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Behavioristic Approach

The behavioristic approach views language as a type of human behavior that is learned through imitation, practice, and reinforcement. Children imitate words and phrases they hear from others. If a response is reinforced through consequences like rewards, it becomes habitual. B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning explained how language behaviors are strengthened and weakened based on consequences. However, Chomsky criticized behaviorism for failing to explain how children learn language beyond just imitation and can understand and produce novel sentences.

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Nik Hanis Kamarudin
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2K views

Behavioristic Approach

The behavioristic approach views language as a type of human behavior that is learned through imitation, practice, and reinforcement. Children imitate words and phrases they hear from others. If a response is reinforced through consequences like rewards, it becomes habitual. B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning explained how language behaviors are strengthened and weakened based on consequences. However, Chomsky criticized behaviorism for failing to explain how children learn language beyond just imitation and can understand and produce novel sentences.

Uploaded by

Nik Hanis Kamarudin
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Behavioristic Approach

Characteristics
Language is a fundamental part of total human behavior. This approach focused on the immediately perceptible aspects of linguistic behavior-the publicly observable responses-and the relationships or associations between those responses and events in the world surrounding them. A behaviorist might consider effective language behavior to be the production of correct responses to stimuli. If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual, or conditioned. This is true of their comprehension as well as production responses.

The behaviorist view imitation and practice as primary processes in language development.
Imitation: Word for word repetition of all or part of someone else's utterance. e.g. Mother: Would you like some bread and peanut butter? Katie: Some bread and peanut butter Practice: Repetitive manipulation of form. e.g. Michel I can handle it. Hannah can handle it. We can handle it

Childrens imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning.

B. F. Skinner
One of the best-known attempts to construct a behavioristic model of linguistic behavior was embodied in B.F. Skinner's classic, Verbal Behavior (1957). Skinner was commonly known for his experiments with animal behavior, but he also gained recognition for his contributions to education through teaching machines and programmed learning. Skinner's theory of verbal behavior was an extension of his general theory of learning by operant conditioning.

Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. It refers to conditioning in which the organism (in this case, a human being) produces a response, or operant (a sentence or utterance), without necessarily observable stimuli. This operant is maintained (learned) by reinforcement (e.g. a positive verbal or nonverbal response from another person). If a child says want milk and a parent gives the child some milk, the operant is reinforced and, over repeated instances, is conditioned.

According to Skinner, verbal behavior, like other behavior, is controlled by its consequences.
When consequences are rewarding, behavior is maintained and is increased in strength and perhaps frequency. When consequences are punishing, or when there is a total lack of reinforcement, the behavior is weakened and eventually extinguished.

Skinner's theories attracted a number of critics (Noam Chomsky) but it also had people who defended it (Kenneth MacCorquodale).

Chomskys Criticisms
Chomsky argues that the behaviourist theory fails to recognize what has come to be called the logical problem of language acquisition. This logical problem refers to the fact that children come to know more about the structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of the samples of language which they hear. Children do not learn and reproduce a large set of sentences, but they routinely create new sentences that they have never learnt before. They internalize rules rather than strings of words (e.g. it breaked /mommy goed).

The language the child is exposed to in the environment is full of confusing information. (e.g. false starts, incomplete sentences, or slips of the tongue) Children are not systematically corrected or instructed on language points. Parental corrections are inconsistent or even non-existent. When parents do correct, they tend to focus on meaning and truth values and not on language itself.

Today virtually no one would agree that Skinner's model of verbal behavior adequately accounts for the capacity to acquire language, for language development itself, for the abstract nature of language, or for a theory of meaning.

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