Two gender systems in a bilingual mind: A study of gender assignment in code-switched Russian-Hebrew adjective-noun phrases

Abstract

Russian and Hebrew bilingualism offers a unique opportunity to study gender assignment in code-switched adjective-noun phrases, as both languages mark grammatical gender. The present study investigated code-switched Russian-Hebrew adjective-noun phrases in order to trace gender assignment strategies: default, translation equivalent, shape-based, and insertion. For this purpose, 60 Russian-Hebrew bilingual speakers were recruited and divided into two groups: heritage language (HL) speakers of Russian dominant in Hebrew and immigrant (IMM) speakers dominant in Russian. Participants filled out a background questionnaire and completed an experimental task in which they were asked to listen to and rate the acceptability of sentences with embedded Hebrew code-switched nouns within Russian matrix sentences. The results demonstrated that most participants in the study exhibited a clear preference for two gender assignment strategies: shape-based and insertion. However, rating for opaque Hebrew nouns differed between the HL and IMM groups, pointing to the role of language proficiency in the gender assignment strategy preference: the HL group favored the insertion strategy, while the IMM group showed a preference for the shape-based strategy. The current study adds to the existing literature on gender assignment strategies in code-switched adjective-noun phrases and the mechanisms driving the choices of the speakers.