Transcript Language Acquisition 1

Chomsky vs. Skinner
Skinner, a behavioural psychologist
any acquisition was due to a learning process involving the
shaping of grammar into a correct form by the re-enforcement
of other stimulus, correct grammar is positively re-enforced
and will be used in the future, and incorrect grammar is
negatively re-enforced and will be not be used again.
Chomsky a linguist
human grammar acquisition is an innate biological ability that
all humans possess, and viewed some form of `generative
grammar' which he felt could explain the rapid acquisition and
creative nature of grammar and language.
B.F Skinner
• Behavioural Psychologist: underlying mental processes are not
observable and thus invalid.
• No underlying meaning to words
• verbal behavior was due to the conditioning that occurs between
the words and reinforcement through stimulus
• If a person asks for a glass of water, she gets one
• social reinforcement in the form of praise and encouragement
• past experiences of verbal behavior determine whether it will be
used again
• Verbal Operant Conditioning
• Five Verbal Operants: Mands, Tacts, Ethoics, Textuals and
IntraVerbals
• grammatical acquisition using an Autoclitic
1. Mand: command or request is met with production (comMAND,
deMAND)
2. Tacts: based on child's reference to non-verbal objects with praise
for correct naming i.e. child says "cat" and mother says "good girl,
that is a cat".
3. Echoic: imitation of speech and can be reinforced by a variety of
means including "repeat after me".
4. Textual: learning to read through positive stimulus
5. Intraverbal: word association, whereby one word controls which
other word follows or precededs—table / chair
Autoclitic
A form of commentary on one of the Verbal Operants
Autoclitics have Verbal Operant qualities
Example:
Tact: Harry bought a house.
Echoic: I hear that Harry bought a house.
Text: I read in the paper that Harry bought a house.
• Correct Verbal Operant and Autoclitic comment (correct
grammar) are positively reinforced (praise, results)
• Incorrect grammar is negatively reinforced
• Analyzing language through verbal operants and autoclitic
parts is very complex
Noam Chomsky
• an infant enters this world predisposed to learning a language
fluently
• In human biological make-up
• “Generative Grammar”: limitless generation of meaning
• finite set of rules operating on a finite vocabulary to generate an
infinite number of acceptable grammatical sentences and no unacceptable ones
• from a small number words, using rules, humans create limitless
meaning
transformational grammar: surface structure (language person
actually uses) patterned on deep structure (acquisition of
rules)
once a child can master these rules and transformations, it
has the ability to create and expand on his/her grammar by
using these rules to create new sentences that it has not
heard before
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thought.html