ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 111, Issue 1, 1996

In English,inanimate referents that are not clearly defined in terms of sex-related attributes do not seem readily classifiable into feminine or masculine categories.

The present study of gender use by American speakers tested the gender connotations of English inanimate referents commonly considered or perceived as "neuter".

The results suggest that, when a noun is strongly connoted the natural gender rule applies, showing more salience for women than for men. However, contrary to the findings of current research, when the inanimate noun is conceived as neuter it is not necessarily labeled as masculine. Women are more likely than men to classify inanimate referents into feminine and masculine categories, and a confidence level test revealed that answers were more often random for male respondents while females tended to favor the feminine category. In light of this feminization tendency, this study suggests that in addition to its major function as a reference-tracking device, gender could be used as a "status marker".

This paper briefly discusses the importance of error analysis, types of errors, and the major causes of errors in second or foreign language learning. The major portion of this paper is devoted to the linguistic problems faced by Arab learners of English as a foreign language. The paper then briefly deals with the linguistic interference from Arabic in the learning of English in the areas of spelling and pronunciation, vocabulary, and some selected syntactic features. The paper concludes by offering some pedagogical implications about error analysis.

The literature on Dutch phonetics reveals a controversy about certain vowels and consonants. Dictionaries typically do not give phonetics, or if they do, it is not standard IPA, but Dutch-IPA, a personal, or local symbolism. In addition, transcriptions differ. The effect is that the researcher must use questionable symbols and descriptions, and that the language teacher and learner are not provided with a reliable or accessible resource for pronunciation. These difficulties are met here by the attempt to give more careful descriptions of articulations, and consonants. Terms for articulation are standardized, and an extended IPA vowel chart is given to provide a better descriptive analysis than is presently available. A system is presented for the consistent and precise location of vowels.

This extended IPA system is used as the basis of phonetic description, analysis and comparison. Emphasis is on the specific case or paradigm method of the philosophy of science so that numerous examples must of necessity be given. This contrasts with the usual article on phonology which provides the fewest number of examples required to support a general or universal hypothesis. This is one of the important differences between phonetics and phonology. These examples provide data for phonology, further research, comparative and contrastive phonetics, as well as to aid the language teacher or learner.

In addition, a phonetic comparison is given between Dutch and the Germanic languages.

In the course of a preliminary analysis of data used in an investigation into the effect on the rate of interaction in the target language of the "level of proficiency" and the "type of task", some unexpected results for participation pattern led the analyst to pursue additional lines of enquiry. A decision was taken to consider gender in a subsequent analysis. Gender had been suggested by previous studies as being capable of affecting the learners' L2 access and performance. Some of the data of the wider investigation were re-analyzed with gender as an independent variable in lieu of, then together with, the level of proficiency. This paper reports on the results of the wider investigation and describes the findings of the analysis of data with gender as an independent variable. To set the scene for the discussion of the results relevant to gender, the paper discusses a sampling of studies on gender and communication. The results of the analysis concurred with those of at least four separate studies in which it had been suggested that gender tended to affect the learners1 target language access and performance in ways that may influence their language learning.