Ego boundaries and attainments in FL pronunciation
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Date
2012-03
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Zakład Filologii Angielskiej Wydział Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Kaliszu
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Abstract
The paper reports on a study designed to examine the relationship between
the thickness of ego boundaries and attainments in FL pronunciation after a
clearly structured form-focused practical course of phonetics. The research
involved 45 first-year students of the Institute of English Studies in Wroclaw,
Poland, who had attended around thirty 90-minute classes in phonetics. To
measure the thickness of their ego boundaries, the Hartmann Boundary
Questionnaire (HBQ) was administered. This permitted an examination of
which particular types of ego boundaries are related to accuracy in foreign
language (FL) pronunciation. The basis for comparing the pronunciation levels
of the participants was the Pronunciation Attainment Test consisting of
three parts: reading a passage and two vocabulary lists. A t test demonstrated
that the differences between the pronunciation levels of the thick and
thin ego boundary learners were nonsignificant. However, further statistical
analysis (Pearson correlation) showed a positive weak correlation between 3
types of boundaries (represented by Categories 7, 8 and 12 of the HBQ) and
attainments in pronunciation. More specifically, the less organized the direct
environment (e.g., the working place) of the subjects was and the more
preference the participants showed for perceiving and accepting blurred
borders between constructs, the better their pronunciation was. A closer
look at particular students revealed the importance of boundaries between
thoughts and feelings, and boundaries related to defensive mechanisms and
to sensitivity in FL pronunciation learning.
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Keywords
thickness of ego boundaries, types of ego boundaries, clearly structured course of phonetics, pronunciation attainments
Citation
Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 2012, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 45-66