The influence of gender categories on object conceptualization: A study on Turkish speakers, French speakers and Turkish-French bilinguals

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2756102_(Tabel of contents)

In four studies, this thesis investigated how grammatical gender (GG) aects the explicit and implicit object conceptualization in Turkish speakers, French speakers, and Turkish-French bilinguals. Participants completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Explicit Gender Attribution Task (EGAT) and the Gender Role Attitudes Scale. Turkish speakers were only aected by conceptual gender (CG). French speakers were aected by both GG and CG in the IAT, and CG only in the EGAT. Turkish-French bilinguals were aected only by CG in the IAT and both GG and CG in the EGAT. When French speakers completed the IAT under verbal interference, only the eect of GG was disrupted. Further, Turkish speakers with relatively strong “sexist” attitudes were aected by CG in the IAT. Relatively more sexist French speakers were aected by both CG and GG in the IAT, nevertheless, in the EGAT, CG aected more sexist participants, and GG aected more egalitarian participants. In the EGAT, CG aected more sexist bilinguals and GG aected more egalitarian bilinguals. These findings suggest that, even when the use of language is irrelevant, linguistic labels can be automatically activated and intervene with conceptualization. Also learning a GG language aects only the explicit object conceptualization in bilinguals. This research is also the first to show that gender role attitudes may modulate the influence of GG on object conceptualization.