Authors

Discussion

Though the acquisition of Russian gender and of Russian case have been actively explored in both Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and language pedagogy (e.g., Cherepovskaia et al., 2021; Denhovska & Serratrice, 2017; Kempe & Brooks, 2008), no studies have examined how gender influences the acquisition of case morphology and how that affects the learning of case in a language classroom.  

This paper will present the results of a teaching experiment, where the acquisition of two Russian cases (Prepositional and Accusative) was investigated within two gender subsets. Three groups of beginners were tested and the case production success rates were calculated separately for masculine and feminine. as well as for each of the two cases within each of the subsets. In addition, six different case contexts were analysed on the subject of gender differences.

The results demonstrated that there are significant differences in the acquisition of case between genders, even if the endings are identical (e.g., “e” in Prepositional). Moreover, the relationship between gender and case in the process of case acquisition is more complex than was anticipated, and there are several different factors that affect its success. The findings of the current study open up a new direction for research in case acquisition and have major implications for teaching the Russian cases.