Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Aarhus University.
Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University Hospital.
Psychol Sci. 2023 Apr;34(4):411-423. doi: 10.1177/09567976221146537. Epub 2023 Feb 2.
Does sex/gender matter for language acquisition? Small advantages in vocabulary size for females are well documented. In this study, however, we found that children's early vocabulary composition was a significantly better predictor of sex/gender than their vocabulary size. We conducted classification analysis on word-production data from children (12-36 months old, = 39,553) acquiring 26 different languages. Children's sex/gender was classified at above-chance levels in 22 of 26 languages. Classification accuracy was significantly higher than for models based on vocabulary size and increased as a function of sample size. Boys produced more words for vehicles and outdoor scenes, whereas girls produced more words for clothing and body parts. Classification accuracy also increased as a function of age and peaked at 30 months, reaching accuracy levels observed in studies of adult word use. These differences in vocabulary are indicative of differences in the lifeworld of children and may themselves cause further differences in development.
性别对语言习得有影响吗？女性在词汇量方面的小优势已有充分记录。然而，在这项研究中，我们发现，儿童早期的词汇组成是性别预测的一个显著优于词汇量的指标。我们对来自学习 26 种不同语言的儿童（12-36 个月大，n=39553）的词汇生成数据进行了分类分析。在 26 种语言中的 22 种语言中，儿童的性别分类准确率高于随机水平。分类准确率显著高于基于词汇量的模型，且随着样本量的增加而提高。男孩更多地使用与车辆和户外场景相关的词汇，而女孩更多地使用与服装和身体部位相关的词汇。分类准确率也随着年龄的增长而提高，在 30 个月时达到峰值，达到了成人词汇使用研究中观察到的准确性水平。这些词汇差异表明了儿童生活世界的差异，并且可能本身会导致进一步的发展差异。
