4 minutes
Linguistic intelligence is the ability to express ourselves through language, one of the characteristics that distinguishes us from other living beings. Verbal communication is also a useful tool that has allowed us to survive in adverse environments, better understand our surroundings, and form large communities in which hundreds of people cooperate. In my previous article, I wrote about the theory of multiple intelligences.
A broader definition of linguistic intelligence
Think about how you would explain to someone that a flowerpot fell to the floor and broke. Simple, right? Now consider another situation: you must read a two-page text in which a philosopher explains what metaphysics means to her, then summarize it for someone else.
You will probably think the latter task is considerably more complicated, even without having read that text. Although you can use language effectively in everyday life, some tasks involving words seem especially difficult compared with others. Some of these activities may even seem impossible, such as explaining how we feel to someone whose language we have not fully mastered.
These small everyday hurdles give us an idea of what linguistic intelligence is: the extent to which a person can skillfully use language to express and understand ideas and achieve goals through this ability.
Linguistic intelligence—sometimes also called verbal intelligence—is part of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner, and taking it into account allows us to create strategies for strengthening language use.
A tool for adapting to our environment
Reality is not easy to understand, so formulating explanations about it should not be easy either. The vast majority of us are born with the capacity to learn language, but we are not all equally comfortable with our native language. In some situations, we may notice that we lack control over words, that our linguistic intelligence is not as developed as the context requires.
That is precisely why linguistic intelligence matters: recognizing its existence lets us know how skilled we are at making ourselves understood and understanding what we are told, both orally and in writing. This is especially important considering that language use allows us to move closer to our goals, so having more or less linguistic intelligence affects our ability to manage problems, undertake projects, or even maintain healthier relationships with others.
How can you improve linguistic intelligence?
If intelligence can indeed be briefly summarized as the ability to find solutions to new problems in the most effective way, it is equally true that it can be improved by adopting certain habits and routines. Linguistic intelligence, as a specific area within the broader concept of "intelligence," is no exception. This means that we can take steps to influence our level of performance in linguistic intelligence.
Knowing all this, you can begin introducing small changes into your daily life to improve your language skills. Here are some guidelines and recommendations to strengthen your linguistic intelligence.
1. Start a personal journal
Starting a journal is a good first step. You will write about topics that affect you indirectly and seem interesting or relevant, so this activity is unlikely to become boring. You will also feel no pressure to write something impressive to impress someone, because these writings are for you and no one else needs to see them. Improving your verbal skills will be easier if you push yourself to explain your experiences and feelings.
2. Choose an interesting topic and write a short essay about it
Writing freely about your feelings and starting from your own view of reality is a good way to train linguistic intelligence, but it is worth setting challenges so that tasks do not always have the same level of difficulty. So, in addition to keeping a journal, it is good to define somewhat more universal topics and write about them. This will force you to expand your vocabulary and improve your ability to express yourself about a specific topic in texts of varying lengths.
3. Appreciate the value of a good dialogue
If you want to refine your linguistic intelligence, it may also help to interact with people you do not usually communicate with. People whose concerns and interests differ from yours, people with whom you cannot use your own jargon and who force you out of your comfort zone when speaking. Nothing beats the challenge of communicating with someone with another viewpoint to become able to understand and make yourself understood.
4. Read widely and well
Few things are better for discovering expressions and vocabulary than reading. There is an almost infinite number of books in which you can memorize and review all kinds of linguistic pathways while being entertained or learning about things that interest you. However, if you want to improve your linguistic intelligence by getting the most out of books, it is best to be mindful of what you read. Try to get your hands on books by a variety of authors, so you see a little of everything.
5. Will you give poetry and music a chance?
Poetry and music have the added value of breaking grammatical conventions to communicate and express phenomena and emotions. Exposure to lyrical forms of expression can help you get used to seeing language as a creative game in which words serve the message, not the other way around. In fact, there is an example in which musical training in preschool children was shown to improve verbal intelligence.
Linguistic intelligence in children
These recommendations may be useful to you, but some can also be adapted to train children's abilities related to linguistic intelligence. After all, it is in early childhood that having the means to quickly learn the fundamentals of language, which develop as children grow, matters most.