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Previous research has led to conflicting notions of the representation of L1 and L2 grammatical gender systems in the mental lexicon: under the gender-integrated representation hypothesis the L1 and L2 gender nodes are shared, while these nodes are language-specific in the gender autonomous representation hypothesis. We address this debate, extending this research to L1 and L2 systems mismatched in number of gender values. In this study, Spanish-German bilinguals performed an L2 picture-naming task in which gender congruency (congruent, incongruent and neuter) between L1 and L2 nouns was manipulated. Latencies were shorter for gender-congruent than gender-incongruent nouns, and latencies for the German neuter nouns were also shorter than those for the masculine-feminine incongruent nouns. These gender congruency effects support the gender-integrated representation hypothesis and indicate a unique representation of the gender value not present in the L1 which interferes with the response significantly less than when the incongruency is between gender values present in both languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments, this article investigates the predictive processing of gender agreement in adult second language (L2) acquisition. We test (1) whether instruction on lexical gender can lead to target predictive agreement processing and (2) how variability in lexical gender representations moderates L2 gender agreement processing. In a pretest–posttest design, Experiment 1 trained 34 intermediate first language (L1) English learners of German on gender assignment. After training, the L2 group showed predictive gender processing; yet, performance correlated with accuracy in gender assignment. Experiment 1 suggests that target knowledge of lexical gender in the L2 lexicon is a prerequisite for predictive use of gender agreement in L2 syntax: Non-target gender assignment would lead to partially erroneous gender prediction such that use of gender agreement is costly for the parser and therefore abandoned. To test this account, Experiment 2 investigated predictive processing in 42 German native speakers who have target-like gender assignment and agreement. In a between-group design, one group received target input and the other received filler items with non-target gender assignment. The latter group subsequently stopped using gender agreement predictively in all experimental trials. Hence, L2 problems with gender agreement can be emulated in native processing. Taken together, the experiments suggest that variability of lexical gender assignment affects processing of gender agreement in natives and non-natives. We interpret the findings in the context of current probabilistic theories of implicit learning and processing adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grammatical gender of German nouns continues to pose a challenge to second language learners. Following from a connectionist framework, this study explores the effect of two input enhancement techniques, color-coding and gendered actors, on the learning of grammatical gender by beginning learners of German during a vocabulary acquisition activity. Results on an immediate post-test show no significant differences between conditions. In the delayed post-test, however, the control group experienced a significant decrease in accurate gender assignment of the target items, while the gendered actor group displayed a non-significant loss in scores, and the color-coding group actually displayed slightly better scores compared to the immediate post-test. These results suggest that color-coding might be the most effective, while also the least work-intensive, technique for instructors to implement. Further pedagogical implications resulting from this study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Teaching reflection and administering reflective writing assignments to students are widely practiced and discussed in medical education and health professional education. However, little is known about how medical students use language to construct their narratives. Exploring students' linguistic patterns in their reflective writings can facilitate understanding the scope and facets of their reflections and their representational or communication approaches to share their experiences. Moreover, research findings regarding gender differences in language use are inconsistent. Therefore, we attempted to examine how females and males differ in their use of words in reflective writing within our research circumstance to detect the unique and gender-specific approaches to learning and their applications. Methods: We analyzed the linguistic profiles of psychological process categories in the reflective writings of medical students and examined the difference in word usage between male and female medical students. During the first year of a clinical rotation, 60 fifth-year medical students wrote reflective narratives regarding pediatric patients and the psychosocial challenges faced by the patients and their family members. The narratives were analyzed using the Chinese version of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (CLIWC), a text analysis software program. Multivariate procedures were applied for statistical analysis. Results: Cognitive words were most pervasive, averaging 22.16%, whereas perceptual words (2.86%) were least pervasive. Female students used more words related to positive emotions and sadness than did male students. The male students exceeded the female students only in the space category. The major limitation of this study is that CLIWC cannot directly acquire contextual text meanings; therefore, depending on the research topic, further qualitative study of the given texts might be necessary. Conclusions: To enhance students' empathy toward the psychosocial issues faced by patients and their family members, students should be encouraged to explore the domain of psychological processes by identifying and expressing their affective and perceptual experiences. Researchers in future studies should use outcome measures such as self-awareness or empathy to determine the overall effectiveness of reflective writing and how changes in linguistic patterns affect such outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a set of principles and methodologies for the crosslinguistic investigation of grammatical complexity and applies them to the in-depth study of one grammatical domain, gender. The complexity of gender is modeled on the basis of crosslinguistically documented properties of gender systems and by taking into consideration interactions between gender and two other grammatical domains: nominal number and evaluative morphology. The study proposes a complexity metric for gender that consists of six features: "Gender values", "Assignment rules", "Number of indexation (agreement) domains", "Cumulative exponence of gender and number", "Manipulation of gender assignment triggered by number/countability", and "Manipulation of gender assignment triggered by size". The metric is tested on a sample of 84 African languages, organized in subsamples of genealogically related languages. The results of the investigation show that: (1) the gender systems of the sampled languages lean towards high complexity scores; (2) languages with purely semantic gender assignment tend to lack pervasive gender indexation; (3) languages with a high number of gender distinctions tend to exhibit pervasive gender indexation; (4) some of the uses of manipulable gender assignment are only attested in languages with a high number of gender distinctions and/or pervasive indexation. With respect to the distribution of the gender complexity scores, the results show that genealogically related languages tend to have the same or similar gender complexity scores. Languages that display exceedingly low or high gender complexity scores when compared with closely related languages exhibit distinctive sociolinguistic profiles (contact, bi- or multilingualism). The implications of these findings for the typology of gender systems and the crosslinguistic study of grammatical complexity and its distribution are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this current study the researchers have tried to investigate the possible effect of Iranian EFL learners' gender on their ability of vocabulary retention concerning authentic versus non-authentic texts. Despite a great deal of studies conducted in the area of EFL/ESL learning, the effect of EFL learners' gender on their vocabulary retention regarding authentic versus non-authentic texts has almost gained little attention and been under-researched. To this end and to fill this gap, the sample selection was done by a proficiency PET (Preliminary English Test). So, out of 114 EFL learners, 74 learners both male and female were chosen as the participants to take part in the research. The findings from repeated measurement test revealed that the learners' gender has no impact on EFL learners' vocabulary retention ability in authentic and non-authentic texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In native speakers of gender-marking languages, mechanisms of gender production appear to be affected by the morphophonological cues to gender present in the noun phrase. This influence is manifested in higher levels of production accuracy when more transparent cues to gender are present in comparison to when they are not. The goal of the present study was to examine the role of morphophonological cues to gender in the production of gender agreement in native speakers and second language learners of Spanish in light of the Marking and Morphing account of agreement (Eberhard et al., 2005). Participants repeated and completed complex subject noun phrases with head nouns that varied in gender and gender-marking transparency. Analyses of accuracy rates along with Marking and Morphing model simulations of the results indicated that, contrary to previous findings, native speakers were not affected by gender-marking transparency. However, based on model simulations, second language (L2) learners were affected by the morphophonological form of the head noun. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of RIE: Revista de Investigacion Educativa is the property of RIE: Revista de Investigacion Educativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: to study and verify that the phonological disorder is a continuum of language delay, in other words, if children with atypical phonological development previously had some delay in language development. Methods: the data were collected and organized into two groups, Group 1 comprised 10 children with language delay, speech therapy performed for stimulation and progressed after treatment, and then changed to the speech sector. Already Group2 consists of 554 subjects who arrived with phonological features and thus were diagnosed after the evaluations. Results: the findings of this study showed no significant association between sex and diagnosis, and the distribution between boys and girls was similar. In the analysis performed between age of onset of first words were not found significant results. However, the comparison between age of onset of first words and diagnosis were significant result, and the age of onset in the group with language delay, later than in other diagnostic hypotheses. Conclusion: the results of this study support the literature, because the phonological refers to a change in the phonological level only, rather than a continuum of language delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: verifying how the initial lexical acquisition occurs in children with typical development, regarding to types and tokens of the lexical items. Furthermore, one wants to verify if the noun bias hypothesis occurs, and in what version, strong or weak. Methods: the sample consisted of 20 children, male and female, with typical language development. This research covered ages from 1:0 to 1:11 (years: months) divided in three age groups (1:0 - 1:3;29, 1:4 - 1:7;29, 1:8 - 1:11;29). Audio data from spontaneous speech were collected, and after, lexical analysis was performed regarding to types and tokens produced. The Statistical tests Mann Whitney; Kruskal -- Wallis and Wilcoxon were used, with significance level p< 0.05. Results: no statistical significance was found to the variables regarding to sex. However, statistical difference was found between the age group 1 in relation to 2 and 3 to the majority of variables. Furthermore, one verified prevalence of content words in the age groups 2 and 3. The prevalence of nouns over verbs in all age groups was observed. Conclusion: the initial lexical acquisition in children with typical development occurs gradually according to the increase of age. In this period the sex variable doesn't influence in the linguistic performance. Furthermore, the noun bias hypothesis was confirmed in its weak version, confirming the thesis that inspired this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: to evaluate the gender's influence in the development of language skills in children with severe to profound sensorineural deafness after cochlear implant. Methods: thirty children, 12 females and 18 males, aged between 8 years and 1 month and 10 years, with severe to profound congenital bilateral sensorineural deafness with cochlear implant were studied. The language structures analyzed were semantics, morphosyntax and phonology. The assessment tool used was the Observation Grid Language - school level. Results: the average hearing age was of 72 months for females and 72.7 months for males. The scores obtained in the three structures were statistically similar between genders. Into each structure, the comparison of each test, were also similar. Conclusions: gender did not influence the development of oral language in children with cochlear implants, in the three linguistic structures studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the benefits of form-focused instruction and consciousness-raising activities in the acquisition of grammatical gender in French by second language (L2) learners. Form-focused instruction is noted as aid to aid learners to acquire a rule-based representation of grammatical gender. An improvement in learners' accuracy in assigning gender to nouns is found through form-focused instruction and consciousness-raising activities that draw the learners' attention to noun endings.

Many languages of the Tibeto-Burman family do not have grammatical gender. Typologically languages may be classified into those which have grammatical gender, for example, Hindi, Assamese, etc. of the Indo-Aryan languages and those which do not have grammatical gender, for example, Sizang, Koireng and Tarao of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages. What these languages (Sizang, Koireng and Tarao) have is merely a system of biological sex reference, and this is necessary only for specific semantic realization of animate nouns. These languages do not assign gender to each and every noun. Although this feature seems to be peripheral to language structure, an investigation into them gives us many insights to understand the complexities of everyday speech, and also enhances the scope of language typology. The present paper attempts to show how these languages use mechanism to signal the sex reference which is necessary for specific semantic realization of animate nouns. These languages do not have grammatical gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on four linguistic domains, purpose/manner of communication, preferring local dialects, politeness, and volume of use, this study aims to explore how gender is reflected in messages produced by Iranian female and male students. A corpus of 2,116 text messages was analyzed. Participants also filled out a questionnaire on how frequently they used text messaging. Results indicated females to be more prolific users of messaging. As far as function is concerned, while texts produced by females were for the most part relational, involving an emotional language, males frequently employed messages for informative-transactional functions which were less wordy and in more authoritative language. In addition, males were more likely than females to employ their local dialect and forms considered less polite. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main argument of this article is that Linguistic Landscape (LL) scholarship has largely ignored - erased even - gender and sexuality, two important axes of power along which public spaces are structured, understood, negotiated and contested. In order to partly redress this academic oversight, this article investigates a small data set of banal sexed signs, mundane semiotic aggregates, which, precisely because of their fleeting and unassuming character, can easily be ignored, but nonetheless '(in)form our understandings and experiences of [gender,] sexuality and subjectivity' (Sullivan 2003: 190). In doing so, the article also argues for the importance of incorporating queer theory into the analytical apparatus of Linguistic Landscape research, because it provides us with a valuable theoretical lens through which to unveil the operations of power in relation to gender and sexuality (and other social categories) in public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] The gender system of Amharic (Ethiosemitic) relies heavily on natural gender. [•] It is thus difficult for previous analyses to account for. [•] I propose natural gender is an interpretable feature on the nominalizing head n. [•] Arbitrary gender on inanimates is an uninterpretable version of the same feature. [•] Additional evidence from gender and number interactions support the analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Pontic Greek has developed an innovative semantic agreement system. [•] Targets controlled by non-human and inanimate nouns appear in the neuter form. [•] Gender conflicts in non-prototypical masculine and feminine nouns triggered semantic agreement. [•] Semantic agreement spread following the path of Corbett’s Agreement Hierarchy. [•] Semantic agreement paved the way for the loss of gender in Cappadocian and Pharasiot. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Subjects of pancake sentences are headed by a null neuter classifier. [•] Null neuter classifiers in MSc lack a number feature. [•] The absence of number gives rise to a non-countable reading. [•] The appearance of MSc pancake sentences is due to a general gender transition. [•] The Mainland Scandinavian gender system transition started in West Jutlandic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] A formal implementation of Corbett’s (1991) controller vs. target gender distinction is proposed. [•] The proposed system is checked against the gender systems of Romanian and Albanian. [•] The ambigeneric analysis holds for Albanian but not for Romanian. [•] Romanian neuters are better described as unmarked for gender. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Grammatical gender is a complex feature of natural languages. [•] The paper discusses ways to assess the degree of complexity of individual gender systems. [•] The complexity of gender systems can differ along three dimensions: gender values, assignment rules and morphological expression. [•] Domains differ in whether or not complexity equals difficulty in language acquisition. [•] Higher complexity of expression facilitates rather than hinders acquisition [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Gender is considered to be one of the major organizing principles in an individual's life; however, a unified understanding of what gender is and how gender identity is developed continues to spark debate and discussion for practitioners and academics. This literature review examines literature that discusses gender identity and development in order to explore the words, language, and terminology currently being used to discuss gender. Although the literature search generated articles which discussed a wide variety of issues relating to gender and gender identity development, a common theme throughout the literature was an absence of language that allows individuals to describe themselves outside heteronormative, binary ideals of gender without resorting to the use of the diagnostic categories and language to describe and explain gender variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in language and linguistics focuses on language as a reflection of gendered culture. This article argues that language reflects as well as preserves, propagates, reinforces and perpetuates this culture. The article explores the significance of the role of language, that is, words and labels, in the formation and construction of gender identity in the social and cultural set-up. The study is based on an analysis of 42 textbooks in English, Urdu and Pakhtu, used for teaching students from grades 1 to 10 in state-owned and privately run Pakistani schools. The article contends that language serves as a means to preserve age-old gender inequalities that in turn are manipulated and exploited to preserve social structures marked by gender bias, disparity and gender segregation. The research further indicates that the language of textbooks advocates masculinity and male domination in the decision-making process, division of labour, domestic and public spheres of activity resulting in the subjugation of women. The textbooks are markedly male-oriented as revealed with regard to creation, characterisation and modelling. Further, the community follows the Pakhtun code of honour, that is, Pakhtunwali, which is reinforced in the language of these texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of sublexical and lexico-syntactic factors during the grammatical gender assignment process in Spanish was studied in two experiments using the gender decision task. In Experiment 1, the regularity of the ending of gender-marked nouns (masculine nouns ended in $$-o$$ and feminine nouns ended in $$-a$$) and of nouns with gender-correlated but unmarked word-endings (e.g., $$-ad$$) was manipulated. The results showed that regularity affected reaction times and error rates only in the case of gender-marked nouns, suggesting that the mere statistical distribution of a word-ending across genders is not responsible for the regularity effect. In Experiment 2, gender-marked nouns and gender-unmarked nouns were preceded by a masked prime which could be a definite article (which provides information about the gender of the noun) or a possessive pronoun (which does not contain gender information). The presentation of the definite article led to shorter reaction times and less errors only when the word-ending was different from $$-o$$ or $$-a$$. Taken together, these results indicate that gender assignment in Spanish is carried out through different processes depending on the noun ending: gender decisions for gender-marked nouns are based on the gender-to-ending distribution. Meanwhile, gender decisions for unmarked nouns seem to require the retrieval of the corresponding definite grammatical article, regardless of the statistical distribution of the noun ending across genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of Franco-American French (FAF) suggest that this obsolescing variety spoken in the northeastern United States is resistant to grammatical changes that are typical in situations of language contact, restriction, and shift. Here we address the issue through an examination of gender agreement in descriptive adjectives. Our analysis of data from four communities shows that a tendency toward morphological reduction in the direction of the masculine variant that has been widely documented in the popular French of France and in many North American varieties is widespread in terms of number of speakers that exhibit this behaviour, but infrequent overall. Variation is conditioned by the nature of the final segment and by speaker community of residence and education in French. We relate these factors to widespread negative attitudes about FAF that have contributed to a communitywide shift to English on the one hand and to grammatical conservatism among speakers who have maintained French on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Hospital Admission Risk Profile (HARP) instrument is commonly used to assess risk of functional decline when older people are admitted to hospital. HARP has moderate diagnostic accuracy (65%) for downstream decreased scores in activities of daily living. This paper reports the diagnostic accuracy of HARP for downstream quality of life. It also tests whether adding other measures to HARP improves its diagnostic accuracy. Methods: One hundred and forty-eight independent community dwelling individuals aged 65 years or older were recruited in the emergency department of one large Australian hospital with a medical problem for which they were discharged without a hospital ward admission. Data, including age, sex, primary language, highest level of education, postcode, living status, requiring care for daily activities, using a gait aid, receiving formal community supports, instrumental activities of daily living in the last week, hospitalization and falls in the last 12 months, and mental state were collected at recruitment. HARP scores were derived from a formula that summed scores assigned to age, activities of daily living, and mental state categories. Physical and mental component scores of a quality of life measure were captured by telephone interview at 1 and 3 months after recruitment. Results: HARP scores are moderately accurate at predicting downstream decline in physical quality of life, but did not predict downstream decline in mental quality of life. The addition of other variables to HARP did not improve its diagnostic accuracy for either measure of quality of life. Conclusion: HARP is a poor predictor of quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of globalization has forced workers (essentially white collars) to learn foreign languages and break linguistic barriers. In most cases, Europeans have chosen English as a second language. But English is not the only language that has an economic impact on international trade. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of the most important foreign languages used at the workplace on wages of men and women, both at the mean and along the wage distribution, in Northern and Southern Europe ( Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). Workers from both genders benefit from a premium, but there are marked differences between North European and South European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated with the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male-dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype-based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which representations shifted was modulated by participants’ proficiency in their L2, with highly proficient L2 participants resembling native speakers of the L2 and less proficient L2 participants being influenced more by their native language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bapsi Sidhwa, an award winning Pakistani Novelist, also known for her social activism has come to fore in the current decade with a sincere concern for women's issues, especially of Indian subcontinent. She vivaciously strives to capture and steer our attention towards the female suffering against patriarchy and centuries old customs and conventions. Though her fictional canvas ranges from issues of traditional concerns to contemporary challenges, her trajectory scans many controversial and dialectical issues from pre-independent India to the great partition of 1947 and its aftermath. Many of her Novels have been adapted to screen versions which have turned out to be sensational success and a landmark in the genre of serious cinema. The novel and film "water" (2006) is the quintessential example of her clinical objectivity and subjective social concern. One is galvanized to appreciate the complexity of gendered power relations that Sidhwa portrays and comes to realize how she breaks free from the hegemony of patriarchal partition narratives and provides a distinct female counter-narrative. Her major novels like 'The crow eaters, 1980, The Pakistani Bride', 1983, 'Ice candy man' 1988, 'Cracking India' 1991, valiantly take up women's issues, the complication of colonization, and the bitterly divided quagmire of partition and re-evaluate and re-examine the socio-cultural mores that shaped the destiny of the Indian subcontinent. Though Sidhwa is versed in four languages she ingeniously chose to express herself in English because she intended to reach out to the world-audience beyond the boundaries and borders of the subcontinent and address the issues of the weaker sex and raise voice for their natural rights and deserving share in the pleasures and bounties of this earth. We encounter a world that is squalid and terrifying but there is a sincere attempt for redefining and reconstructing the social myths, mores and parameters which could accommodate the freedom and individuality of female species and feminine grace with respect and honor. Sidhwa truly represents the unrepresented half of humanity at large with candor and cautious stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem Statement: Studies have shown that language is used discriminatorily to women and men. Hence, there have been movements against gender biased language-the movements which are reported so successful especially in the West. Purpose of Study: This paper however argues that discrimination stems from speakers' minds; and hence performing gender neutral language alone does not confirm gender neutrality of the performer. The reliable way of judging gender neutrality would then be studying the speakers' minds. Method: The study applied psychoanalytic literary criticism as a gateway to the unconscious minds of American authors-to find out how gender neutral they were at cognitive level. Through psychoanalytic literary criticism, authors' suppressed desires would find their way out onto their works in a distorted form. Along these lines, the study assessed the equality in assigning agentive and patient semantic roles between males and females in American fictions-to find out who between males and females were frequently assigned agentive and patient roles of the reciprocal verbs: kiss, hug, marry, and divorce. Findings: The study found out that males were assigned more agentive roles in kiss and hug, and females in divorce. Moreover, both were assigned almost equal roles in marry. Conclusion: The implication of the findings is that speakers' unconscious mind is basically gender biased along gender stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female. Half stimuli had names of feminine gender and half of masculine gender. In Experiment 1, Italian speaking adults and preschoolers classified animals according to the nominal gender. This effect was not found with English speaking participants (Experiment 2) but confirmed with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old Italian-speaking children (Experiment 3). These results showed an implicit knowledge of grammatical gender in preschoolers, suggesting that semantic processing may be modulated by linguistic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to reflect on linguistic sexism, a kind of discrimination that has women as an object and language as an instrument. Sexist language either ignores women, or treats them as men, or represents them as an exception; such a use of language, which excludes or minimizes some social subjects, linguistically represents their self-denial and contributes to the permanence of common prejudices. The article analyzes two aspects of linguistic sexism: some asymmetries between masculine gender and feminine gender in the Spanish language; as well as some discriminatory linguistic expressions found in academic documents in the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico that hide or diminish the professional or student image of woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A well-established difference between male and female voices is the greater degree of breathy voice used by women. The acoustic measure that has most commonly been used to validate this difference is the amplitude of the first two harmonics relative to each other, as well as in relation to other spectral parameters. This paper suggests that sex-specific differences in the harmonic expression of nasality combined with the high likelihood of nasality being present in the open vowels, which have often been used to minimise the effect of F1 on the lowest harmonics, make H1 and H2 inappropriate reference points to measure sex-specific differences in breathiness. The relative harmonic amplitude patterns are replicated using formant synthesis (SenSyn). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Powerless language influences how media consumers perceive the believability and trustworthiness of news sources. Past studies have suggested females use more powerless language, which can negatively influence credibility. However, previous research also suggests powerless language may be preferred in certain contexts. To investigate powerless language use in written health media, a content analysis investigated health-related articles in issues of 12 magazines between October 2008 and September 2009. Analysis compared differences in powerless language frequencies relative to three variables: biological sex of the author, biological sex of the audience, and the magazine's overall topic focus. Female authors and health-focused magazines used more powerless language than male authors and generic-focused magazines, and powerless language was more often directed towards a female audience than a male audience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the author compares two Spanish translations of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Taking into account that Spanish is a language in which words referring to human beings have a feminine and a masculine form, and grammatical gender corresponds to sex, all translators must interrogate the sex of the referent in order to translate gendered words. They are thus compelled to assign sex to genderless forms in the source text. Patriarchal translation has a long tradition of devaluing and excluding the feminine in this process, as the author demonstrates here by revealing how Jorge Luis Borges translated the pronouns you and we in Woolf’s essay. In contrast, in her feminist translation of the essay, María Milagros Rivera-Garretas not only chooses the gender which most accurately represents the likely intended meaning of the source text, but recovers its message and legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides an overview of the young discipline of Queer Linguistics and discusses how it may be fruitfully applied in sociolinguistics as a contribution to critical heteronormativity research. After locating Queer Linguistics historically as a reaction to earlier essentialist approaches in the field of language and sexuality, its theoretical underpinnings are outlined. Queer Linguistics is not to be equalled with a 'gay and lesbian' approach to language. It rather transfers ideas from Queer Theory to linguistic research, building on the integration of work by poststructuralist scholars such as Foucault, Butler and Derrida in order to provide a critical investigation of the discursive formation of heteronormativity. Three potential criticisms against Queer Linguistics as a poststructuralist approach are addressed: its supposedly low relevance, issues of political agency, and its alleged lack of empirical applicability. Finally, methodological suggestions are made as to how sociolinguists may proceed from a Queer Linguistic point of view, focusing on ethnographically oriented studies of local identity negotiation, critical approaches to Discourse Analysis and Contrastive Sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Investigación en Educación is the property of Universidad de Vigo, Facultad de Ciencias de la Educacion y del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Language is a means of verbal communication. People use language to communicate with each other. In the society, no two speakers are exactly alike in the way of speaking. As a form of social behavior, language like other social behaviors, entertains gender difference as well. This paper tries to describe the major features of female language from these perspectives: phonology, vocabulary, grammar, conversational topics and styles. The factors that shape the features of female language are not only because of the influence of physiology and psychology, but also because of the influence of the society and the culture. From the discussion of the features of female language, more attention should be paid to language use in social context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explores a case of intergroup contestation by analyzing intersex terminology in favor of disorder of sex development (DSD) language. Data from an in-depth interviews with individuals connected to the intersex community including medical professional, intersex activists, and parents were collected. Findings reveal that shift from intersex terminology allows medical professional to reassert and reclaim their jurisdiction and authority over intersexuality.

This paper fills in the gap in the literature by providing an acoustic analysis of rhotics in Persian and considers the social variables gender and register. Through the acoustic analysis of 807 tokens, it demonstrates that that there are a number of rhotic variants in Persian in different positions in the word and finds evidence of degemination in coda position, against previous accounts. Furthermore, it suggests that on the one hand, Tehrani-Persian speaking men and women's rhotic production patterns with those of Arabic societies as men favor rhotics with more complex articulations. On the other hand it questions whether the behavior of Tehrani-Persian speaking men and women conforms to established sociolinguistic norms regarding prestige and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how language assists in the construction of fictive kinship networks amongst Southwestern U.S. street-level sex workers, thereby establishing affective ties and obligations as well as a definitive power structure between various members of their community and social hierarchy. Research findings suggest that these kin structures impact sex workers' sense of agency in relation to others while simultaneously providing an additional means of insulation, alienation, and even exclusion from the dominant culture. This study indicates that language use within this community operates as a discursive framework that plays a critical role in relationship formation and maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lepcha being a language of the Tibeto Burman language family exhibit structural traits of the of the kinship terminological system realised in the Indian subcontinent. Kinship terminology has been analysed by different scholars from different points of view like, generation, sex, affinity, collaterality, relative age, polarity, affinity, etc. The present paper examines the Lepcha kinship terminology keeping the existing structural criteria in view along with culture and language specific aspects into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]