Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T13:20:29.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acquisition, Learning, or Development of Language? Skinner's “Verbal Behavior” Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Susana López Ornat  and
Pilar Gallo
Susana López Ornat*
Affiliation:
Complutense University of Madrid
Pilar Gallo
Affiliation:
Complutense University of Madrid
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susana López Ornat, Departamento de Psicología Básica II, Facultad de Psicología.Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Campus de Somosaguas. 28223 Madrid (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1957, Skinner, in his “Verbal Behavior”, proposed an explanation on how a language is learned. In 1959, Chomsky strongly argued the non-learnability of language, establishing in the field of developmental psycholinguistics the substitution of the term “learning” for that of “acquisition”. Currently, the constructivist models describe language acquisition as a process of ontogenetic, gradual, complex, and adaptive change. This new theoretical framework has been especially useful for rereading Verbal Behavior because it facilitates recovering the Skinnerian learning mechanisms. This can be observed in the recent research trends that recapture reinforcement and imitation (echoic responses), although they are now located in the initial phases of the process and are included in a cognitive dynamic that, by gradually increasing its complexity, can achieve grammar. The new constructivist theoretical framework, by retrieving the functional and referential aspects of language, can also take advantage of the classic Skinnerian proposal about the pragmatic types of verbal behavior, providing it with new meaning.

En 1957 Skinner, en su obra Conducta Verbal, propuso una explicación sobre cómo se aprende un lenguaje. En 1959 Chomsky argumentó contundentemente la no aprendibilidad del lenguaje instaurando en el ámbito de la psicolingüística evolutiva la sustitución del término aprendizaje por el de adquisición. En la actualidad los modelos constructivistas describen la adquisición del lenguaje como un proceso de cambio ontogenético, gradual, complejo y adaptativo. Este nuevo marco teórico ha resultado especialmente idóneo para la re-lectura de la Conducta Verbal porque permite cierta recuperación de los mecanismos de aprendizaje skinnerianos. Esto se manifiesta en las recientes líneas de investigación que recuperan el refuerzo y la imitación (respuestas ecoicas) aunque localizándolos en las fases iniciales del proceso e incluyéndolos en una dinámica cognitiva que, al aumentar gradualmente su complejidad, puede llegar a obtener una gramática. Además, el nuevo marco teórico constructivista, al recuperar las vertientes funcionales y referenciales del lenguaje, puede aprovechar la clásica propuesta skinneriana sobre los tipos pragmáticos de conducta verbal, dotándola de un nuevo sentido.

Keywords

Language LearnabilityImitationReinforcementSkinnerAprendibilidad del LenguajeImitaciónReforzamientoSkinner
Type
Complutense University Celebration of B.F. Skinner's Centennial (1904-2004)
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , November 2004 , pp. 161 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bedau, M. A. (2003). Artificial life: Organization, adaptation and complexity from the bottom up. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 505–512.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beer, R.D. (2000). Dynamical approaches to cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 91–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bohannon, J., & Stanowick, L. (1988). The issue of negative evidence: Adults' responses to children's language errors. Developmental Psychology, 24, 694–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R., & Hanlon, C. (1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech. In Hayes, J.R. (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 11–53). NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1975). From communication to language: A psychological perspective. Cognition, 3, 255–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Call, J., & Carpenter, M. (2003). On imitation in apes and children. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 26, 3325–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language 35, 1, 26–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. (1977). Psychologists on Psychology. NY: Taplinger.Google ScholarPubMed
Decety, J., & Sommerville, J.A. (2003). Shared representations between self and other: A social cognitive neuroscience view. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 527–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elman, J.L. (1993). Learning and development in neural networks: The importance of starting small. Cognition, 48, 71–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elman, J.L., Bates, E., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, C., Bellugi, U., & Brown, R. (1963). Control of grammar in imitation, comprehension, and production. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2, 121–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallo, P. (1994a). ¿Se adquiere un lenguaje sin esfuerzo? Las dificultades que plantea una lengua pro-drop. In Ornat, S. López, Gallo, P., Fernández, A., & Mariscal, S., La adquisición de la lengua española (pp. 24–46). Madrid: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Gallo, P. (1994b). Adquisiciones en torno al imperativo: lo que se aprende dando órdenes. In Ornat, S. López, Gallo, P., Fernández, A., & Mariscal, S., La adquisición de la lengua española (pp. 47–58). Madrid: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K. (1973). Explorations in the function of language. London. Arnold.Google Scholar
Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W.T. (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569–1579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jusczyk, P.W. (1997). The discovery of spoken language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lecanuet, J.P., & Granier-Deferre, C. (1993). Speech stimuli in the fetal environment. In Bardies, de Boysson, de Schonen, S., Jusczyk, P., MacNeilage, P., & Morton, J. (Eds.), Developmental neurocognition: Speech and voice processing in the first year of life (pp. 237–248). Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E., Behrens, H., Spears, J., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Early syntactic creativity: A usage-based approach. Journal of Child Language, 30, 333–370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lieven, E., Pine, J.M., & Baldwin, G. (1997). Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language, 24, 1, 187–219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
López Ornat, S. (1991). El lenguaje en la mente. In Mayor, J. & Pinillos, J.L. (Series Eds.) & Serrano, M.M. & Siguán, M. (Vol. Eds.), Tratado de psicología general: Vol. VI. Comunicación y Lenguaje (pp. 443–462). Madrid: Alhambra Universidad.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (1994). La adquisición gramatical: un esquema. In Ornat, S. López, Gallo, P., Fernández, A., & Mariscal, S., La adquisición de la lengua española (Chap. 8). Madrid: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (1996). Mecanismos de adquisición morfosintáctica. In Pérez-Pereira, M. (Ed.), Estudios sobre la adquisición del castellano, catalán, eusquera y gallego (pp. 175–193). Santiago de Compostela: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (1997). What lies in-between a pre-grammatical and a grammatical representation? In Glass, W.R. & Pérez-Leroux, A.T. (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on the acquisition of Spanish (pp. 3–20). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (1999). La adquisición del lenguaje: nuevas perspectivas. In de Vega, M. & Cuetos, F. (Coords.), Psicolingüística del español (pp. 469–533). Madrid: Trotta.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (2001). Fillers: How much do they generalize? Journal of Child Language, 28, 266–268.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
López Ornat, S. (2003a). Learning earliest grammar: Evidence of grammar variations in speech before 22 months. In Montrul, S. & Ordóñez, F. (Eds.), Linguistic theory and language development in Hispanic languages (pp. 254–274). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (2003b). Problemas ficticios y problemas reales sobre el desarrollo gramatical. Comentario. Cognitiva, 15, 177–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López Ornat, S., Gallo, P., Fernández, A., & Mariscal, S. (1994). La adquisición de la lengua española. Madrid. Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2002). The gradual emergence of language. In Givón, T. & Malle, B. (Eds.), The evolution of language (pp. 1–28). Philadelphia, Benjamins.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M. (1998). The acquisition of grammar. In Damon, W. (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2. Cognition, Perception and Language (5th ed., pp. 421–466). NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Marcus, G.F. (1999). Connectionism: With or without rules? Trends in Cognitive Science, 3, 168–170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mariscal, S. (1997). El proceso de gramaticalización de las categorías nominales en español. Doctoral dissertation. Microfile ISBN: 84-7477-740-2. Madrid: Autonomous University of Madrid.Google Scholar
Mariscal, S. (2001). ¿Es “a pé” equivalente a Det+N?: sobre el conocimiento temprano de las categorías gramaticales. Cognitiva, 13, 1, 35–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mateo, M.A. (2000). El objeto de la psicología como sistema dinámico. Boletín de Psicología, 68, 7–30.Google Scholar
McClelland, J.L., & Plaut, D.C. (1999). Does generalization in infant learning implicate abstract algebra-like rules? Trends in Cognitive Science, 3, 166–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pérez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines and the child's analysis of language: Insights from the blind. Journal of Child Language, 21, 317–337.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pérez-Pereira, M., & Castro, J. (1994). El desarrollo psicológico de niños ciegos en la primera infancia. Barcelona, Paidos.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1981). El papel de la imitación en la formación de la representación. Monografías de Infancia y Aprendizaje, 2, 229–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M. (1994). The language of primary caregivers. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. (Eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 15–37). Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J., & Lieven, E. (1997). Slot and frame patterns in the development of the determiner category. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 123–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S. (1987). The bootstrapping problem in language acquisition. In MacWhinney, B. (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 399–441). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Plunkett, J. (1993). Making nets work hard. Mind & Language, 8, 549–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, J. (1995). Connectionist approaches to language acquisition. In Fletcher, P. & MacWhinney, B. (Eds.), The handbook of child language (pp. 36–72). Oxford, UK: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Quartz, S.R., & Sejnowski, T.J. (1997). The neural basis of cognitive development: A constructivist manifesto. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 20, 537–596.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rivière, A. (1991). Objetos con mente. Madrid: Alianza.Google Scholar
Seidenberg, M.S. (1997). Language acquisition and use: Learning and applying probabilistic constraints. Science, 275, 1592–1603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. NY: Appleton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[Spanish translation: Conducta Verbal. Mexico, Trillas (1957).].Google Scholar
Smith, P., Nix, A., Davey, N., López-Ornat, S., & Messer, D. (2003). A connectionist account of Spanish determiner production. Journal Child Language, 30, 305–331.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, K., & Ferguson, C. (1977). Talking to children: Language input and acquisition. Cambridge, MA: CUP.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2000). Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74, 209–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar