Language Acquistion

One of the issues of psychology is language acquisition, and different theories of how this process takes place have been offered. Each theory has its good points and its bad points, and none as yet seems to be definitive in explaining this complex learning experience. Two of the important theories are those of B.F. Skinner and Noam Chomsky, and they can be compared for their values and their problems.

Skinner discusses the issue of language acquisition in his overall context of behaviorist psychology. He notes that language was acquired relatively late in the development of the human species, and this involved a remarkable change as the species' vocal musculature came under operant control. This extended the range of the human social environment. Skinner draws a distinction between "language" and "verbal behavior." He notes that psychologists speak of the "acquisition of language" in the child and notes how language is structured out of words and sentences that express meanings, desires, needs, ideas, emotions, and propositions. For Skinner, language is behavior that has a special characteristics only because it is reinforced by its effects on people, first on other people, and then on the speaker him or herself.

For Skinner, then, the acquisition of language is a matter of operant conditioning, just as is all learning. Language acquisition is the result of exposure to a speaking community, but learning is not merely a matter of imit

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of stimulus control: "Different verbal communities shape and maintain different languages in the same speaker, who then possesses different repertoires having similar effects upon different listeners" (89). Skinner's approach has several good points: 1) it explains the acquisition of different types of linguistic skills and levels; 2) it applies in all societies and at all times; and 3) it makes a direct link between the verbal behavior that predates language and language acquisition. Skinner's approach also has a number of bad aspects: 1) it necessitates accepting the premises of operant conditioning, which are only sketchily given here but which have a number of ramifications of particular concern to those who see it as a deterministic psychology proscribing free will; 2) it presupposes links between specific verbal behaviors and social conditioning that seems to make language acquisition a matter of social and cultural conditioning while also stating that the social environment was shaped by the development of language in the first place; and 3) it is vague about the role of the speaker as listener though it seems to value that role highly. Noam Chomsky Many people forget that Noam Chomsky is a linguist because he is s

Category: Psychology - L