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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Influence of Three-Gendered Grammatical Systems on Simultaneous Bilingual Cognition
T2 - The case of Ukrainian-Russian Bilinguals
AU - Osypenko, Oleksandra
AU - Brandt, Silke
AU - Athanasopoulos, Panos
PY - 2025/1/10
Y1 - 2025/1/10
N2 - This paper examines the linguistic relativity principle (Whorf, 1956) by investigating the impact of grammatical gender on cognition in simultaneous bilinguals of three-gendered Ukrainian and Russian. It examines whether speakers of three-gendered languages show grammatical gender effects on categorisation, empirically addressing claims that such effects are insignificant due to the presence of the neuter gender (Sera et al., 2002). We conducted two experiments using a similarity-judgment paradigm while manipulating the presence of neuter gender stimuli (Phillips & Boroditsky, 2003). Experiment 1, including neuter gender, revealed no significant effects, compatible with earlier studies on three-gendered languages. Conversely, Experiment 2, excluding neuter gender stimuli, showed significant language effects. Bilingual participants rated pairs as more similar when grammatical genders in both languages were congruent with the biological sex of a character. Significant effects were also found for pairs with mismatching grammatical genders in Ukrainian and Russian. Participants with higher proficiency in Ukrainian rated pairs as more similar when the grammatical gender of a noun in Ukrainian was congruent with the character’s biological sex, and incongruent in Russian. Our findings thus provide the first empirical demonstration that the exclusion of neuter gender online induces grammatical gender effects in speakers of three-gendered languages.
AB - This paper examines the linguistic relativity principle (Whorf, 1956) by investigating the impact of grammatical gender on cognition in simultaneous bilinguals of three-gendered Ukrainian and Russian. It examines whether speakers of three-gendered languages show grammatical gender effects on categorisation, empirically addressing claims that such effects are insignificant due to the presence of the neuter gender (Sera et al., 2002). We conducted two experiments using a similarity-judgment paradigm while manipulating the presence of neuter gender stimuli (Phillips & Boroditsky, 2003). Experiment 1, including neuter gender, revealed no significant effects, compatible with earlier studies on three-gendered languages. Conversely, Experiment 2, excluding neuter gender stimuli, showed significant language effects. Bilingual participants rated pairs as more similar when grammatical genders in both languages were congruent with the biological sex of a character. Significant effects were also found for pairs with mismatching grammatical genders in Ukrainian and Russian. Participants with higher proficiency in Ukrainian rated pairs as more similar when the grammatical gender of a noun in Ukrainian was congruent with the character’s biological sex, and incongruent in Russian. Our findings thus provide the first empirical demonstration that the exclusion of neuter gender online induces grammatical gender effects in speakers of three-gendered languages.
KW - linguistic relativity
KW - grammatical gender
KW - simultaneous bilingualism
KW - language proficiency
U2 - 10.1017/langcog.2024.73
DO - 10.1017/langcog.2024.73
M3 - Journal article
VL - 17
JO - Language and Cognition
JF - Language and Cognition
SN - 1866-9808
M1 - e25
ER -