Eugen Zaretsky

Words Won’t Fail Experimental Evidence on the Role of Verbal Proficiency in Mate Choice

Applying sexual selection theory to language, it can be assumed that high verbal proficiency increases attractiveness, but male more than female attractiveness, because women have higher costs regarding reproduction and are thus more selective in mate choice. These predictions were tested experimentally. In the first study, videos were used as the stimuli for opposite-sex participants where an actor/actress performed verbal self-presentations. The content was alike but was delivered with three levels of verbal proficiency with respect to lexical, grammatical, and fluency features. The main effect of verbal proficiency on attractiveness was supported, but the interaction effect was not supported between verbal proficiency and sex according to which male more than female attractiveness is affected by verbal proficiency. In the second study, only audio tracks from the videos were used. Both effects were significant, supporting the assertion that language plays a significant role in mate choice, especially for male attractiveness.

Pluralerwerb im Deutschen bei ­russisch- und türkischsprachigen Kindern im Vergleich mit anderen Migranten und monolingualen Muttersprachlern

Abstract The article focuses on the differences and common characteristics of the plural acquisition in German by children with Russian and Turkish mother tongues, compared with other immigrant children and Germans. Although not absolutely identical, the overgeneralization patterns of all groups appear to be very similar and obviously dependent only on the proficiency in German, without clear influences of the foreign linguistic background, the only exception being e-overgeneralizations in Russian children. Whereas immigrant children tend to account mostly for the frequency of the plural allomorphs in the input when choosing a plural marker, German children have already internalized the gender based distribution of some plural allomorphs.

Sex differences in language competence of 3- to 6-year-old children

For decades, developmental research has involved the study of sex differences in language acquisition. Many studies of these differences have found a slight advantage in competence for females early in life that seems to wane with age. However, because most of these studies have focused on sex differences in mean values, they have mostly neglected sex differences in variance with males being more variable. In the current study, we examined sex differences in language competence in terms of mean values and variance in large samples ( N > 10,000) of German children aged 3–6 years. We administered several tests to assess the childrens vocabulary, grammar, speech comprehension, pronunciation, and the processing of sentences and nonce words. Girls performed better than boys in all domains, most often to a statistically significant degree, although the effect sizes were small. Differences decreased with age. Boys varied significantly more than girls in their language competence. In response, we discuss explanations for these findings, as well as recommend directions for future research.

Pseudo Names Are More Than Hollow Words Sex Differences in the Choice of Pseudonyms

Many studies demonstrate sex differences in communication. We investigated whether also pseudonyms used in anonymity revealed the sex of the pseudonym user and whether male and female pseudonyms were perceived differently regarding sex-typical attributes (partially taken from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory), the Big Five, and creativity. Pseudonyms chosen by 19 men and 19 women were randomly selected from a list of 2,096 pseudonyms used in written university tests and then rated by a total number of 346 participants (41% men) on the above-mentioned attributes. Results showed that the pseudonym users’ sex was guessed correctly above chance. Male more than female pseudonyms were perceived as showy, aggressive, self-reliant, extrovert, and creative. Female pseudonyms were rated higher on the attributes cute, peaceful, romantic, and agreeable. We further found sex differences with respect to linguistic patterns (e.g., pseudonym length) that were, however, able to explain neither guessed sex, nor the higher creativity ratings for male pseudonyms. We conclude that even single words are used by individuals to infer significant information (e.g., sex) about their users.

Sociolinguistic factors associated with the subjectively and objectively measured language development in German preschoolers in three follow-up studies

Abstract The study aimed at an analysis of sociolinguistic variables associated with the language acquisition progress between the first and the second test sessions in three follow-up studies with German preschool children. In all three samples, children acquiring German, both Germans and immigrants, were tested twice with validated language tests within a time span of several months. Furthermore, language skills of children were judged by daycare center teachers. The language competence of normally developed test subjects did not change much between two test sessions, whereas children acquiring German under more challenging circumstances were still in the process of active development, mostly due to the daycare center attendance, language courses, and medical therapies. Therefore, contra-intuitively at first sight, the following factors were associated with the quick progress in language development (floor effect): bad school marks for the language competence at the beginning of the daycare attendance, low age at the first test session, not regular attendance of the daycare centers, late contact to the German language, foreign language(s) spoken at home, medical issues, and some other unfavorable language acquisition conditions.