The Pursuit of Language

Our way of communication is probably one of our most unique characteristics that we possess as human-beings, it grants us the ability to convey information about our immediate realities, imagined events as well as intentions and desires. A first language is often referred as “the mother tongue” or “native language” of a person. While a second language is a language that a person learns after his first language. People tend to learn second languages for work, study or pleasure depending on their purpose. Second language learners differ massively from one to another in terms of how successful they learn a specific language, some individual differences between those learners are extremely visible and sometimes they can only be traced through methodical observations like interests, study habits, and values. Some second language learners make rapid and spontaneous progress, others may struggle and have a much slower pace in learning a certain language. The main focus of this article is to examine the individual differences of these learners in terms of personality as it is considered to be a major contributor in the success or failure of the learner’s learning process.

The Role of Personality could be visualized as the considerable factors, traits or qualities in a person that are associated to the cognitive processing of emotion. Recognizing how human-beings feel and behave is an extremely significant aspect of the second language learning process as many authors and linguists consider that “self-esteem, inhibition, anxiety, empathy and motivation” as personality traits that influences the second language learning process.

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is a concept used to reflect a person’s overall evaluation or estimation of his or her own worth, It is associated with beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. Many researchers concurred that students with high self-esteem are more likely to succeed in learning a second language because they have a clearer sense of direction regarding their priorities and goals.

Inhibition

inhibition is the feeling of embarrassment or apprehension that prevents a person from saying or doing what he or she wants. Students with thick, perfectionist boundaries find language learning more difficult than those learners with thin boundaries who favor the attitudes of openness and the tolerance of ambiguity.

Anxiety

As learners we have all encountered this feeling, Any task that involves a certain degree of challenge can expose the learner to the feelings of self-doubt, uneasiness or fear. Second language learning is a highly demanding task, it is very likely to raise the anxiety level in any learner. Anxiety can be considered a negative factor in language learning, and several teaching methodologies in modern approaches indicate that anxiety should be kept as low as possible.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability of being aware of the feelings and emotions of others, it is also predicted to be relevant to second language learning in that the empathetic person may be the one who is able to identify more easily with the users of a target language and thus accept their input as intake for language acquisition.

Motivation

Motivation is usually associated with commitment, enthusiasm, and persistence to achieve goals. It’s the engine that drives the language learning system, it’s the desire, the enjoyment, and brute force toward successful learning curves. Motivation in language learning is a very complicated psychological phenomenon, and it is also the single most influential factor in learning a new language.

These aspects play a crucial role in learning a second language, and personality traits are complex concepts that synchronizes with one another to forge our identity and determine our language learning capabilities. Language learners should take responsibility for their own learning by being willing to face the fear of making mistakes, altering their attitude towards the target language, and adapting to multiple cultural situations in order to enhance their language proficiency and competence.