The Acquisition of Gender

Gender as a morphosyntactic feature is arguably “an endlessly fascinating linguistic category” (Corbett 2014: 1). One may even say it is among “the most puzzling of the grammatical categories” (Corbett 1991: 1) that has raised probing questions from various theoretical and applied perspectives. Most languages display semantic and/or formal gender systems with various degrees of opacity and complexity, and even closely related languages present distinct differences, creating difficulties for second language learners. The first three chapters of this volume present critical reviews in three different areas – gender assignment in mixed noun phrases, subtle gentle biases and the gender acquisition in child and adult heritage speakers of Spanish – while the next six chapters present new empirical evidence in the acquisition of gender by bilingual children, adult L2/L3 learners and heritage speakers of various languages such as Italian, German, Dutch or Mandarin-Italian.

Greville G. Corbett, Surrey Morphology Group:
This timely volume reflects the vitality of current research on gender, including both critical reviews and novel empirical studies. Topics include gender acquisition by bilingual children, issues of adult learners – both L2 and L3 – and heritage speakers of very different languages. The variety in subject matter is matched by the choice of research methods; these range from corpus work, semi-guided interviews and picture narration, through to eye-tracking. An interesting feature is the way in which gender serves both as the research topic and the means to address other research questions. As a result, the volume appeals to a wide range of readers.