How can language acquisition be explained through the principles of operant conditioning?

Language acquisition refers to the way humans are able to develop the ability to understand and use language. Burrhus Frederic Skinner's theory is centred around behaviourism. Behaviourism is the idea that we can explain phenomena such as language through the lens of conditioning.

Skinners Theory Of Behaviourism

B F Skinner was a psychologist who specialised in behaviour. He was credited with popularising the idea of 'radical behaviourism', which took the ideas of behaviourism further by suggesting that our idea of 'free will' is entirely determined by situational factors. For example, someone's decision to break the law is influenced by situational determining factors and has little to do with individual morals or disposition.

Behaviourism Learning Theory

Skinner's imitation theory proposes that language develops as a result of children trying to imitate their caregivers or those around them. The theory assumes that children have no innate ability to learn language and rely on operant conditioning to form and improve their understanding and use of it. Behavioural theory believes that children are born 'tabula rasa' - as a 'blank slate'.

Behavioural Theory Definition

To summarise:

The behaviourist theory suggests that language is learned from the environment and through conditioning.

What is operant conditioning?

Operant conditioning is the idea that actions are reinforced. There are two types of reinforcement that are vital to this theory: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. In Skinner's theory, children alter their use of language in response to this reinforcement.

For example, a child may correctly ask for food, (eg. saying something like 'mama, dinner') then receive positive reinforcement by receiving the food they'd asked for, or being told they're clever by their caregiver. Alternatively, if a child uses language incorrectly, they may simply be ignored, or may be corrected by the caregiver, which would be negative reinforcement.

The theory suggests that when receiving positive reinforcement, the child realises which use of language gets them the reward, and will continue to use language in that way in the future. In the case of negative reinforcement, the child alters their use of language to match a correction given by the caregiver, or may independently try something different.

Fig 2: operant conditioning is the reinforcement of behaviour through either positive or negative reinforcement.

Behavioural Theory Evidence and Limitations

When looking at a theory, it is important to consider its strengths and weaknesses. This can help us to evaluate the theory as a whole and be critical (analytical) in our thinking.

Evidence for Skinner's theory

While Skinner's language acquisition theory itself has limited academic support compared to nativist and cognitive theories, operant conditioning is well understood and supported as a behaviourist explanation for many things, and there may be some ways that it can be applied to language development. For example, children may still be able to learn that certain sounds or phrases get certain results, even if this doesn't contribute to their language development as a whole.

Children also tend to pick up on the accents and colloquialisms of those around them, which suggests that imitation may play some role in language acquisition. During school life, their use of language will become more accurate, and more complex. This can be partly attributed to the fact that teachers play a more active role than caregivers in correcting the mistakes children make while speaking. A further criticism, made by academics like Jeanne Aitchison, is that parents and care givers don't tend to correct language use but truthfulness. If a child says something which is grammatically wrong but truthful the care giver is likely to praise the child. But if the child says something which is grammatically accurate but untrue, the care giver is likely to respond negatively. For a care giver, truth is more important than language accuracy. This goes against Skinner's theory. Language use is not corrected as often as Skinner thinks. Let's look at some more limitations of the. theory.

Limitations of Skinner's theory

Skinner's theory has numerous limitations and some of its assumptions have been disproven or questioned by other theorists and researchers. Let's take a look at some notable limitations.

Developmental Milestones

Contrary to Skinner's theory, research has shown that children go through a series of developmental milestones at around the same age. This suggests that there may be more than just simple imitation and conditioning taking place, and that children may actually have an internal mechanism that facilitates language development.

This was later described as the 'language acquisition device' (LAD) by Noam Chomsky. According to Chomsky, the language acquisition device is the part of the brain that encodes language, just as certain parts of the brain encode sound.

The critical period of language acquisition

Age 7 is thought to be the end of the critical period for language acquisition. If a child has not developed language by this point, they will never be able to fully grasp it. This suggests that there might be something universal among human beings that governs language development, as this would explain why the critical period is the same for everyone regardless of their first language background.

Genie (as studied by Curtiss et al., 1974)¹ is perhaps the most notable example of someone who has failed to develop language by the critical period. Genie was a young girl who was raised in complete isolation and never given a chance to develop language due to her solitude and poor living conditions. When she was discovered in 1970, she was twelve years old. She had missed the critical period and was therefore unable to become fluent in English despite extensive attempts to teach and rehabilitate her.

The complicated nature of language

It has also been argued that language and its development are simply too complicated to be taught sufficiently through reinforcement alone. Children learn grammatical rules and patterns seemingly independently of positive or negative reinforcement, as evidenced in the tendency among children to over- or under-apply linguistic rules. For example, calling every four-legged animal a 'dog' if they learned the word for dog before the names of other animals, or saying words like 'goed' instead of went'. There are so many combinations of words, grammatical structures and sentences that it seems impossible that this could all be a consequence of imitation and conditioning alone. This is called the 'poverty of stimulus' argument. For more information, see our articles on Chomsky and Innatism.

Behavioural Theory - Key Takeaways

• BF Skinner proposed that language acquisition was a result of imitation and operant conditioning.
• This theory suggests that operant conditioning is responsible for a child's progress through the stages of language acquisition.
• According to the theory, a child will seek positive reinforcement and wish to avoid negative reinforcement, consequently amending their use of language in response.
• The fact that children imitate accents and colloquialisms, alter their use of language when entering school, and associate some sounds/phrases with positive outcomes, may be evidence for Skinner's theory.
• Skinner's theory is limited. It can't account for the critical period, comparative developmental milestones regardless of language background, and the complexities of language.

1 Curtiss et al. The Development of Language in Genius: a Case of Language Acquisition beyond the "critical period" . 1974.

References

1. Fig. 1. Msanders nti, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

What are the principles of operant conditioning?

How language acquisition takes place in behaviorist theory?

How do you explain language acquisition?

How can the theory of operant conditioning be applied to teaching and learning?