Pascal Gygax

Generically intended, but specifically interpreted: When beauticians, musicians, and mechanics are all men

The influence of stereotype and grammatical information (masculine intended as generic) on the representation of gender in language was investigated using a sentence evaluation paradigm. The first sentence introduced a role name (e.g., The spies came out …) and the second sentence contained explicit information about the gender of one or more of the characters (e.g., …one of the women …). The experiment was conducted in French, German, and English. In contrast to English, stereotypicality of role names had no influence on readers’ male biased representations in French and German, where interpretations were dominated by the masculinity of the masculine (allegedly) intended as generic.

The representation of characters' emotional responses: Do readers infer specific emotions?

This paper argues that emotional inferences about characters in a text are not as specific as previously assumed (DeVega, Diaz, & Leon, 1997; DeVega, Leon, & Diaz 1996; Gernsbacher, Goldsmith, & Robertson, 1992; Gernsbacher, Hollada, & Robertson, 1998; Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1992). The emotional information inferred by readers does not differentiate between emotions that are similar, though not identical. In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants read the stories used by Gernsbacher et al. (1992). Results from Experiment 1 (off-line) show that participants judged several emotions consistent with the same story. In Experiment 2 (on-line), participants took longer to read target sentences containing emotions mismatching the stories, but there was no difference between target sentences containing different matching emotions as determined by Experiment 1. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that the emotional information readers infer from the stories is too broad to determine a specific emotion. The results are consistent with the idea that a general emotional response is evoked, which is compatible with one or more specific emotions.

Au pairs are rarely male: Norms on the gender perception of role names across English, French, and German

A list of role names for future use in research on gender stereotyping was created and evaluated. In two studies, 126 role names were rated with reference to their gender stereotypicality by English-, French-, and German-speaking students of universities in Switzerland (French and German) and in the U.K. (English). Role names were either presented in specific feminine and masculine forms (Study 1) or in the masculine form (generic masculine) only (Study 2). The rankings of the stereotypicality ratings were highly reliable across languages and questionnaire versions, but the overall mean of the ratings was less strongly male if participants were also presented with the female versions of the role names and if the latter were presented on the left side of the questionnaires.

Inferring characters’ emotional states: Can readers infer specific emotions?

Gygax, Oakhill and Garnham (2003) showed that, contrary to the assumption of earlier research, readers do not infer specific emotions such as guilt or boredom. This paper presents evidence for the non-specificity of emotional inferences regardless of the nature of the stories. In Experiment 1 and 2, Gygax et al.’s stories were made longer. In Experiment 1 (off-line), people rated specific emotions as more likely, but in Experiment 2 (on-line), there was no difference between target sentences containing different matching emotions, although participants took longer to read sentences containing emotions mismatching the stories. In Experiment 3 and 4, the stories included a coherence break resolvable by inferring the main character’s emotional state. In Experiment 3 (off-line), people rated specific emotions as more likely, but in Experiment 4 (on-line), there was, again, no difference between target sentences containing different matching emotions.

Can a Group of Musicians be Composed of Women? Generic Interpretation of French Masculine Role Names in the Absence and Presence of Feminine Forms

The malleability of the generic interpretation of masculine role names in French was investigated by manipulating readers’ exposure to feminine forms. In two experiments, participants were to decide whether a person introduced by a kinship term (e.g., sister) could be part of a group represented by a role name (e.g., nurse, musicians). In Experiment 1, role names were presented in the masculine form in the first part and in either the masculine or the feminine form in the second part. Independent of role name stereotypicality, participants were less likely to relate female kinship terms to role names in the masculine form and even less likely when they were also exposed to feminine forms. These results were replicated in a second experiment, in which the communication source was varied: Before performing the experimental task, participants read job advertisements that either used only the masculine or both the masculine and the feminine form. When feminine forms were added, the generic interpretation of t...

Gender Representation in Different Languages and Grammatical Marking on Pronouns: When Beauticians, Musicians, and Mechanics Remain Men

Gygax, Gabriel, Sarrasin, Oakhill, and Garnham (2008) showed that readers form a mental representation of gender that is based on grammatical gender in French and German (i.e., masculine supposedly interpretable as a generic form) but is based on stereotypical information in English. In this study, a modification of their stimulus material was used to examine the additional potential influence of pronouns. Across the three languages, pronouns differ in their grammatical gender marking: The English they is gender neutral, the French ils is masculine, and the German sie, although interpretable as generic, is morphologically feminine. Including a later pronominal reference to a group of people introduced by a plural role name significantly altered the masculine role names grammatical influence only in German, suggesting that grammatical cues that match (as in French) do not have a cumulative impact on the gender representation, whereas grammatical cues that mismatch (as in German) do counteract one another. These effects indicate that subtle morphological relations between forms actually used in a sentence and other forms have an immediate impact on language processing, although information about the other forms is not necessary for comprehension and may, in some cases, be detrimental to it.

Norms on the gender perception of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak

We collected norms on the gender stereotypicality of an extensive list of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak, to be used as a basis for the selection of stimulus materials in future studies. We present a Web-based tool (available at https://www.unifr.ch/lcg/) that we developed to collect these norms and that we expect to be useful for other researchers, as well. In essence, we provide (a) gender stereotypicality norms across a number of languages and (b) a tool to facilitate cross-language as well as cross-cultural comparisons when researchers are interested in the investigation of the impact of stereotypicality on the processing of role nouns.

Gender Inferences: Grammatical features and their impact on the representation of gender in bilinguals.

We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated with the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male-dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype-based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which representations shifted was modulated by participants’ proficiency in their L2, with highly proficient L2 participants resembling native speakers of the L2 and less proficient L2 participants being influenced more by their native language.

Some grammatical rules are more difficult than others: The case of the generic interpretation of the masculine

In this paper we argue that the generic use of the masculine represents a grammatical rule that might be easy to learn but difficult to apply when understanding texts. This argument is substantiated by reviewing the relevant literature as well as the recent work conducted by the GREL Group (Gender Representation in Language) on the interaction between stereotypical and grammatical information in the construction of a representation of gender when reading role names. The studies presented in this paper show that the masculine form used as a generic to refer to persons of both sexes, or to persons of indefinite sex or whose sex is irrelevant, in gender marked languages is likely to be associated with its specific meaning (i.e., masculine refers only to men). This is true even though the generic nature of the masculine is a very common grammatical rule learnt at school. People may have learned this rule and may understand it, but may not readily apply it.RésuméDans cet article, nous présentons l’idée que l’utilisation générique du masculin représente une règle grammaticale facile à apprendre mais difficile à appliquer lors de la compréhension de textes. Cette idée est soutenue, entre autres, par les travaux effectués par le groupe GREL (Gender Representation in Language) sur l’interaction entre les informations stéréotypées et grammaticales lors de l’élaboration d’une représentation mentale du genre lors de la lecture de noms de rôle. Les études présentées dans cet article montrent que la forme masculine utilisée comme une forme générique pour se référer à des personnes des deux sexes, ou des personnes dont le sexe n’est pas connu ou non pertinent, est vraisemblablement associée à son sens /spécifique/ dans les langues à marques grammaticales de genre (càd., la forme masculine se réfère /aux/ /hommes/). Ceci est vrai alors que la nature /générique/ du masculin est une règle grammaticale usuelle apprise à l’école. La règle peut être apprise et comprise, mais est vraisemblablement difficile à appliquer.

The Role of Perspective Shifts for Processing and Translating Discourse Relations

Previous research has suggested that some discourse relations are easier to convey implicitly than others due to cognitive biases in the interpretation of discourse. In this article we argue that relations involving a perspective shift, such as confirmation relations, are difficult to convey implicitly. We assess this claim with two empirical studies involving the ambiguous French connective en effet, which can either convey a causal relation or a confirmation relation. First, we compare the processing of implicit and explicit causal and confirmation relations conveyed by this connective in a self-paced reading experiment and show that removing the connective in confirmation relations disturbs processing. Second, we compare the percentage of implicit translations of en effet for both discourse relations across three target languages using parallel directional corpora and find that causal relations always lead to more implicit translations than confirmation relations.