Question

Nineteen fifty-seven was a watershed year in linguistics. Both B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior and Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures were published that year. These books, written by the respective pioneers of the behaviorist and linguistic approaches, placed the source of language development at opposing ends of the spectrum and have provided decades of academic debate. Since then, the number of language development theories has grown exponentially, all with differing ways of explaining language development. Some approaches have confronted serious criticism and undergone revision throughout the decades, and other approaches (e.g., the usage-based approach) are newer and the body of research on them is still limited.

Beginning this week and continuing in Week 3, you complete a comparison of two theories of language development. Your goal will be to evaluate which theory you agree with more, that is, which one, based on the evidence presented in your text and resources you locate on your own, provides the most compelling argument for how language development occurs.

To Prepare:

• Review the assigned chapter in your course text related to behaviorist, biological, and nature-versus-nurture theories.

The Assignment (2–3 pages):
Write a 2- to 3-page paper in which you do the following:

• Briefly identify the two theories you selected.
• Compare and contrast the two theories and their views on first language development.
• Explain which theory you agree with more and why. Provide evidence from the literature to support your argument.

Answer 1

Language is considered to be one of the forms of communication. The development of the language is a process through a child is able to communicate. From the birth to the 5 years of age, children develop language at a very faster rate. Language development also reflects the maturation and the growth of the brain. There are several theories debating over the language acquisition like behaviorist theories, nature-nurture theory and biological theories. The following paper will compare and contrast the two of the major theories of the language development i.e. behaviorist and the nature-nurture. It will first describe the nature-nurture theory and then behaviorist and subsequently compare them. The chomskian’s theory based on the nature’s concept. He further argued that child never acquire tools needed for the processing an infinite number of sentences and if the language acquisition process is dependent on language input alone.

The most famous theory of language acquisition is LAD i.e. presence of language acquisition device in children. Noam Chomsky states that children are born with the innate capacity of the development of the language (Cook, 1985). Further he conducted research in which he found that children tend to learn the language in sequence and moreover in same sequence. As per him, this device allows the child o pick up the various underlying grammar principles. Chomsky often calls this as an innate knowledge of language.

The behaviorist theory of the language development was given by on the famous psychologist of the decade B.F. Skinner. He viewed the development of the language as a cognitive process (Chomsky, 1959). His theory of language of development based on the principle of Operant conditioning in which child learns through trial and error method and with the help of reinforcement and rewards, the behavior gets shaped where the biologist theory of language acquisition focus on the LAD which innate and already present, which requires no reinforcement and no learning. The behaviorists believe that language is learned whereas biologists believe that language is innate. On the contrast the famous behaviorist B.F skinner focused that fact there are no any limit to what an individual can become because the situation, given time, learning laws and opportunities vary. As per him the development of the language is due to nurture whereas according to the Noam Chomsky is due to nature. The common thing between the two theories is that they both conducted experiment on children only. The Chomsky theory is more of biology as it says that children are born with innate device whereas skinner’s theory based on the principle of the behaviors i.e. learning involves shaping of grammar into its correct form by the use of reinforcement and rewards. As per skinner language learning operates on some principles, whereas as per Chomsky learning language is too complex that only sentenced can be learned at a time. Skinners stated that children learn language and its rules by imitating from the environment whereas Chomsky contradicted the fact and said the language is one and only process of creation (Andersen, 1992). Behaviorist focused animals can also learn language through the same process, but Chomsky focused that language is the only key which separates the humans from other animals.

From the above comparison it can be clearly said there is only one similarity between the behaviorist and biologist theory of language i.e. both conducted research on children, but there are many differences like skinner focused on the fact that language can be learned through conditioning, reinforcement and rewards, whereas Chomsky stated that it is innate. Skinner said that even other animals can be trained through conditioning in terms of language but Chomsky stated the fact language is the one and only thing which makes human unique and distinctive.