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Second Language Acquisition

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2011-2012

#11: Gender

1. Gender vs. sex

A common stereotype has it that humans are born male or female, but later learn to be boys and girls

who grow up to become men and women. Accordingly, those traits of males and females which are

conditioned biologically are subsumed under the term sex, whereas those features that are shaped

socially and culturally, such as self-identity and social representation (Minson & Torgrimson 2005), are

referred to as gender. Clearly, gender identity appears to be strongly influenced by the environment,

yet do the environmental factors truly shape the components of gender identity or do they merely

reinforce inherited sex identity?

2. Neurolinguistic patterns of language use and gender

Yet those gender patterns may well derive from cognitive and neurolinguistic differences. The most

striking gender contrasts are related to sensation and perception. As emphasized by Low (2004: 30),

"in all senses except vision, women appear to have greater sensitivity than men; women have a greater

sensitivity to the four tastes (…) and have a lower threshold for hearing pure tones". In spite of this,

most of the female subjects involved in Ehrman & Oxford’s (1989) experimentation relied on intuition

rather than senses – unlike most of the male subjects, who saw the world in a more practical and

factual way. More men taking part in the study were found to have made their judgements on

impersonal, objective criteria, whereas the female research sample based their decisions more often on

feelings, also taking personal relationships into consideration.

Some of the biological differences may follow from the ways in which the brain hemispheres function

in the two sexes. For example, Maccoby (2000: 401) argues that there is stronger lateralisation in men

in males, i.e. "more functions are associated with activation primarily in one hemisphere of the brain,

whereas in females, the two hemispheres are more likely to be both activated for a specific function".

Furthermore, as revealed by Andreou

et al

. (2005), although many studies have shown sex differences

in performance on a variety of cognitive tasks (Crow

et al.

1998; Janowsky

et al

. 1998), one of the

reported recurring differences is a female superiority on verbal fluency tasks. In general, women are

not only found to be more verbally fluent than men (Stumpf 1995), but are also to have shorter inter-

hemispheric transmission time (Nowicka & Fersten 2001).

In Andreou

et al

.'s (2005) study, females performed better than males in both syntax and semantics,

but not in phonology. Research findings of studies on hemispheric specialisation for language

functions show that there exists a correlation between the sex variable and faculty. This could account

for why stronger verbal skills on the part of females influence their career choice leading them to select

faculties such as humanities, which belong to pure sciences rather than exact sciences.

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3. Sociolinguistic patterns of language use and gender

Across cultures, it can easily be noticed that men and women use language differently. One could even

speak of "male" and a "female" language. This is particularly true of conversation. Early sociolinguistic

research studies (e.g. Lakoff 1973; Holmes 1989; Tannen 1990, 1991; Nyikos & Oxford 1989; Gordon

& Kring 1998) showed that female speakers:



tend to be more polite than male speakers



make eye contact and smile more often



use more concessive language



ask more questions to maintain talk



tend to lack confidence in what they say, despite having stronger verbal skills



use structures that expresses uncertainty (e.g. hedges, tag questions, rising intonation in

declaratives)



talk less than men in mixed-sex interactions



turn out to speak out publicly less often than men



prefer to speak to a small audience made up of people they know well

In contrast, male speakers were found by researchers (Holmes 1991; Henning-Stout & Sheridan 1994;

Shehadeh 1999) to:



use non-standard language and taboo words more often than female speakers



interrupt women more often than women interrupt men



take advantage of the conversation in a way that allows them to promote their

performance/production ability, whereas women utilize the conversation to promote their

comprehension ability.



place value in conversational interaction and status, while females seek connection and

rapport, since they are believed to be “cooperative and facilitative conversationalists,

concerned for their partner’s positive face needs” (Holmes 1991: 210)

4. The gender variable and learning

Even though gender differences affecting learning are conditioned by both biological (innate) factors

and environmental (cultural, social) factors, including upbringing and school education, research

evidence does not lend support to the claim that one gender outsmarts the other in ultimate learning

achievement. Thus, for example, tests of general intelligence show differences between individual

scores which are irrespective of the subject's sex (Mead 2006: 15).

Research on performance in second/foreign language learning by the two genders has revealed certain

tendencies, though the outcomes are inconclusive. Thus, on the one hand, Nyikos (1990) found that

women are better than men at vocabulary memorisation. On the other hand, though, in Boyle's study

(1987) male students outperformed female students in listening vocabulary tests. However, where men

and women do differ with respect to L2 learning is across some cognitive and socioaffective variables.

For example, it was demonstrated (cf. Ellis 1994) that female learners:



have a more positive attitude than male learners towards learning L2 and towards the L2

speech community



are more motivated than male learners



are less discouraged by failure or difficulties in language study than male learners



use different learning styles and learning strategies; e.g. while men produce more output,

women tend to generate more input; while men rely more on translation strategies, women

prefer to monitor their comprehension.

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5. Pedagogical implications

Recapitulating, the biological factor of sex interacts also with other biological, cognitive and social

individual learner differences, such as age, ethnicity or social class. School – which is stereotypically

associated by some learners with femininity because many teachers are women – may have a tendency

to emphasise the differences between the sexes by separating male and female activities. Besides,

teachers may treat boys and girls in different ways because they may believe that boys and girls in fact

like being treated differently.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

Andreou, G., Vlachos, F. & Andreou, E. 2005. "Affecting factors in second language learning".

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 34/5: 429-438.

Artelt, C., Baumert, J., Julius-McElvany, N. & Peschar, J. 2003. "Learners for life. Student

approaches to learning. Results from PISA". 2000.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b

/80/1b/6a/97.pdf

Boyle, J. 1987. "Sex differences in listening vocabulary".

Language Learning 37: 273-284.

Byrd, R., Campbell, K., Evans, C. & Jones, K. 2000. "Gender equity training and teacher

behavior".

Journal of Instructional Psychology 27/3: 173-178.

Cameron, D. 2006.

On Language and Sexual Politics. London: Routledge.

Chapman, A. 2002. "Gender bias in education".

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/genderbias.html

Crow, J. T., Crow, R. L., Done, J. D. & Leask, S. 1998. "Relative hand skill predicts academic

ability: Global deficits at the point of hemispheric indecision".

Neuropsychologia

36/12: 1275–1282.

Davis, M. R. 2007. "Gender gap in GPAs seen as linked to self-discipline".

Education Week

26/23. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/02/08/23discipline.h26.html

Duckworth, A.L., Seligman, M.E.P. 2006. "Self-discipline gives girls the edge: Gender in self-

discipline, grades, and achievement test scores".

Journal of Educational Psychology,

98/1: 198-208.

Ehrman, M. & Oxford, R. 1989. "Effects of sex differences, career choice, and psychological

type on adult language learning strategies".

The Modern Language Journal 73/1: 1-

13.

Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gordon, A. H. & Kring, A. M. 1998. "Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and

physiology".

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74/3: 686-703.

Harmer, J. 2001.

The Practice of English Language Teaching. Third Edition. Harlow:

Longman.

Harmer, J. 2007.

The Practice of English Language Teaching. Fourth Edition. Harlow:

Longman.

Holmes, J. 1989. "Sex differences and apologies: One aspect of communicative competence"

.

Applied Linguistics 10: 194-213.

Holmes, J. 1991. "Language and gender".

Language Teaching 24: 207-220.

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Janowsky, S. J., Chavez, B., Zamboli, D. B. & Orwoll, E. 1998. "The cognitive neuropsychology

of sex hormones in men and women".

Developmental Neuropsychology 14/2-3: 421–

440.

Lakoff, R. 1973. "Language and woman's place".

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Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World's Cultures, Volume 1.

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Maccoby, E.E. 2000. “Perspectives on gender development”.

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behavioral Development 24: 398-406.

McIntyre, T. & Tong, V. 1998. "Where the boys are: Do cross-gender misunderstandings of

language use and behavior patterns contribute to the overrepresentation of males in

programs for students with emotional and behavioral disorders?"

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Treatment of Children 21/3: 321-332.

Mead, S. 2006. “The evidence suggests otherwise: The truth about boys and girls

. Education

sector”. http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/ESO_BoysAndGirls.pdf

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Applied Physiology 99: 785-787.

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time in the human brain".

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memory factors".

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university students".

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Robinson, P. 2002.

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John Benjamins.

Shehadeh, A. 1999. "Gender differences and equal opportunities in the ESL classroom".

ELT

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perspectives on sex differences in cognition: I. Theory and research".

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Individual Differences 7: 275–287.

Sunderland, J. 2006.

Language and Gender: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.

Tannen, D. 1990.

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William Morrow.

Tannen, D. 1991."Teachers' classroom strategies should recognize that men and women use

language differently".

The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/chronicle061991.htm

Vallance, R. J. 2004a. "Gendered motivation amongst high school students". Paper presented

at the AARE Conference 28

th

Nov-2

nd

Dec. The University of Melbourne.

http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/val04019.pdf

Vallance, R. J. 2004b. "Males’ academic motivation: Doing a personal best".

Academic

Exchange Quarterly 8/4: 95-100.