Abstract
This article examines variation in gender assignment to English loanwords –
a phenomenon that has rarely been studied on a large empirical basis to date.
We report on a multi-method study of gender assignment to Anglicisms as
evidenced by large newspaper corpora and experimental data elicited from
German native speakers, allowing empirically well-grounded insights into
methodological and sociolinguistic factors that determine gender variation. In
contrast to earlier studies which assume variation in gender assignment to be
especially prevalent in the early stages of integration, thus claiming that there is
comparatively little variation in general, our findings show a substantial amount
of variation among the test items. In general, we find that variation is higher in
the informant data when compared to the corpus data.
a phenomenon that has rarely been studied on a large empirical basis to date.
We report on a multi-method study of gender assignment to Anglicisms as
evidenced by large newspaper corpora and experimental data elicited from
German native speakers, allowing empirically well-grounded insights into
methodological and sociolinguistic factors that determine gender variation. In
contrast to earlier studies which assume variation in gender assignment to be
especially prevalent in the early stages of integration, thus claiming that there is
comparatively little variation in general, our findings show a substantial amount
of variation among the test items. In general, we find that variation is higher in
the informant data when compared to the corpus data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Anglicization of European Lexis |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-9027211958 |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |