Identifier

etd-07092010-110611

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Linguistics (Interdepartmental Program)

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Extraversion has been proposed as an influence on the success of a second language learner, although studies in this area have produced mixed results (Dewaele & Furnham, 1999; Marin-Marin, 2005; Wakamoto, 2007). Through a narrative retell task, the current study investigated the effects of extraversion on the spoken English performance of 25 native speakers of Spanish. Extraversion was measured with a Spanish version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire or EPQ (1975). Narratives were elicited using the wordless picture story Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Drawing on the work of Dewaele (1998), Dewaele and Pavlenko (2002), and Oya, Manalo, and Greenwood (2004), the researcher analyzed the narratives in terms of complexity, verbal accuracy, clausal accuracy, and emotion word quantity. Native speakers of English rated each narrative on a holistic global impression scale. Extraversion was found to correlate negatively with verbal accuracy (r = -.438, p < .028). However, the sample tested at an unusually high level of extraversion (M = 17.12, SD = 3.72). Only one subject’s extraversion score was lower than eleven. When this outlier was removed, all correlations between extraversion and the variables involved proved to be non-significant.

Date

2010

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

McDonald, Janet

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.921

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