What is Skinner's theory of language development? I know its a nurture theory but that's about it!!! Help!

Answer 1

you will find a very complete information here....
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html

Answer 2

Skinner does acknowledge the influence of the environment in his theory of language development, he, thus is of the view that language is a learned behavior which comes in to effect because of the help given by other capable peers who may include teachers, care givers and play mates. A language is easily learnt through imitations partnered with rewards, say, a child says something like "anana" through mere babbling, the mother gives the child a banana. This is socialising the child in to learning to call a banana a banana, as time goes on the child formulates phrases which he assimilates from the local environment. Language is thus a matter of nurture and nature.

Answer 3

I think Chomsky sorta tried to proved the nurture thing wrong with Universal Grammar, where children already have pre-programed knowledge of language structure and only need to hear examples to understand a specific language's grammar.