#### Is grammatical gender really arbitrary? Is the gendering of nouns truly arbitrary, as is usually assumed? And, do the grammatical genders assigned to nouns influence the nouns perceived meaning? A third, unstated question might also be: Does grammatical gender reveal a form of linguistic relativity? >Two studies examined whether (1) the assignment of genders to nouns is truly arbitrary (as has been claimed), and (2) whether the grammatical genders assigned to nouns have semantic consequences. #### Main thesis: Grammatical gender is not entirely arbitrary. The gendering of nouns is not entirely arbitrary, reflecting underlying perceived associations with the nouns. And, assigned grammatical gender influences the noun’s perceived meaning. An overarching and implied main thesis might be: Grammatical genders reveal a form of linguistic relativity. >These results suggest that grammatical gender may not be as arbitrary or as purely grammatical as was previously thought. #### Correlation between grammatical gender and perceived gender, Better memory of object-name pairs that match gender The supposed arbitrariness of assignment of grammatical gender to nouns is challenged by the results of one study: English speakers’ intuitions about the gender of animals correlated with the grammatical genders assigned to the Spanish and German nouns. >\[The first study's] findings suggest that the assignment of genders to nouns is not entirely arbitrary but may to some extent reflect the perceived masculine or feminine properties of the nouns' referents. A second study found that Spanish and German speakers’ better remembered object-name pairs (e.g. apple-Patricia) when the gender of the names, in their native language, matched. This was true despite the task being performed in English, a language without a grammatical gender system. >Results of the second study suggested that (1) people do include gender in their conceptual representations of inanimate objects, and (2) people's ideas about the genders of objects are strongly influenced by the grammatical genders assigned to these objects in their native language. Both of these findings can be taken as evidence that grammatical gender shapes thinking, revealing a form of linguistic relativity. #### The key data ###### Experiment one (The gendering of nouns): English speakers' sense of gender for animals correlates with Spanish and German grammatical genders (r=.29, p<.05, and r=.43, p<.01). However, no significant correlation held for non-animals (r=.04, p=.73, and r=.11, p=.32 respectively). >Spanish and German grammatical genders corresponded well with English speakers’ intuitions about the genders of animals (r=.29, p<.05, and r=.43, p<.01 respectively), but not the genders of artifacts (r=.04, p=.73, and r=.11, p=.32 respectively). ###### Experiment two (Memorization of object-name pairs): English speakers remembered object-name pairs 10% better when the perceived gender of both the object and name were the same. >As predicted, English speakers remembered object-name pairs better when the gender of the proper name was consistent with the object's rated gender (86% correct) than when the two genders were inconsistent (78% correct), t=2.17, p<.05. >Further, Spanish and German speakers showed language-specific biases in memory. Both groups remembered object-name pairs better when the gender of the proper name given to an object was consistent with the grammatical gender of the object name in their native language (82% correct) than when the two genders were inconsistent (74% correct), t=2.55, p<.01. #### Being a subject ###### Experiment one (The gendering of nouns): If you were a participant in the study, it might feel like a relatively mundane, if not quirky task. After all, as a speaker of a language without grammatical gender (English), you might find it strange to assign gender to things like vehicles, articles of clothing, or household items. However, rather than picking completely at random, you might search for certain aspects, such as shape, that could be gendered. Or, you might associate the object with a particular person and therefore their gender. When you have to classify animals, you would likely find it easier to assign a gender as animals are much easier to anthropomorphize. If you're more socially sensitive to gender, you might also feel social pressure or responsibility in how you assign genders. ###### Experiment two (Memorization of object-name pairs): If you were a participant in experiment two, it might similarly feel like a relatively mundane, if not quirky task. As you read the instructions, you might think the experiment is primarily related to memory retention. Next, as you do the five minute distraction task, you struggle with trying to remember the name-object pairs. Finally, as you answer the test, you might feel it's simple and straightforward but struggle to remember some of them. #### Alternative explanations Write out an alternative explanation for the authors’ data. If this alternative explanation were true, how would this affect the plausibility of the paper’s main claim? Did the authors do anything to rule out this alternative explanation? If so, what did they do? Is the explanation as likely as the authors’ explanation? ###### Experiment one (The gendering of nouns): The fact that there was no significant correlation between intuitive gender and grammatical gender for non-animals, while there was a substantial correlation for animals, which are much easier to anthropomorphize, indicates that assigned grammatical gender has more to do with the social and psychological conditions of the speaker. That is, language does not shape thought, as this paper proposes. Rather, it is thought, independent of some linguistic determinism, that shapes language. For example, dogs were more often masculine and cats were more often feminine. This is a well known pattern of assignment, at least among English speakers in the United States, based on stereotypes of both men and women and dogs and cats. Zooming out historically, we can see that these stereotypes are largely determined by the dominance of patriarchal thinking and social expectation for the behaviors of men and women. This alternative explanation was not referenced in the paper. This explanation is just as likely ###### Experiment two (Memorization of object-name pairs): The fact that speakers better remembered object-name pairs better when the genders between the two were consistent seems to indicate the nature of how memory works more than revealing some aspect of linguistic relativity. Specifically, memory works as a network of interconnected ideas. The more connections between ideas, the easier it is to recall the idea. This is why the "memory palace" and mnemonics are useful memorization tools. Because you anchor the ideas to pre-existing memories or to a simplified format. I believe a similar effect is occurring here and that would explain why subjects are better able to memorize object-name pairs where the perceived genders are consistent.