title: Exploring the Cause of English Pronoun Gender Errors by Chinese Learners of English: Evidence from the Self-paced Reading Paradigm.
abstract: To locate the underlying cause of biological gender errors of oral English pronouns by proficient Chinese-English learners, two self-paced reading experiments were conducted to explore whether the reading time for each 'he' or 'she' that matched its antecedent was shorter than that in the corresponding mismatch situation, as with native speakers of English. The critical manipulation was to see whether highlighting the gender information of an antecedent with a human picture would make a difference. The results indicate that such manipulation did make a difference. Since oral Chinese does not distinguish 'he' and 'she', the findings suggest that Chinese speakers probably do not usually process biological gender for linguistic purposes and the mixed use of 'he' and 'she' is probably a result of deficient processing of gender information in the conceptualizer. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.
authors.affiliation: National Center of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Baiyun Dadao North 2#, Guangzhou, 510420, China. ypdong@gdufs.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: National Center of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Baiyun Dadao North 2#, Guangzhou, 510420, China.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: National Center of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Baiyun Dadao North 2#, Guangzhou, 510420, China.
authors.forename: Xiaomeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: National Center of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Baiyun Dadao North 2#, Guangzhou, 510420, China.
authors.forename: Yifei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ji
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bilingualism; Biological gender; Chinese learners of English; Gender errors; L1 thinking for L2 speaking