erest to check if and how it affects the acquisition of a second language. There is a bid to check the language skills of people in relation to their temperament and human behavior.
The word ‘temperament’ is a Latin word which means ‘to mix’. It can be traced from the ancient times of Socrates, Plato, Hipporates, and Galen, to David Keirsey and the likes, that is, modern times. But there will be a focus on Galen who categorized temperaments into four types: Sanguine, Melancholy, Choleric and Phlegmatic. There is also emphasis on DISC personality testing which goes a long way in this study even though the labels have been slightly changed.
There are different theories dealing with temperament or personality, and some of these are examined one after the other. The Four-important Temperament theory (even though this has been argued back and forth) is a theory that points to the fact that there are four important personality types which are the Sanguine (playful attitude), Choleric (strong-willed), Melancholy (deep thinker) and Phlegmatic (laid-back). These four temperaments may have its origins in the ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia. Under this theory also, they posit that there can be the mixture of two or more of these temperaments in just one individual, but [usually] with just one temperament being the dominant.
Hippocrates, a Greek Physician (who lived between C.460 to C.370 BC), included these temperaments into his medical theories as part of the ancient medical Concept of Humorism that states that there are four bodily fluids which affect human behavior and characteristics. The Greek physician had the belief that some certain human moods, behavior is as a result of excess or lack of body fluids termed humors. They are the blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Other researchers have brought about the rejection of these four temperaments, in relation to body fluids, especially in modern medicine and science, but there is still the scientific acceptance, although varying, of the four categories of temperaments, or at least something very similar to that is being continuously used ‘ with the changing of terminologies in most cases or in some other cases the addition of more categories.
After him Galen (AD 129-C.200) conducted a research to investigate the reasons behind the different behaviour of human beings. He therefore classified them as hot/cold and dry/wet which he got from the four elements. There could be what is called a balance in the different qualities leading to nine temperaments. There are four less balanced ideal types in which one of the four qualities dominates the others. In the last type he categorized the four types, one pair: these qualities dominated the complementary pair: these four are th