Acquiring an opaque gender system in Irish, an endangered indigenous language

An in-depth examination of the acquisition of grammatical gender has not previously been conducted for Irish, an endangered indigenous language now typically acquired simultaneously with English, or as L2. Children acquiring Irish must contend with the opacity of the Irish gender system and the plur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:First language 2017-10, Vol.37 (5), p.475-499
Main Authors: Nic Fhlannchadha, Siobhán, Hickey, Tina M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adolescents
Age Differences
Bilingualism
Children
Endangered languages
English
English language
Foreign Countries
Form Classes (Languages)
Gender Differences
Grammar
Grammatical gender
Inflection (Morphology)
Irish
Irish language
Language Acquisition
Language Dominance
Language Minorities
Language Tests
Linguistic Input
Morphology (Languages)
Multiple Regression Analysis
Native language acquisition
Opacity
Parent Attitudes
Predictor Variables
Questionnaires
Second Language Learning
Semantics
Syntax
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Summary:An in-depth examination of the acquisition of grammatical gender has not previously been conducted for Irish, an endangered indigenous language now typically acquired simultaneously with English, or as L2. Children acquiring Irish must contend with the opacity of the Irish gender system and the plurifunctionality of the inflections used to mark it, while also experiencing early exposure to the majority language and variability in amount and consistency of adult input in Irish. Data were collected from 306 participants aged 6–13 years, including information on home language background which allowed children to be categorised as being from homes which were Irish-dominant, bilingual, or English-dominant. Novel measures of receptive and productive use of grammatical gender were developed to test children’s understanding and production of gender marking. A standard multiple regression conducted which accounted for 39.5% of the variance showed that language background was the strongest predictor of accuracy in marking grammatical gender assignment and agreement. The later stages of acquisition of semantic and grammatical gender have not previously been investigated in Irish, and the implications for researchers, policy makers, educators and parents are discussed.
ISSN:0142-7237
1740-2344
DOI:10.1177/0142723717702942