Semantic versus formal theories of gender acquisition: A criticism of Mulford's study.
ISSN: 0003-9640
Ano de publicación: 1991
Volume: 59
Páxinas: 3-16
Tipo: Artigo
Outras publicacións en: Archives de Psychologie
Resumo
R. Mulford's (see record 1986-00850-001) study on the acquisition of gender by Icelandic children is considered strong support for natural or semantic gender theory. However, critical analysis demonstrates that this experiment actually provides weak support for this theory. Icelandic children pay more attention to suffixes of words than to semantic features (animacy and frequency) of the referents, giving support to the opposite formal theory of gender acquisition. Data from research with 160 Spanish children (aged 4–21 yrs) also support this view. (French & German abstracts) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)