The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals
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 categor...
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Cambridge University Press
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Language and Cognition |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000735/type/journal_article |
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| author | Oleksandra Osypenko Silke Brandt Panos Athanasopoulos |
| author_facet | Oleksandra Osypenko Silke Brandt Panos Athanasopoulos |
| author_sort | Oleksandra Osypenko |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | 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 judgement 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. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-2f60621f78e541eca918ceb641afe80c |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1866-9808 1866-9859 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
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| series | Language and Cognition |
| spelling | doaj-art-2f60621f78e541eca918ceb641afe80c2025-08-20T02:48:42ZengCambridge University PressLanguage and Cognition1866-98081866-98592025-01-011710.1017/langcog.2024.73The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilingualsOleksandra Osypenko0https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3428-9991Silke Brandt1Panos Athanasopoulos2Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UKDepartment of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UKCentre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South AfricaThis 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 judgement 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.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000735/type/journal_articlegrammatical genderlanguage proficiencylinguistic relativitysimultaneous bilingualism |
| spellingShingle | Oleksandra Osypenko Silke Brandt Panos Athanasopoulos The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals Language and Cognition grammatical gender language proficiency linguistic relativity simultaneous bilingualism |
| title | The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals |
| title_full | The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals |
| title_fullStr | The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals |
| title_full_unstemmed | The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals |
| title_short | The influence of three-gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition: The case of Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals |
| title_sort | influence of three gendered grammatical systems on simultaneous bilingual cognition the case of ukrainian russian bilinguals |
| topic | grammatical gender language proficiency linguistic relativity simultaneous bilingualism |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000735/type/journal_article |
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