Grammatical Gender Retrieval

The Influence of L2 Dutch on L1 German

Bibliographic Data

ID19487477
AuthorsAndreas Wölfle (0009-0009-2818-7835, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, corresponding author), Eva Knopp (0000-0001-5534-7325, Radboud University Nijmegen), Helen De Hoop (0000-0001-8652-1146, Radboud University Nijmegen)
Year2026
Volume11
Issue5
Pages83
Publication date2026-04-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages11050083
OpenAlexW7155405860
LanguageEN
References cited79

Research has shown that bilinguals’ first (L1) and second language (L2) interact constantly. One well-documented case is the gender congruency effect, where grammatical gender retrieval is facilitated when a noun has the same gender in both languages. While this effect has been extensively studied in the direction of the L1 influencing the L2, less is known about how gender retrieval in the L1 is influenced by gender in the L2. The present study investigated whether exposure to L2 Dutch affects grammatical gender retrieval in L1 German among speakers who are constantly exposed to the L2. We tested 40 L1 German–L2 Dutch bilinguals living in the Netherlands and 28 L1 German monolinguals using a gender decision task in German. Stimuli included nouns with congruent and incongruent gender in the two languages, as well as cognates and non-cognates. Results revealed no evidence that L2 Dutch affected L1 German gender retrieval in bilinguals, indicating that grammatical gender in the L1 appears robust to L2 influence during online processing, even after prolonged immersion in the L2 environment

Affect (linguistics) · German · Grammatical Gender · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Noun · Task (project management) · Categorization, perception, and language · Gender Studies in Language · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access