Behaviorist Theory Nurture Approach Discourse

  • Dominant school of psychology from the 1920’s to 1960’s
  • A psychological theory that is related to the development of L1 acquisition

Behaviorist Theory

  • It can be traced back to job Watson’s (1924) habit formation hypothesis.
  • The association of a particular response with a particular stimulus constitute a habit
  • Behaviorist theory of language acquisition was fully developed and propounded by B.F. skinner in his book verbal behavior (157)

Behaviorist Theory

  • In Classical behaviorism of Watson, the stimulus is said to elicit the response
  • If stimulus occurred sufficiently and frequently then the response became automatic
  • Neo-behaviorism of skinner emphasized the consequences of response
  • Ivan Pavlov grounded he theory of classical conditioning
  • Pavlov experiments with dog while Thorndike’s experiments with cats in puzzle boxes.
  • Their claim is that all animals including human beings are born with a set of instinctive responses to external stimuli
  • Theories of habit formation could be applied to language learning
  • Skinner’s operant conditioning focuses on using either reinforcement or punishment to increase or decrease the likelihood of behavior
  • Positive reinforcements are rewards whereas, negative ones are punishments, Learning of habit can occur through imitation or reinforcement
  • This theory explained language acquisition in humans
  • Behaviorism is an approach to FLA based on the assumption that behavior can be empirically studied
  • Effective language behavior is the responses to appropriate stimuli
  • Learning takes place when learners have the opportunity to make the appropriate response to a given stimulus

Claims

  • All animals and humans have natural tendency of instinctive response to external stimuli
  • Language is a part of social behavior

Criticism

  • Neglects innate abilities
  • Neglects Creativity
  • Mixing human language with animal language
  • Cannot explain how a child learns to produce grammatically correct sentences which they never anyone to say before.