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Prescriptivity, Genderlect and Students-centred Second Language Learning Environments |
Department of Modern Languages
James Cook University,
Townsville, Queensland, 4814, Australia.
- Is there such a thing as genderlect? Do gender based language differences play a significant role in L2 learning? Can we, in practice, differentiate genderlect from other "individual" differences? What are the most ethical and "effective" teacher strategies for dealing with gender differences? This paper cannot presume to answer such questions. What we will attempt to do is to open up some space for discussion, make some suggestions. This paper will also attempt to finalise some of the genderlect related questions that tend to defer the imperative for actual change in the language classroom on the basis that there are too many questions that first have to be answered. The aims of this paper, then, are:
- 1. To dispose of the question(s) of whether genderlects exist and/or whether they play a significant role in the L2 learning environment;
- 2. To thereby present a polemic whereby the imperative for change in the L2 learning environment can be no longer deferred as being subsequent to the sufficient "answering" of these questions;
- 3. To present a sufficient and non-restrictive model for conceptualising genderlects (and other "lects");
- 4. To suggest certain possible directions whereby strategies can be utilised in the L2 learning environment so as to radically accommodate genderlects in all their diversity and unpredictability;
- 5. To see how far an honest consideration of the gap between an idealised ethics and institutional prescriptivity can be activated so as to provoke the imagination to a genuine pragmatics which is moving towards a real student centredness, intersubjectivity and utopian ethics.
- 2. To thereby present a polemic whereby the imperative for change in the L2 learning environment can be no longer deferred as being subsequent to the sufficient "answering" of these questions;
- Now, while this paper makes significant use of an analytic method, and while the suggestions made herein tend to de-centre the teacher, we certainly do not wish to suggest that empirical researches into genderlect should cease or that the teacher is no longer important and can be (or should be) done away with. Similarly, we do not wish to create the impression that the problem that this paper raises with regards to the demands of a utopian ethics versus the demands of institutional prescriptivity can be solved in an ideal sense.
- In opening our discussion, we would like to begin with a fairly rigorous empirical study into genderlect in the communicative L2 classroom. Pica et al (1991) conducted an investigation of NS-NNS interaction in same and cross-gender dyads on four information tasks. The subjects included 17 male and 15 female Japanese L1 speakers learning English as L2, aged between 18-47; and 12 male and 20 female native speakers of American English, aged between 20-35. The variables which were under control in the Japanese L1 speaker group were: 1. Their linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds (they were all born and raised in Japan and were basically of middle to upper class backgrounds); and 2. Their TOEFL scores (455.4 for female NNSs and 455.1 for the male NNSs).
- However, and strangely, in the American-English native speaker group, mothers and persons experienced in dealing with NNSs were excluded from the study (perhaps in attempt to control the native speaker groups' ability to use 'caretaker' language when interacting with NNSs).
- 1. To dispose of the question(s) of whether genderlects exist and/or whether they play a significant role in the L2 learning environment;
© Thao Lê and Quynh.Lê
Last Updated 10 Feb, 1997