Philosophy & Cognitive Science | YIF ’18 Venugopal Rajamani

Chomsky’s evaluation of Verbal Behaviour

Chomsky in a scathing and influential review in 1959 dismantles B.F. Skinner’s ‘Verbal Behaviour’
explaining how children / human beings learn language. The fundamental premise of Chomsky’s
premise was that reinforcement cannot explain language acquisition and an innate structure governs
the ability of humans to acquire language, which goes on to form a later Chomskyan hypothesis
named ‘Universal Grammar’. This response paper argues on two principal areas: 1) the inadequacy
of a behaviourist approach to suffice for all of human language-learning abilities and 2) the
inapplicability of animal learning to humans in a generic fashion.

A layman’s understanding of the conversation between Chomsky and Skinner with respect to Verbal
Behaviour and its consequent review may look something like this.

Skinner: Animals and humans learn language the same way i.e. through conditioning and
reinforcement theories. So, a child will repeat something to the satisfaction of its respondent, until it
receives assurance.

Chomsky: I agree, albeit only partially. Language can be taught and reinforced. Is it that simple,
however? What about the times the child says something without being taught to? Can you explain
that?

Skinner: Well, uhm….

Chomsky adopts a nuanced approach in his criticism of Verbal Behaviour, which render Skinner and
other behaviourists unresponsive. Chomsky, in his review accepts that verbal behaviour as
responsiveness to external stimulation does explain part of human ability to learn language but does
not explain all of it. Accordingly, Chomsky argues that while behaviourism undeniably provides for
inferences drawn for externally exhibited behaviour in the absence of independent
neurophysiological evidence, it is no excuse to over-simplify an activity as complex as the human
ability to acquire language.

Skinner and Chomsky’s evaluation of whether animals share the same awareness of mental states as
humans do is another point of contention. Both bring animal behaviour to the epicentre of their
arguments with differing viewpoints. Skinner, an expert on animal behaviour believed inferences
concerning rats and pigeons could be equally applicable for humans, including verbal behaviour.
Chomsky, however, finds this approach dubious. Chomsky vehemently argues that Skinner’s
argument that animals reinforcement by a deliberate arrangement of the environment, cannot be
applied so generally to humans. As mentioned earlier, Chomsky acknowledges the validity of operant
conditioning and reinforcement theories to account for linguistic abilities; however, Skinner’s
diligence and meticulousness to focus the area of research of linguistics on behaviourism alone, is
what Chomsky is perturbed by. To disprove Skinner, Chomsky operates within the spheres of
behaviourism, thereby unleashing a critical evaluation of the approach itself. Rightly so, Chomsky
turns Skinner’s approach on its head by employing ethological evidence to debunk Skinner,
appropriating sufficient contrary evidence to disprove animal and human learning.

By staying within the framework of behaviourism in his review against verbal behaviour, Chomsky
lays out a strong proposition of venturing beyond the realms of behaviourism to understand the
human ability to learn language. Probably, that may explain why Skinner or other behaviourists who
followed have not been able to contend Chomsky’s initial response five decades later.