IMPROVEMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION UNDER HYPNOSIS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

This paper reports an experiment which was designed to determine whether foreign language pronunciation could be improved through hypnosis. Twenty subjects were first given the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotizability to familiarize them with the state of hypnosis. In the second session each subject was individually tested on his/her ability to pronounce Thai words under three conditions: Baseline, Hypnosis, and Post-Hypnosis. For each experimental condition the subjects heard and repeated the stimulus items on one of three lists of 15 Thai words. The subjects' responses were later evaluated by a native Thai linguist. The results indicate that deeply hypnotized subjects (as defined by self-reported depth) performed significantly better than less well hypnotized subjects.