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

Answer 1

"The principles and rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of language are made to correspond with the universal froms of thought....The structures of every sentence is a lesson in logic."

—John Stuart Mill



BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF LANGUAGE

"[H]uman knowledge is organized de facto by linguistic competence through language performance, and our exploration of reality is always mediated by language". Most higher vertebrates possess ?intuitive knowledge? which occurs as the result of slow evolution of species. However, the ability to create knowledge through language is unique to humans. According to Benjamin Whorf, "language?. is not merely a reproducing instrument from voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas?. We dissect nature along lines laid down by language" (Joseph 249). In addition, the development and acquisition of language seems to be related to "complex sequential processing, and the ability to form concepts and to classify a single stimulus in a multiple manner" (Joseph 178). Antione Danchin suggests that the knowledge we create through language allows us distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world to produce models of reality, which become more and more adequate due to the "self-referent loop" which enables us to understand ourselves as objects under study. This "path from subject to object," which is common to all humans, Danchin claims, suggests the existence of a universal feature of language

Biological foundation of language may contribute significantly to such universality. The issue here is not whether language is innate, for, clearly, language must be learned. Nor is the issue whether the aptitude for learning a language is inborn: it takes a human being, with a functional brain to learn a tongue. The question to explore is whether there is biological foundation at the root of organization and internal structure of language.

The scholars considering spoken language acquisition have divided over internal and external causation dichotomy. Two prototypical models of language acquisition are "selectivist" and "constructivist" models, respectively. The selectivist model, which depends on internal causation argument, can be associated with Noam Chomsky. The selectivist model assumes that "language template is pre-organized in the neuronal structure of the brain, so that the fact of being an integral part of a given environment selects the borders of each individual neuronal structure, without affecting its fine organization, which pre-exists" (Danchin 30). The constructivist model, which assumes external causation of language acquisition, follows lines drawn by behaviorists such as Piaget and Skinner. This model assumes that "language is built up constantly from a continuous interaction with a well-structured environment"



NOAM CHOMSKY'S VIEW ON LANGUAGE

Noam Chomsky basic argument is that there exists an innate language acquisition device, a neural program that prepares them to learn language (Kandel 638). Chomsky assumes the existence of a genetically determined system of rules, which he refers to as universal grammar, underlying all tongues. According to Chomsky, a language template is set up by the special "language organ" of the brain. Chomsky does not deny that the importance of environmental factors in language acquisition. His claim is that there exist strict biological invariants governing the function of language. In explanation of his theory on the ontogenesis of spoken language, Chomsky holds there pre-exists in humans, a language structure that is

one of the faculties of the mind, common to the species,?a faculty of language that serves the two basic functions of rationalist theory: it provides a sensory system for the preliminary analysis of linguistic data, and a schematism that determines, quite narrowly, a certain class of grammars. Each grammar is a theory of a particular language, specifying oral and semantic properties of an infinite array of sentences. These sentences, each with its particular structure, constitute the language generated by the grammar. The languages so generated are those that can be "learned" in the normal way?. This knowledge can then be used to understand what is heard and to produce discourse as an expression of thought within the constraints of the internalized principles, in a manner appropriate to situations as these are conceived by other mental faculties, free of stimulus control



B.F. SKINNER'S VIEW ON LANGUAGE

Behaviorists view the process of language acquisition as a building process that results from interaction with the environment. In outlining his assertion that humans acquire spoken language as a result of behavioral conditioning. B.F. Skinner writes:

A child acquires verbal behavior when relatively unpattterned vocalizations, selectively reinforced, gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal community. In formulating this process we do not feed to mention stimuli occurring prior to the behavior to be reinforced. It is difficult, if not impossible, to discover stimuli which evoke specific vocal responses in the young child. There is no stimulus which makes a child say b or a or e, as one may make him salivate by placing a lemon drop in his mouth or make his pupils contract by shining a light into his eyes. The raw responses from which verbal behavior is constructed are not "elicited." In order to reinforce a given response we simply wait until it occurs.

Skinner views the child as the "passive subject of operant conditioning in whom randomly occurring behavior is selectively reinforced"

Skinner's seminal work, Verbal Behaviour (1957), begins with a chapter called, "A functional analysis of verbal behaviour". However, you should be aware that his theory is very far from the functional, or sociocultural, approach to language, which is followed in this subject. You will also become aware that the antecedents of the sociocultural approach to language which underpin this subject, preceded the work of B. F. Skinner by several decades. Nevertheless, this section begins with an introduction to B. F. Skinner's theory of language as 'verbal behaviour' (1957). This is partly because his learning theory was transposed into language teaching methodologies prior to that transposition of the work of linguistic anthropologists and linguists to language pedagogies; and partly because Skinner's theory has had such definite, and enduring, influences on language teaching. The residual echoes of his theory can be heard every time one of us mentions 'positive reinforcement' (or 'negative reinforcement', for that matter) and his theory is operational every time one of us includes a teaching practice which begins with drills and grammar study decontextualised from meaning. Skinner rejected the very idea of 'meaning'. Skinner's view of 'meaning' can be seen in his comment which follows:

As Jespersen [a significant linguist and grammarian whose major work, Language, was published in 1922] said many years ago, "The only unimpeachable definition of a word is that it is a human habit." Unfortunately, he felt it necessary to add, "an habitual act on the part of one human individual which has, or may have, the effect of evoking some idea in the mind of another individual." Similarly, Betrand Russell asserts that "just as jumping is one class of movement...so the word 'dog' is [another] class," but he adds that words differ from other classes of bodily movements because they have "meaning". In both cases something has been added to an objective description (Skinner 1957: 13).

Answer 2

Skinner Theory Of Language Development

Answer 3

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 4

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

Answer 5

In brief, Skinner believe that children learned language as responses to verbal stimuli presented by those around them. he published a famous book "Verbal Behavior" presenting his theory in the 1950s. Noam Chomsky wrote a famous review (I think in the journal "Language", although it has been reprinted many times) of this book showing that language could not be learned as Skinner claimed because words can be strung into an infinite number of sentences, which the child can understand although (s)he cannot possibly have heard them before. Chomsky therefore proposed (notably in his book "Syntactic Structures", though he later modified the details of his ideas) that the child must have innate linguistic strutures whcih developed to enable him or her to comprehend language. Chomsky's ideas not only changed how we understand language development, but were also a foundation of Cognitive Psychology and hence Cognitive Science.

Answer 6

I have a quote from Piaget which may be of some help to you.
According to Piagets theory relating to language development is that," children develop thoughts according to experience. Childrens language is used to support their cognative development. Childrens learning passes through distant stages."

Answer 7

Skinner said that language is behavior, and, just like any other behavior, it is learned. This learning occurs through "reinforcement of successive approximations". Supposedly, a child is randomly making sounds, such as hi-hi, a-a-a-a and says "mi" . The mother, on hearing this, gets very excited, pays attention to the baby, says "Oh, you want milk!" and gives him a bottle of milk. After a while, the novelty of "mi" wears off and mother insists that the baby say "milk" before she provides the reinforcement of praise and milk. After a longer while, milk is not good enough, and the child must say "I want milk" to be rewarded.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

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