Grammatical Gender Lab Assistant Position Available

Lab Description: When learning Spanish as a second language, native English speakers (NES) face grammatical gender, i.e. the classification of a word as male or female.  Grammatical gender influences the connotative meaning of the word. In Spanish, besides morphological rules for assigning gender (i.e. female words ending in “a” and males words ending in “o”), gender assignment relies on other less clear-cut rules.  Some English words have a perceived gender. NES learners of Spanish rely on morphological rules, or on the natural gender of the word-referent (e.g. cow vs. bull) to assign word gender.  Beyond these clues, NES may use the perceived gender of the corresponding English word.  This study attempts to elucidate if the perceived gender of an English word affects the speed and accuracy of the gender assignment to its Spanish translation. 

Benefits: Lab Experience, learn useful programs like Eprime and SPSS, build facility relationships, continue into more research projects, possible publication

Time Commitment: Rough Idea= 3 hours per week, weekly meeting with Dr. Lazarte

If Interested: Contact Dr. Lazarte and express your interest! Sent up a time to meet and discuss any questions and how to get started! Dr. Lazarte’s email: lazaraa@auburn.edu; please make the subject line “Grammatical Gender Lab Assistant Inquiry”