girl character because of her lack of initiative (for example ‘why don’t you . . .?’, ‘go and play with him’). Even though a course of action is suggested, boys and girls are not treated as equals since the boy’s consent is still needed (for example ‘ask your brother if he wants to play with you’, ‘he won’t let me’, ‘Can I play with Ethelbert? No, you can’t’); b. mental processes of affection that show that women need to be more tuned into their emotions than men (for example ‘I don’t know dad. I can’t understand why I feel this way’). This inherent emotional nature is emphasized by mental processes of cognition that express girls’ inability to understand why they behave that way (for example ‘I can’t understand’, ‘I don’t know’); c. negative adjectives of emotion are connected with the girl character and her feelings (for example ‘sad’, ‘bored’, ‘shy’), whereas positive adjectives of emotion are associated with the boy and what he is doing (for example ‘happy’, ‘strong’, ‘the strongest’). Surprisingly, unisex toys designed by female undergraduates show a similar strategy. Female writers also exploit verbs of emotion which relate girls to a more tentative, often hesitant and generally more apologetic attitude (see Table 10.1). However, boys show an agentive role in material processes by having more turns than girls and controlling the topic in the development of the advertisement. In particular, not only do the lexical choices exploited in these advertisements depict behaviours that communicate lower expectations for girls than for boys, but also girl characters are singled out and ridiculed. It is common to find in the data how female writers’ unisex toys awkwardly celebrate gender equality. Although the unisex toy is aimed at depicting girls and boy as equals, girl characters introduce stereotypical sets of values which downgrade women (that is women cannot think on their own, women approve of men valuing and praising them for their physical appearance and not for their intellectual ability). Extracts 7 and 8 illustrate this point.
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knows much more than the girl and shows expertise as an attempt to exert social control. Analysis of affectual appraisal lexical items shows that:
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Sister: I hate this dress! I look stupid! Brother: No, you don’t. You look terrific! You really do! Everybody is going to say I’ve got the most beautiful sister in the world. I’m so proud of you Sister: Do I? Not sure. Brother: Sure you do! I’m going to introduce you to all my friends . . . There is nothing to fear Sister: You’re saying this because you’re not wearing this horrendous dress. It makes me look shorter and fatter Brother: You’re wrong, you look perfect. Sister: It’s not true, but thank you Extract 8. Female writer 8: A Halloween dress up game Sister: Look at me! I’m not going out with this ugly dress. I feel ridiculous! Everybody is going to laugh at me Brother: No way! You’re a very beautiful girl and you must feel very proud because you’ve got very pretty eyes . . . besides if anybody dares to laugh at you, I will defend you. Sister: Who is going to look at my eyes? They’re going to laugh at me and I’ll cry myself silly. Should I change my dress up? What can I do? Don’t know. Why is it everything so difficult? Examples 7 and 8 underline girls’ lack of confidence and female emotional dependency (for example ‘You look terrific . . . do I? Not sure . . . Sure you do!’, ‘I’m not going out . . . No way! You must feel very proud’, ‘Should I change my dress up? What can I do? Don’t know. Why is it everything so difficult?’). These advertisements show a clear interpersonal orientation as the high frequency of adjectives and verbs of emotion in the dialogues reveal (for examples ‘I hate this dress’, ‘I look stupid’, ‘I feel ridiculous’). As often occurs in female speech, characters in the dialogue move towards one another in the sense that they build up the dialogue cooperatively as they share their feelings. As far as the lexical encoding of affectual appraisal is concerned, boy characters have an agentive role in material processes (for example ‘I’m going to introduce you to all my friends’, ‘if anybody dares to laugh at you, I will defend you’) and girl characters are either affected participants in material processes (‘Everybody is going to laugh at me’) or experiencers in verbs of emotion (for example, ‘I feel ridiculous’). All in all, unisex toys tend to endorse the traditional ideology of women being to some extent
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Extract 7. Female writer 2: our Halloween costume
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weaker, less intelligent and dependent on men and of men being heroes. Finally, the lexical expression of affect reflects how these male and female undergraduates classify the world according to what each gender should be or should not be doing (that is you’re sad or you’re bored because you do not have this toy). In fact, playing with or having the toy seems to draw boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ as it forges ties that bind a group together (that is, unless you’ve got this toy you can’t be part of the group of girls who are doing what they should be doing). In this way, the contrasting adjectives associated with the child before and after having the toy mean that it can be claimed that these advertisements are motivated by significant interpersonal goals to define normative boundaries. APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT: an insight into gender differences in the lexical encoding of attitudinal positioning Functionally, the second most influential choice in the design of every advertisement is the use of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis. On the one hand, Iedema et al. (1994) define the term ‘JUDGEMENT’ as the expression of evaluations about people’s behaviour (see also Martin, 1995; 2000). Expressing JUDGEMENT about others involves positive and negative evaluations about one’s own social values and those of others. On the other hand, Eggins and Slade (1997:126) define ‘APPRECIATION’ as the expression of likes and evaluations of an object or process. Given the fact that both APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT are oriented towards the ‘appraised’ rather than the subjective ‘appraiser’, I here understand the lexical resources for evaluative expressions as an intertwined system of attitudinal positioning. In the data, both subcategories of appraisal go hand in hand since male and female undergraduates express different values of APPRECIATION associated with each toy according to whether they are boys’, girls’ or unisex toys. In doing so, the toy represents a resource for evaluating and, in turn, establishing appropriate social behaviour for each gender. Although attitudinal positioning is mainly realized lexically (Eggins and Slade, 1997:129), some other realizations are also possible. Table 10.2 shows the words representing categories of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT found in the data and frequency of each item.
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Lexical encoding of attitudinal positioning in boys’, girl’s toys and unisex toys: a true transformation of attitude toward gender roles? These Spanish male and female undergraduates’ lexical strategies to encode attitudinal positioning in these advertisements appear to be the
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Appraisal category: APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT
Criticism of gender inequality
Positive adjectives Negative adjectives Positive judgement of social actions Negative judgement of social actions Positive adverbs Negative adverbs
Total Appraisal items: Total clauses:
Male undergraduate students
Female undergraduate students
Girls’ toy
Unisex toy
Boys’ toy
Unisex toy
1957 2011
2154 1936
1524 1611
1687 1329
654
729
921
847
925
851
833
768
156 94
123 78
97 69
108 91
5797
5871
5055
4838
2136
2184
2209
2273
Source: Adapted from Eggins and Slade, 1997.
setting-up and overt criticism of gender stereotypes that are presupposed to be popularly believed (that is girls must play with dolls and boys must play with cars). These advertisements are developed in a dialogic form by means of which children interact with their parents or a friend – the ones who represent the established patriarchal values. Both male and female undergraduate students describe an event which explicitly denounces gender inequality and reaffirms the importance of equality between genders. Initially, there was no particular expectation that APPRECIATION lexis in toy advertisements would do anything other than reflect and reinforce the language usage of ‘polite’ society (that is, students were likely to say what they are expected to say rather than what they may really think), but inspection of the attitudinal appraisal words used to describe toys made it possible to (a) identify that female and male undergraduates used the same lexical strategy in both types of advertisements (that is, the toy they designed for the other gender and the unisex toy); (b) identify an (in-)direct criticism or praise of the gender the toy was designed for. In other words, these male and female undergraduate students’
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Table 10.2 Words Representing Categories of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT in the Data
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lexical choices to encode attitudinal positioning (that is lexical expressions of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT) were certainly embedded within their cultural background and reflected their subjacent ideology. More specifically, the analysis of the common attitudinal positioning adopted by each gender in their advertisements can shed further light not only on these students’ conceptualization of gender but also on each gender’s understanding of socially appropriate behaviour for their own and the other gender. In the data, male’s depictions of girls and female’s depictions of boys in these advertisements highlight some of the constraints that restrict gender roles. In most advertisements, one of the characters (that is either the boy or the girl for whom the toy is intended) challenges patriarchal conventions and asks an adult, usually a parent, to explain why adults act in that particular way. In doing so, these male and female undergraduates attempt to redefine social roles, relations between men and women, and, in turn, promote gender equality. Nevertheless, gender stereotypes are often polarized in these advertisements. APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis associated with either boys’ or girls’ toys is viewed as being opposed. Male and female’s voices hide behind adult-like children who challenge and ask their parents to justify traditional roles for each gender. Although these advertisements aim to weaken patriarchal culture and encourage gender roles transformations, the depictions are distorted versions of what gender equality means and/or how it can be achieved. In addition, most advertisements depict boys who are playing with dolls, they are learning to prepare food and clothes and everything that is associated with ‘women’s duties’; whereas girls are playing with small cars and weapons, are encouraged to take part in different sports and are taught to be the ‘masters of the world’. The following extracts show male writers’ attitudinal positioning in these types of advertisements. Extract 9. Male writer 17: girls’ toy. Super Peter Bros Brothers’ mechanic’s kit Girl1: Look what dad gave me for my birthday! (very angry) Mother: The new Barbie? I love it, can I play with you? Girl1: You like this ugly thing? Can’t believe it. I will never play with this scattered-brain doll. I’m fed up with combing their fake hair, getting dressed and undressed with these stupid clothes. Who chose these corny colours? I wanted Super Peter Bros Bothers’ mechanic’s kit. That’s what I wanted, that’s a great toy. It’s just fantastic. It’s the best toy ever! Mother: Really? That’s for boys!
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Extract 10. Male writer 17: unisex toy. I wanted a car but I got a doll, he wanted a doll and he got a car Father: Why are you two crying? Daughter: I don’t want this stupid doll. I’ve told you many times that I don’t like playing with dolls. Why do I have to play with them, and take care of them, cook for them and wash their smelly clothes? I can’t understand, You want me to be miserable? Father: Of course not! Daughter: Then, why don’t you buy me the fabulous car I asked you. That is cool! Son: (the boy interrupts) Yes, dad. Why did I have the car she wanted and she’s got the beautiful doll I saw on television. Did we do something wrong? Father: No, you didn’t. Boys have always played with cars and girls have always played with dolls. That’s the way it was, it is and it will be. Son: Dad, you’re wrong. Why I can’t play with whatever I want to? Dad, let me tell you something. Parents should not do this. This is very wrong of you. You know what, I will give my sister the car and I will have her doll! From a male point of view, these examples show that much of the concern seems to stem from the fact that some toys are considered feminine toys (that is dolls, cookers and so on) and some others are masculine toys (that is cars, mechanic kits and so on). Extracts 9 and 10 show how parents (that is representatives of patriarchal values) struggle with the mental image of watching, on the one hand, their sweet girly girl become a tomboy and play with masculine toys and, on the other hand, their tough boy become a girlish boy and play with feminine toys. By means of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis, these male undergraduates contrast stereotypical feminine and masculine characteristics as an attempt to redefine the traditional female characteristics such as emotionality, cooperation and compliance. The strategy backfires in so far as these students’ lexical choices (indirectly) end up casting the female and the male gender in a negative and a positive light
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Girl1: For boys? What you mean? Are you serious? Mother: Girls don’t play with a spanner or a hammer Girl1: Why not? Are we one-armed? Mother: Only boys play with that Girl1: You’re wrong! Nobody should tell me what I should play with.
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respectively. Even though the strategy aims to balance inequalities, it can be said to fail as these male writers conceptualize gender equality as a process of imitating and, in turn, perpetuating male behaviour as the appropriate one. As can be seen in the extracts, negative JUDGEMENT of behaviour is connected with an open challenge of the imbalance of power which also aims to encourage critical awareness of gender role inequalities (for example, ‘You’re wrong! Nobody should tell me what I should play with’, ‘You want me to be miserable?’). In addition to this, positive JUDGEMENT of behaviour is related to an overt challenge with respect to the allocation of duties between men and women (for example ‘Girls don’t play with a spanner or a hammer. Why not? Are we one-armed?’). This strategy involves the use of APPRECIATION lexis which encodes a clear contrast between the negative evaluations of the toys which represent traditional gender roles (for example ‘silly doll’, ‘stupid clothes’, ‘corny colours’, ‘smelly clothes’) and the positive evaluations of the toys which redefine patriarchal roles (for example ‘fabulous mechanic drill’, ‘it’s fantastic’, ‘fabulous’, ‘cool’, ‘great’). There are also intensifiers of both positive and negative adjectives (for example ‘very’, ‘so’, ‘extremely’). Even though these advertisements seem to be aimed at transforming gender relations, the truth is that these undergraduates’ lexical choices present negative and distorted images of each gender role and how transformation can be achieved. Surprisingly, female undergraduates adopt a similar stance as, by exploiting APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis, they try to push the boundaries of acceptable or respectable behaviour and attempt to transform gender relations of power by challenging society’s prescribed norms of behaviour. The following extracts illustrate this point.
Extract 11. Female writer 21: boys’ toy. My hero irons Son: Look dad what’s on TV! Dad: What is it? Son: The new washing machine. You can wash everything you want. Isn’t it great? My friends say that it’s fantastic. I want one, dad. Dad: That’s not for boys, son. Boys don’t play to wash clothes. Son: Why not? Dad: This is what girls do. Are you a girl? Son: I’m not but it still looks like it is cool! Dad: Do you want your friend to think you’re a silly girl?
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Extract 12. Female writer 21: unisex toy. The tupsy turvy world! Boy: Dad, why do you never iron your clothes? Girl: Yes, dad, why? Dad: My children, there’s an important lesson you’ve got to learn. There are certain things that men cannot do and ironing is one of them. Your grandma ironed granddad’s clothes, mom irons mine and your wife will iron yours. We are men, we work hard. Boy: I can’t understand, dad. Why mom comes back from work and she cleans, cooks, irons and you sit down and watch TV. Isn’t she tired? Girl: Yeah! Dad: I told you, son. There are certain things women must do. Boy: (he looks sad) Dad, why do you ask me to put away my toys but you never help poor mom out? Girl; It’s not fair! You know what, I’m going to give my brother the awful broom you gave and I will play with his toy gun! It’s so cool! Dad: Don’t do that! Girl: Dad, I love you but you’re wrong. My brother and I are free to play with anything we want to! Dad: No, you’re not! You all go mad? These extracts show that the exploitation of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis is based on the assumption that changing the early socialization process can be a tool to change attitudes towards gender roles and create new associations between what being female and male is. Boys should have as much of an opportunity as girls to care for dolls or use toy mops and brooms. In this way, these examples aim to illustrate that playing with dolls and ironing boards cannot possibly cause a young boy to develop an overtly feminine side. Like male undergraduates’ extracts, these female depictions of gender stereotypes aim to transform gender relations by claiming that acceptance begins with the parents’ outlook on life itself, including their ability to embrace other ways of behaving. Analysis of APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis reveals how female writers connect negative JUDGEMENT of behaviour with an open criticism of gender roles (for example ‘Dad, you’re wrong! You’re not a girl because you wash clothes’)
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Son: Dad, you’re wrong! You’re not a girl because you wash clothes. Dad: I’m not going to buy you that. Don’t insist! Son: Dad, just because you think it is wrong doesn’t mean you’re right.
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and underline the importance of changing wrong attitudes which can set a bad example for children (for example ‘Dad, why do you ask me to put away my toys but you never help my mom out?’). In the same way, positive JUDGEMENT of behaviour is associated with an overt challenge concerning the allocation of duties between men and women (for example ‘Dad, why do you never iron your clothes?’) With regard to APPRECIATION lexis, these female writers concentrate on the positive evaluations of the toys which redefine patriarchal roles (for example ‘great’, ‘cool’, ‘fantastic’). In spite of these male and female undergraduates’ attempts to transform patriarch society, gender equality is a much more complex process in so far as we need to reinvent the roles of both genders and make men and boys play a substantial role in promoting and achieving gender equality. By imitating men’s traditional roles, women will not become equal. The same applies to men who will not transform patriarchal society by imitating women. This will just lead to the same persistent gender stereotyping.
Conclusion This study has explored how trainee primary English teachers construct gender relations and identities, particularly as they are represented through written discourse within creative writing. In doing so, the study has focused on exposing and addressing gender-biased subjacent ideologies in the lexical choices these Spanish male and female undergraduates made when creating advertisements for boys’, girls’ and unisex toys. The results of this study have potentially important implications for gender studies in general and for understanding social and cultural construction of gender identities in particular. Appraisal analysis of these undergraduates’ advertisements contributes to present understandings of gender as a discursive project. The lexical encoding of AFFECT has shown that male undergraduates, on one hand, claim to reflect gender equality in their advertisements for girls and unisex markets. The analysis of the lexical encoding used in both types of advertisements reveals a contradiction between the usage of ‘polite’ society in girls’ toys and the ‘micro-inequalities’ which are present in unisex toys. On the other hand, female undergraduates’ toys designed for boys and unisex toys show a consistent lexical choice which makes it possible to argue that they are active agents in gender role transformations. In addition to this, APPRECIATION and JUDGEMENT lexis has also revealed male and female gender-biased subjacent ideologies. Both male and female
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undergraduates’ lexical choices in creating toy advertisements present negative and distorted images of gender roles in so far as they conceptualize gender equality as a process of imitating and, in turn, perpetuating male behaviour as the appropriate one. In addition, these findings are relevant for research on gender and foreign language education. In spite of all the efforts made to raise awareness of the importance of gender equality in the new generations, the study reveals that there is much to do. While male undergraduates’ lexical choices to create girls’ toys and unisex toys highlight the presence of gender-biased attitudes that permeate their minds, female undergraduates attempt to depict both genders at the same level but traditional discourses underlie the lexical encoding present in their focus on boys’ and unisex toys. These findings accord with McLoughin’s (2008:192) conclusions on the construction of female gender roles in British teenage girls’ magazines. She argues that these traditional discourses impose on new female generations ‘ways of thinking that lock them into roles which accord with the dominant patriarchal society’. Finally, a broader implication of this chapter is to increase an understanding of discursive constructions of gender relations and identities. Trainee primary teachers need not only gender-sensitive curricula and textbooks, but also education in gender sensitivity. Gender-sensitive male and female teachers can serve as positive role models and pass on new values to future generations of children.
Acknowledgements The present study was financially supported by a grant (ID N◦ : 37/06-01) from the Spanish Women’s Institute. This study is part of a long-term research project: Effects of Anti-Sexist Language Policies and the Process of Femininisation of Language in the Media. University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain).
Notes
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1. Identity theorists have criticised Lakoff’s deficit approach, have reacted against this notion of deficient users and have moved gradually from deficient users to performance. For further information see Spender (1980), Butler (1990), Tannen (1995), Coates (2003), Cameron (2004) and Schmenk (2004). 2. In each group, there were 15 advertisements oriented towards the appraised and 15 advertisements oriented towards the appraisal.
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3. One hundred and twenty unisex toy advertisements were coded to analyse possible changes in each writer’s gender role conceptualization as the main goal was to explore how the same male or female undergraduate conceptualized the other gender and observe variations in this conceptualization when their own gender was included in the target audience. 4. Law 2/2006 on Education passed on 3 May 2006 which regulates Spanish current educational system. 5. Appraisal or the evaluative use of language can fulfil three main functions: attitudinal positioning is related to the ways people, things and events are either positively or negatively assessed; dialogistic positioning is associated with self-expression or the way communicators externalize their inner thoughts in order to inform those who lack a particular piece of information; and intertextual positioning is connected with the uses of language employed when quoting somebody else’s words in order to assess other speakers or writers’ points of view. For further information see White (2001) and Martin and White (2005). 6. The concept was originated in 1973 by Mary Rowe, a management professor at M.I.T. Sandler and Hall (1986) define microinequity as the ways in which individuals are singled out, ignored or otherwise discounted in terms of characteristics that cannot be changed such as gender and race. A microinequity is usually connected with body language, different behaviour or treatment. It is also claimed that the perceptions that cause these microinequities are deeply rooted and unconscious. 7. Male writers only identified with the girl character in two advertisements out of the 55 advertisements which were analysed. 8. Female writers identified with the boy character in 30 advertisements and with the girl character in the remaining 25 advertisements.
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García-Gómez, A. (2006) ‘Sneaking gender into the EFL class’, Porta Linguarum, 5, 77–90. Hogg, M. A. and Vaughan, G. M. (2002) Social Psychology (3rd ed.) London: Prentice Hall. Hruska, B. L. (2004) ‘Constructing gender in an English dominant kindergarten: Implications for second language learners’, TESOL Quarterly, 38, 3, 459–485. Iedema, R., Feez, S. and White, P. R. R. (1994) Media Literacy, Sydney, Disadvantaged Schools Program. NSW Department of School Education. Lakoff, R. (1975) Language and Women’s Place. New York: Harper and Row. Martin, J. R. (1995) ‘Interpersonal meaning, persuasion, and public discourse: Packing semiotic punch’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 15, 3–67. Martin, J. R. (1997) ‘Analysing genre: Functional parameters’, in Genres and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. Christie, F. and Martin, J. R. (eds) London: Cassell, 3–39. Martin, J. R. (2000) ‘Beyond exchange: APPRAISAL systems in English’, in Evaluation in Text. S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McCracken, N. M. and Appleby, B. C. (1992) Gender Issues in the Teaching of English. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton. McLoughlin, L. (2008) ‘The construction of female sexuality in the “sex special”: Transgression of containment in magazines’ information on sexuality for girls?’, Gender and Language, 2, 2, 171–195. Painter, C. N. (2003) ‘Ten steps for improved appraisals’, Supervision, 64, 12–16. Rothery, J. and Stenglin, M. (2000) ‘Interpreting literature: The role of APPRAISAL’, in Researching Language in Schools and Functional Linguistic Perspectives. Unsworth, L. (ed.) London: Cassell. Sandler, B. and Hall, R. (1986) ‘The campus climate revisited: Chilly for women faculty, administrators, and graduate students’, Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges, Project on the Status and Education of Women. Schmenk, B. (2004) ‘Language learning: A feminine domain? The role of stereotyping in constructing gendered learner identities’, TESOL Quarterly, 38, 3, 514–538. Spender, D. (1980) Man Made Language. London: Pandora. Sunderland, J. (1998) ‘Girls being quiet: A problem for foreign language classrooms?’, Language Teaching Research, 2, 1, 48–62. Sunderland, J. (2000a) ‘New understandings of gender and language classroom research: texts, teacher talk and student talk’, Language Teaching Research, 4, 2, 149–173. Sunderland, J. (2000b) ‘Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education’, Language Teaching, 33, 4, 203–223. Sunderland, J. (2002) ‘Research into gender in language education: Lingering problems and new directions’, The Language Teacher, 27, 7, 8–10. Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. (1986) ‘The social identity theory of inter-group behaviour’, in Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Worchel, S. and Austin, L. W. (eds) Chigago: Nelson-Hall.
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Turner, J. C. (1982) ‘Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group’, in Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Tajfel, H. (ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tannen, D. (1995) Gender and Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White P. R. (2001) The Appraisal Website: The Language of Attitude, Arguability and Interpersonal Positioning. Available from http://www.gramatics.com/appraisal/ index.html, date accessed 6 June 2009.
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Note: Tables and figures in bold. adjectives, 44–73, 93, 98, 147, 148, 149, 155, 240, 243, 247–8, 251–3, 257 adverbs, 44–73, 147, 149, 240, 243–4, 248, 253 affectual positioning, 238–63 agency, 4, 7, 13, 15, 251 appraisal theory, 240, 242–4, 248, 251–2, 254 appraising lexical items, 240, 246, 249 argumentative texts, 49, 50–73, 121–2 attitudes, 3, 8, 96, 98, 155, 172–3, 177, 185, 244, 248, 251, 254 awareness, 6, 213, 223, 232, 241, 257, 260 beliefs, 3–4, 6, 10, 106, 212–37 boosting devices, 52–4, 63, 67 braggadocio, 223–4 British National Corpus, 2 Canadian primary school classrooms, 167–87 Chinese EFL learners, 9–10 classroom interaction, 5, 11, 167–87 classroom observation, 10, 167–87 Community of Practice (CoP), 2–3, 19, 133, 239 see also foreign language classrooms composition effect, 122, 129–30 composition length, 78–81, 130 composition test, 5, 14, 44–73, 74–92, 117–38 see also corpus of compositions comprehension test, 26–7, 119, 123 constructivist approach, 134, 238 content/grammatical words, 2, 45–6, 52–4, 60, 98, 142, 147 Content Integrated Language Learning (CLIL), 139–40
corpus-based research, 44–93, 212–37 corpus of compositions, 10, 74–93, 117–38, 212–37 correct idea units, 30 correct inferences, 27–43 correlation across vocabulary tests, 103–5, 117–37, 146 creative writing task, 15, 238–63 cue word test, 14, 98, 117–37, 151, 156 see also productive vocabulary tests, Lex30 descriptive texts, 121–2, 135 see also narrative, expository, argumentative texts DICLE (Dutch L1), 44–73 dictionaries, 4–5 discourse, 2–4, 8, 13, 15, 121–3, 129, 133, 239, 242, 259 EFL classrooms, 119, 133, 135, 139, 168 EFL males’ and females’ performance in vocabulary tests, 7, 10, 13–14, 93–116, 127–37, 144, 158 EFL males’ and females’ productive vocabulary, 14, 74–137 elicitation tasks, 77–8, 97–8, 124, 141–2, 168–9, 217–18, 239 English as a foreign language (EFL), 1, 3, 5–6, 10–14, 74–137, 139–63, 212–63 English as the language of instruction, 167–87 English language v romance language, 147 English as a school subject, 12, 77–92, 132 see also language classrooms
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English in Spain, 3–4, 6, 16, 77, 97, 110, 117, 124, 133, 135, 155–6, 159–61 English-speaking Anglo American Spanish as FL learners, 13, 123 equal opportunities, 238–63 ESL classroom in Canada, 15, 167–87 ethnicity, 15, 70, 94, 169 see also identities ethnography of speaking model, 169, 171 see also speech acts evaluative positioning, 238–63 expository texts, 121 exposure, 8, 11, 77, 85, 97, 124, 141 external regulation, 95 see also motivation extrinsic motivation, 95–6, 98, 102–4, 107, 110 see also under intrinsic, instrumental, integrative motivation, investment femininity, 4, 7–9, 175, 212–37 see also masculinity feminism, 187, 234, 261 foreign language classrooms, 3, 5, 12, 15–16, 134–5, 167–87 see also Community of Practice foreign language education, 1, 4–5, 117–18, 133–4, 157, 260 foreign language setting, Compare second language settings, 5, 7–8, 12, 16, 135 foreign language writing, 10, 13, 15, 44–93, 117–37, 238–63 free word association task, 123, 141, 144 see also cue word test, Lex30 free written recall protocol, 23–43 FRICLE (French L1), 44–73 gendered discourses, 2, 15 gendered styles, 2–3 gender-inclusive terms, 2, 240 gendering/ genderedness, 3–4, 8 gender/sex, 3–5, 7, 9, 11–12, 17, 93–4, 96, 117–18, 239, 241–4, 246–8 GERICLE (German L1), 44–73
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Germanic L1 speakers, 13, 44–73 German as a second/ foreign language, 5, 9, 27 GLAUR research group, 125, 131–2, 134, 149 grammars, 4, 121 grammatical gender, 1, 19, compare to natural gender grammatical metaphors, 45–73 hedging devices, 52–4, 63, 67 Hispanic short stories, 28–43 humour and educational contexts, 3, 15, 154, 215–16, 221, 230 humour in EFL learners’ compositions, 3, 15, 212–37 Hungarian secondary school EFL learners, 122 hunter-gathered hypothesis, 105, see motivation hyperbole, 212–37 ICLE corpus, 45, 48–73 see also corpus of compositions, corpus-based research ideational metaphor, 47 idea units, 13, 27, 29–43 identities, 5, 8, 12, 14, 134–5, 154, 156, 167–263 idiosyncratic responses, 151, 153, 157 impact of teacher’s spoken words, 167–87 impersonation, 212–37, see humour incorrect idea units, 30 individual and instructional language learning variables, 3, 106, 118 inference in L2, 23–44, 30–1 informants, 77, 97, 124, 141, 167–9, 217–18, 239 innate v nurture, 7, 230 Instituto Cervantes, 195–6 instrumental v integrative, 8, 95–6, 107, see motivation interaction, 5, 11, 31–40, 106, 110, 135, 183, 214, 216 intrinsic motivation, 95–8, 101–104, 107, 110, 132, see motivation introjected regulation, 95, see motivation
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10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán
Index
investment, 7–8 see also motivation invisibility, 7 see also silence involvement load hypothesis, 96, see motivation Iranian EFL learners, 10 ITICLE (Italian L1), 44–73 judgment, 238–63 kinship terms, 10 language education, 1, 5, 8, 14, 93 language learning context, 85, 88, 118, 135, 140, 156–7, 184 language learning strategies, 3, 5, 10–11, 14, 75, 84, 86, 117, 132 language opportunities, 185–6 Latin America, 6 lemmatization, 58, 60, 71, 143 letter writing task, 77–8, 124–5, 212–37 Lex30, 139–63 lexical availability studies, 98, 120–1 lexical availability task, 93–138, 144–5 lexical choice, 13, 238–63 lexical competence, 44, 50, 54, 96, 139 lexical complexity, 45 lexical creations, 13, 74–92, 94, 134 lexical density, 13, 44–73, 121 lexical errors, 74–93 Lexical Frequency Profile, 121, 142, 145 see also composition test lexical networks, 139 lexical richness, 45–6, 52–3, 60–1, 121, 130 lexical sophistication, 121 lexical strategies, 243–4, 246–7, 249, 254 lexical variation, 45–6, 52, 55, 58–61, 63, 70, 121 lexical verbal fluency task, 109 see also cue word test linguistic space, 170–1, 180, 185–6 see also silence, invisibility, language classrooms literal idea units, 23–43
literal translation, 78, 81, 83–4, 88 LOCNESS (Lovain Corpus of Native English Essays), 49 longitudinal studies, 14, 130, 134, 139–63, 212–37 MAD Corpus (American native-English speakers), 49 mainstream schools, 169 making inferences, 24, 28–43 masculinities, 4, 7–9, 212–37 see also feminity measuring vocabulary, 117–37, 139–63 mental lexicon of the L2 learner, 86, 139–41, 149, 151, 153, 243 see also word association metaphors, 43–73 microinequities, 238–63 mixed schools, 4 motivation, 3, 7–8, 14, 87, 89, 93–116, 131–4 see also attitudes, subject choice, gender multiple choice test, 27, 29–30, 109, 118–20, 123, 130–3 narratives v descriptive texts, 38, 121–2 native English writers v non–native English writers, 48–73 native speakers of English, 5, 8, 27 natural gender, 1 see also grammatical gender nominalizations, 13, 54 non-sexist language, 4 nouns, 1, 53, 98, 147, 148, 149, 219–20 nouns in French and Spanish, 1–2 open-ended test, 26–7, 37–8, 122 paradigmatic, syntagmatic, clang associations, 3, 139–63 see also word association passage content, 23–43, 77 perceptions, 8, 11, 110, 167–87, 261 see also beliefs politeness, 154, 156, 238, 246, 254, 259
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qualitative studies, 13, 15, 74–93, 167–87, 188–263 quantitative studies, 12–13, 15, 74–137, 139–63, 188–263 reading ability, 23–4, 26, 123 reading assessment, 24, 123 reading authentic texts, 24, 26–7 reading comprehension, 10, 122–3 reading in Spanish as FL, 25, 27–43 reading tests/tasks, 23, 93 Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy of Language), 191–5, 197 recall of idea units, 13 receptive skills, 117–37, 157 receptive vocabulary knowledge, 19, 94, 117–37, 157 receptive vocabulary tests, 14, 94, 108–9, 117–37 representation, 4, 13–15, 188–211
roles, 4, 6, 155, 188, 212–63 see also identities, stereotypes romance L1 speakers, 13, 44–73 schemata in L2, 24, 38 see also inferences, reading second language acquisition, 1, 6, 8, 13 Second Language Evaluation Reading Test of French, 24 second language learning v foreign language learning, 6, 8, 11, 15 second language settings, 5, 7, 8, 11, 15 secondary school education, 114 self-categorization Theory, 242–3 self-deprecation, 223 self-determination theory, 95 self-image, 8 semantic categories, 98, 244 semantic differential technique, 98 semantic fields in EFL compositions, 86, 94, 155, 157 semantic or category verbal fluency task, 109 sex-exclusive, (Also Sex-preferential), 2–3 sex-preferential, 2 SFL textbooks, 188–211 silence, 167–87 see also identities, invisibility, linguistic space SLA, 1, 5–8, 13, 16, 117–19, 121 social construction of gender, 5, 13, 212–37, 240 socio-cultural models, 220 socio-psychological model, 94 SpainWrite Team, 49 Spanish, 1–2, 5, 15, 77–9, 83–4, 190 Spanish curriculum goals, 240, 261 Spanish as a Foreign Language Diplomas (DELE), 196 Spanish as a foreign language learners, 1–2 Spanish as a foreign language (SFL), 1, 2, 5, 10, 13, 15, 27–43, 188–9 Spanish foreign language textbooks, 15, 132
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pragmatic competence, 96 praise, (Also Praising), 172, 180, 251, 254 prefixes, 44–73 primary school education see also secondary school education, 3–4, 6, 10–11, 15 prior knowledge, 24, 26, 37, 86 see also inferences productive skills, 123, 212–37 productive vocabulary knowledge, 14, 74–137, 139–63 productive vocabulary tests, 93–137, 139, 141–2, 144 professional Spanish titles, 15, 188–211 pronominal forms, 2 Psychobiosocial theory, 110 Psycholinguistics and Neurology, 108 Punjabi Canadian students, 167–87, 174, 185 Punjabi language, 174 Punjabi-Sikh immigrant community, 167–87 Punjabi-Sikh school, 167–87
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Spanish, French, Italian L1 EFL learners v.German, Dutch, Swedish L1 EFL learners, 48–73 Spanish primary school EFL learners, 6, 97, 109, 117–37, 212–63 Spanish trainee primary English teachers, 238–63 Spanish University Entrance Exam, 106 Speech acts, 167–87 Speech production, 167–87 SPICLE (Spanish L1), 44–73 standardized type/token ratio, 53, 55 stereotypes/stereotyping, 4, 106, 156, 188–263 stimulus words, 142, 149 student-talk, 3, 167–87 see also, teacher-talk subject choice, 3–4, 106 see also attitudes, motivation suffixes, 44–73 swearwords, 155 Swedish secondary school EFL learners, 123 SWICLE (Swedish L1), 44–73 taboos, 226–7 task’s cognitive and motivational load, 96 teacher education, 13, 15 teacher interaction, 3, 167–87 teachers’ classroom practices, 3, 15 teachers’ talk, 3, 167–87 teacher training, 170 teaching processes, 3, 15 tendencies, 2, 9–10, 12–14, 34–40, 74–137, 212–37, 244, 250, 253 Test of Academic Lexicon, 10 Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), 23 test format, 122–3 tests, 4, 13–14, 119 test and task effect, 9–10, 14, 117–37, 144 textbooks, 4, 15, 132, 260 TOEFL examinations, 121 topic, 2, 25–7, 77, 120–1, 251
topic effect, 27, 31–40 topic familiarity, 25–6, 29, 31, 35, 38 toys advertisements, 15, 238–63 types of grammatical metaphors, 47 types of humour, 212–13 types of inferences, 26 types of lexical creations, 74–93 types of motivation, 93–126 type/token ratio, 52–3, 58, 60 types of vocabulary tests, 117–37 unique classroom, 167–87 unprompted humour in EFL compositions, 212–37 variation, see also sex-preferential, gender tendencies, 2, 7, 10, 14, 110, 117–37, 212–37 video data collection, 169 vocabulary acquisition, 3, 6, 10, 13–14, 16, 74–94, 96, 110, 144 vocabulary assessment, 117–37 vocabulary development, 3, 5–6, 13, 16, 142 vocabulary growth, 3, 85, 144, 149 vocabulary input, 132, 149, 217 vocabulary knowledge, 98, 117–37 vocabulary learning strategies, 10–11, 132, 134 vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), 120, 124, 126 vocabulary production, 13–14, 74–93, 104, 110, 117–37, 170, 212–37 vocabulary profile, 117–37, 147, 212–37 vocabulary receptive tests, 117–37 vocabulary representation, 4, 15, 212–37 see also dictionaries and textbooks vocabulary size, 10, 16, 109, 117–37 vocabulary use, 2, 7, 10, 13, 44–93, 212–37
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word association, 3, 13–14, 94, 134 word association categories, 139–63 word associations tests, 140 word classes, 10, 47, 149 word families, 121
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word frequency, 125, 142 word frequency band (2000), 120, 124, 126, 133 word knowledge, 77, 86, 120, 141 word level inferencing, 25–44 see also inference word lists, 132 word means, 129 word recalling, 93
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word recognition, 131 word retrieval, 86 WordSmith Tools, 52, 125 word test (WT) (1000), 124, 126, 133 word tokens, 50, 117–37, 142, 144, 169, 200–2, 219–20 word types, 50, 53, 117–37, 142–3, 212, 219 written recall tests, 123, 130
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Index
10.1057/9780230274938 - Gender Perspectives on Vocabulary in Foreign and Second Languages, Edited by Rosa Mª Jiménez Catalán