Abstract

A study investigated whether, when second language learners engage in second-language interaction, opportunities to comprehend and produce the second language are conditioned by their gender and/or the correspondence between their gender and that of the interlocutor. The interactions of a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) in same- and cross-gender dyads were analyzed in four information exchange tasks. Subjects were 12 male and 20 female native speakers of American English and 17 male and 15 female native speakers of Japanese learning English as a Second Language, all at the low-intermediate level. Results did not show a clear-cut role for NNS gender as a discriminating factor in frequency of negotiated interaction and its associated opportunities for comprehension of input, feedback on production, and modification of output. What emerged from testing of hypotheses was a complex interaction of both gender and task type in providing and inhibiting these opportunities. The framework for coding data on negotiated interactions and a diagram of one of the tasks are appended, and a 52-item bibliography is included. (MSE) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *****************************t*****************************************