LEARNING THEORIES IN RELATION TO COMMUNICATION

Behaviorism (one of the oldest theories of learning)

Premise – Behavior is shaped between stimulus and response. This theory focuses on the outcome, the
behavior, and they are not concerned with the internal mental processes.
In general according to behaviorism, language is acquired through repetition and imitation.
Focused on the outcome and overall behavior, for behaviorist accuracy is highly appreciated and a
mistake is to be corrected immediately or to be avoided. They hate mistakes when they see a negative
outcome they apply negative reinforcement to remove the mistake.

Accuracy is the opposite of fluency, behaviorists struggle for accuracy and never get to
fluency to that effect.

This all happens through the automation of chunks and patterns. Through repetition of certain phrases
and words, we are able to acquire an automation response to every situation in the stimulus language.
High frequency of repetition also helps in acquiring language.
There are patterns that are repeated everyday in terms of communication and language and according to
behaviorism the repetition of these patterns is what leads to the learning and acquiring of language.
Gives a sense of community, forms a community and keeps it together by shaping it. How people use
certain words and language patterns leads to their identity formation.
In behaviorism the role of the learner is passive.

Cognition
Here the learned plays an active role in their learning. It is also insightful and has to develop strategies
to incorporate the material into the mental faculty. Communication is not only for purposes of
transmission, it involves cognition too.
As an individual you are responsible for your own learning in cognition.
You are given new information and you have to integrate it, assimilate it and form new information on
your own self. Here you have autonomous inductive learning strategies and reasoning.
In cognition mistakes and errors are not bad things. Errors are more systemic and developmental.
Errors are seen as a natural part of the learning process. Here we don’t focus on accuracy we focus on
fluency.
Connectionism
It emerged as a result of result done in Neuropsychology. They try to equate the human brain to the
neural network. Knowledge and information are not stored as constant or static units in the brain. They
are stored as associations between elements in the brain.
Constructivism (Ferguson)
Learning new things can be done through experience or interaction.
Knowledge should not be abstract, should be applicable. This is self-directed learning, which is
building new ideas or concepts through experimentation, observation and discovery. You have to try
new things and do them on your own and make mistakes during the experimentation process.

This process stresses the importance of individuality in learning or learning outcome.

Interactionism (Symbolic Interactionism)
Language exists for the purpose of communication and can be learned through interactions. Through
interactions we can also shape our behaviors. Humans used shared language to create common symbols
and meanings.
Saussure – the father of symbols/semiotics.
Signifier <----------------> Signified
We create symbols to convey meaning and the signifier is the physical form of the signifier. The
signified refers to the concepts and meanings associated with the signifier.
Prototypical representation ;- Ideal
Shapes social behaviorism
Sometimes we use language metaphorically
a. Socio-cultural Theory (Vygotsky)
It is similar to interactionism. Learning is a social process. We construct knowledge by interacting
socially and we later integrate it and internalize it.
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT – (by Vigotsky) It is the distance between the learners
actual and potential competence.
Language is important for cognition. ZPD helps in developing mental differentiation