Behaviouristic Approach

1
Lecture 5

• Behaviouristic Approach

2
The outlook of Behaviorists

• From the observation, of systematization and
  prediction of animal responses to stimuli in
  laboratory experiments, Skinner drew conclusions
  about human behavior and derived a theory of
  language acquisition.

3
The outlook of Behaviorists

• The Behaviorists indicate that language learning
  is simply a matter of imitation and habit
  formation.
• Children imitate the sounds and patterns which
  they hear around them and receive positive
  reinforcement for doing so.
• With the encouragement of those in the
  environment around them, children continue to
  imitate and practice these sounds and patterns
  until they form habits of correct language use.

4
The outlook of Behaviorists

• The quality and quantity of language which the
  child hears, as well as consistency of
  reinforcement offered by the environment have an
  effect on the childs success in first language
  acquisition.
• Childs errors are the result of imperfect
  acquistion.

5
Criticism

• Behaviorism faces two critical points regarding
• The kind of language children produce Children
  say goed, sheeps and mouses instead of the
  correct irregular forms went, sheep and mice
  produced by the people around them.

6
Criticism

• The kind of language they do not produce
• At a certain age children can not produce
  certain patterns no matter the amount of practice
  and reinforcement they get.
• Example
• Child Nobody dont like me.
• Mother No, say Nobody likes me.
• (Eight repetition of this dialogue)
• Child Oh! Nobody dont likes me.