Is Your Personality Affecting Your Language And Learning Ability?

•  Posted on Nov 07, 2012  by Euro London | No Comments

Personality can affect a number of factors in a person but have you ever considered if it could have an affect on choice of words or even when it comes to learning a language?

According to new research personality affects the way a person speaks. Personalities that are introvert tend to use language that is precise whereas extroverts have a tendency to be vague. [1] Various studies have acknowledged the link between personality and language on a number of different levels. However the usual study is about the content of what different personalities choose to talk about.
 
For example, it is more likely for an extrovert to talk about family and friends, and to use words like “drinks” and “dancing”, which makes intuitive sense given that people matching that personality type are expected to spend more time socialising.  On the other hand, introverts include more articles in their speech such as “a” and “the”. It was concluded that Introverts linguistics conveyed a higher perception of trust than that of an extroverts linguistics.

Other language studies have also been taken in order to try to explain the effects of introverts versus extroverts on language, this time when learning a language. Many second language teachers feel that students with outgoing personalities are more likely to be successful as a second language learner than a less outgoing personality. A number of language teachers also believe that the extroverts will create more situations to engage in conversation in the target language.

 
In contrast a German psychiatrist Manfred Spitzer points out that introverts are able to stimulate themselves to learn while extroverts require external stimulus. [2] This is more likely to cause the introvert to excel over the extrovert when learning a language.

Do you think personality can lead to whether learning a language is easier or not?

[1] http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.gr/2012/11/introverts-use-more-concrete-language.html

[2] http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/viewFile/514/345