Abstract
Category formation of human perception is a vital part of cognitive ability. The disciplines of neuroscience and linguistics, however, seldom mention it in the marrying of the two. The present study reviews the neurological view of language acquisition as normalization of incoming speech signal, and attempts to suggest how speech sound category formation may connect personality with second language speech perception. Through a questionnaire, (being thick or thin) ego boundary, a correlate found to be related to category formation, was proven a positive indicator of personality types. Following the qualitative study, thick boundary and thin boundary English learners native in Cantonese were given a speech-signal perception test using an ABX discrimination task protocol. Results showed that thick-boundary learners performed significantly lower in accuracy rate than thin-boundary learners. It was implied that differences in personality do have an impact on language learning.
Highlights
The connection between personality and language acquisition has been under inquiry for many decades
The current study wishes to focus on one aspect of language acquisition, speech, and search for empirical evidence as well as theoretical implications of the following proposal: whether personality can be seen as a factor, through the effect of category formation, in influencing cross-linguistic speech perception accuracy
Because we had already screened the participants in an impressionistic way before the actual questionnaire answering took place, it would not be surprising that the results were quite polar for thick and thin boundary participants
Summary
The connection between personality and language acquisition has been under inquiry for many decades. In the study of both neuropsychology and linguistics, scholars have different views of how extravert and introvert personalities may have an influence on the rate of learning a first [1,2,3] or second [4,5,6,7] language. The current study wishes to focus on one aspect of language acquisition, speech, and search for empirical evidence as well as theoretical implications of the following proposal: whether personality can be seen as a factor, through the effect of category formation, in influencing cross-linguistic speech perception accuracy
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