MS. DANICA D.

DUCSA, LPT
ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 Burrhus Frederic Skinner
(1904 – 1990)

• American psychologist, inventor,

social philosopher, poet
• Bachelor: English Literature
(Hamilton University)
• Master: Psychology
(Harvard University)
• Doctorate: Psychology
(Harvard University)
• Professor of Psychology in Harvard
University
• Proponent of Behaviorist Theory

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 BEHAVIORAL
THEORY

He is a man who opposes Chomsky's linguistic theory

with his behaviorist approach.
Skinner believes that behavior explains the speaker's
verbal activity as an effect of environmental contingencies.
According to him, reinforcement of appropriate
grammar and language would therefore lead to a child's
acquisition of language and grammar.
A child acquires language when relatively unpatterned
vocalizations, selectively reinforced gradually assume forms
which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal
community.

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 BEHAVIORAL
THEORY

According to Skinner, a child acquires language when

relatively unpatterned vocalizations, selectively reinforced
gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences
in a given verbal community.
He believed that a sentence is merely part of a behavior
chain each element of which provides a conditional stimulus for
the production of the succeeding element (Fador, Bever and
Garrett).
The probability of a verbal response was contingent on
four things: reinforcement, stimulus control, deprivation, and
adverse stimulation.
The interaction of these things in a child’s environment
would lead to particular associations, the basis of all language.

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 BEHAVIORAL THEORY
suggests that…

• Behaviors, such as acting, thinking, and feeling, can be

scientifically observed and measured
• Language, as a behavior, is a set of habits acquired by
operant conditioning and reinforcement
• Language
-is as a subset of other learned behaviors a set of
associations between meaning and word, word and phoneme,
and statement and response,
-is learned or conditioned through association
between a stimulus and the following response
-is a verbal behavior modified by the environment

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 OPERANT
CONDITIONING

Skinner Box aka operant conditioning chamber is used to contain

animals such as rats or pigeons
• study behavior conditioning (training)by teaching a subject animal to
perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli. If
the subject correctly performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers
food or another reward
• the mechanism delivers a punishment for incorrect or missing
responses

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 OPERANT
CONDITIONING

Operant Conditioning
• If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual. Thus, children
produce linguistic responses that are reinforced, and loses those that are left out 10

Reinforcer- any event that increases the probability of occurrence of a preceding

behavior
Positive Reinforcer- benefits the person receiving it. Examples: praising ,
repetition , frequent exposure , material reward
Negative Reinforcers- has no value to the person receiving, causes the
recipient to try to escape from it. Examples: physical punishment, discomfort ,criticism
and scolding

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com
 Summary
• Language is a behavior.
• As a behavior, it requires reinforcers and
stimuli from the environment.
• Reinforcers may be positive or negative,
primary or secondary.
• Languages can be unlearned by putting away
the stimuli/reinforcers

ducsa.danica@yahoo.com