Grammatical gender has been shown to provide natural gender information about human referents. However, due to formal and conceptual differences between masculine and feminine forms, it remains an open question whether these gender categories influence the processing of person information to the same degree. Experiment 1 compared the semantic content of masculine and feminine grammatical gender by combining masculine and feminine role names with either gender congruent or incongruent referents (e.g., Dieser Lehrer [masc.]/Diese Lehrerin [fem.] ist mein Mann/meine Frau; This teacher is my husband/my wife). Participants rated sentences in terms of correctness and customariness. In Experiment 2, in addition to ratings reading times were recorded to assess processing more directly. Both experiments were run in German. Sentences with grammatically feminine role names and gender incongruent referents were rated as less correct and less customary than those with masculine forms and incongruent referents. Combining a masculine role name with an incongruent referent slowed down reading to a greater extent than combining a feminine role name with an incongruent referent. Results thus specify the differential effects of masculine and feminine grammatical gender in denoting human referents.

At present, language training is part and parcel of engineering education in Russia. A modern engineer must have both a communicative competence in the professional sphere and an intercultural view of the world. Accordingly, the topic of the assessment of foreign language textbooks for technical universities is highly relevant. This chapter is dedicated to this issue. The analysis of foreign language textbooks for technical universities is conducted through a cognitive-linguistic approach, using its toolkit, namely the diagnostic matrix. The diagnostic matrix is based on criteria that allow analyzing training materials, carrying out their diagnostics from the point of view of the specifics and regularities of the formation of students' language picture of the world. This pedagogical research innovation will allow pedagogical science to effectively solve issues related to the elaboration of pedagogical semiology as a new area of pedagogical knowledge.