The behaviorist perspective views language acquisition as shaped entirely by environmental reinforcement and imitation. Children imitate the language they hear from others and are reinforced through praise or responses, encouraging further imitation and practice of sounds and patterns until they form habitual language use. According to this view, the quality and quantity of language a child hears, as well as consistency of reinforcement from others, shapes their language development through operant conditioning.
Original Description:
Behaviourism and conductismo adquisición de idiomas
The behaviorist perspective views language acquisition as shaped entirely by environmental reinforcement and imitation. Children imitate the language they hear from others and are reinforced through praise or responses, encouraging further imitation and practice of sounds and patterns until they form habitual language use. According to this view, the quality and quantity of language a child hears, as well as consistency of reinforcement from others, shapes their language development through operant conditioning.
The behaviorist perspective views language acquisition as shaped entirely by environmental reinforcement and imitation. Children imitate the language they hear from others and are reinforced through praise or responses, encouraging further imitation and practice of sounds and patterns until they form habitual language use. According to this view, the quality and quantity of language a child hears, as well as consistency of reinforcement from others, shapes their language development through operant conditioning.
adquisición Behaviourism / Conductismo The behaviourist perspective
• ’Tabula rasa’
• 40’s and 50’s, especially in the United States.
• B. F. Skinner. (1957) ’Verbal Behavior’
• Traditional behaviourists hypothesized that when children imitated
the language produced by those around them, their attempts to reproduce what they heard received 'positive reinforcement’
• This could rake the form of praise or just successful
communication. The behaviourist perspective
• Thus encouraged by their environment, children would
continue to imitate and practise these sounds and patterns until they formed 'habits' of correct language use.
• According to this view, the quality and quantity of the
language the child hears, as well as the consistency of the reinforcement offered by others in the environment, would shape the child's language behaviour*.
• If a child says "want milk" and a parent gives the child
some milk, the operant is reinforced and, over repeated instances, is conditioned - operant conditioning. Operant conditioning The behaviourist perspective
• The behaviourists viewed imitation and practice as the primary
processes in language development.
• Imitation: word-for-word repetition of all or part of someone else's
utterance. • Mother: Shall we play with the dolls? • Lucy: Play with dolls.
• Practice: repetitive manipulation of form.
• Cindy He eat carrots. The other one eat carrots. They both ear carrots. A behaviorist might This theory gives great consider effective importance to the language behavior to be environment as the the production of correct source of everything the responses to stimuli. child needs to learn. Referencias • Brown, D. (2014) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains USA. Pearson Longman • Lightbown, P. (2009) How Languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press