| While research in education, social interaction, and linguistics suggests that gender plays an important role in communicative settings, relatively few studies in second language acquisition (SLA) have investigated how gender influences task-based interactions between second language learners. The small number of studies exploring the role of gender in second language interaction (Gass & Varonis, 1985a, 1986; Kasanga, 1996; Oliver, 2002; Pica, Holliday, Lewis, Berducci, & Newman, 1991; Pica, Holliday, Lewis, & Morgenthaler, 1989) have found potentially important differences between males' and females' interactions. The current study builds on this research by investigating whether the gender of learners in dyadic interactions influences the incidence of interactional features.; Sixty-four native-Spanish-speakers enrolled in intermediate ESL classes at an adult public charter school completed three interactional tasks with both male and female interlocutors. Their language production was analyzed for the use of interactional features empirically demonstrated to facilitate SLA, including negotiation for meaning (de la Fuente, 2002; Ellis & He, 1999; Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki, 1994; Gass & Varonis, 1994; Mackey, 1999; Polio & Gass, 1998), language-related episodes (LREs) (Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewen, 2001a, 2001b; Loewen, 2004; Swain & Lapkin, 1998, 2002), and recasts (Iwashita, 2003; Leeman, 2003; Long, Inagaki, & Ortega, 1998; Mackey, 1999; Mackey & Philp, 1998, Philp, 2003).; The study investigated whether (1) interactions differ according to dyad type (male-male, female-female, male-female), (2) males and females interact differently in mixed-gender dyads, and (3) learners interact differently according to their interlocutor's gender. The results indicate that (1) there were more recasts in matched-gender than mixed-gender dyads and male-male dyads engaged in fewer LREs than other dyad types; (2) LREs initiated by males were resolved more often than LREs initiated by females and males used more comprehension checks than their female interlocutors; and (3) females used more confirmation checks and fewer comprehension checks when working with males than with females, and participants provided interlocutors of the same gender with more recasts than interlocutors of a different gender. The gender of both learners and their interlocutors can significantly influence the use of interactional features and should be considered in second language research and teaching. |
