Language is one of the human capacities that has generated more debates throughout history. And, thanks to language, we can establish relationships with other people and share our knowledge about the world around us.
Because of this concern to know, many questions have arisen about its development, such as if we are born "programmed" biologically to develop the language or is acquired thanks to the external environment.
Therefore, in these next days we will see the main theories about language acquisition and development, beginning with the Theory of Behaviorism of the American psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner.
Before delving a bit into Behavioral Theory, we must emphasize that language is one of the most important differences between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom. This does not mean that animals do not know how to communicate with each other (we have already talked about the differences between communication and language), since they can use sounds and / or gestures that constitute isolated signals to transmit very specific messages.
Human language starts from a small amount of individual sounds (phonemes) with which we can build syllables or words. These, in turn, together with a series of grammar rules, allow to transmit and understand an infinite amount of messages.
Principles of Behavioral Theory
This approach, which as we have said has as one of its most important representatives the American psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner, argues that All human behaviors are governed by the general Stimulus-Response scheme.
This means that What we do has consequences that can be good or bad, being able to anticipate them to behave in one way or another.
Regarding language, the Behavioral Theory affirms that it is a behavior that works similarly to other human behaviors, such as walking or cognitive ability, and that it exists thanks to a series of stimuli that contribute to the appearance, maintenance and development of verbal behavior.
For example, we encourage our babies to make different sounds. When these approach the words mom or dad, the child discovers that all kinds of events can occur, such as smiling or holding him in his arms.
Defend that imitation is the child's ability that serves as a motor or allows access to language, together with the need to satisfy certain needs such as eating, drinking or playing.
Depending on the reinforcement they get from the environment, children will gradually change or expand their verbal emissions, making them increasingly resemble the language of adults as they grow older.
Positive and negative aspects of Behavioral Theory
Behavioral Theory does not care about the language itself, but by the preverbal stage and the context in which the child moves. Therefore, this theory, like the rest, has a series of strengths and other weaknesses.
As strengths we can point out the following:
- Behaviorism made it begin to take into account the context in which the child moves as an important aspect in the acquisition and development of language.
- Its contribution of the Stimulus-Response scheme is important.
- The most important thing about behaviorism is precisely the debate that was created around it.
- Language is a very complex aspect of the human being and this theory fails to explain it sufficiently.
- The explanations are based on animal learning, so there is a generalization of what animals do to what people do.
- Behaviorism does not contemplate any type of stage.
On the other hand, the weak points of behaviorism could be summarized in the following:
Conclusion
This approach to children's language seems not to offer many answers to the established questions about it. If it is true that your most important contribution has been the one the environment is an important mediator in language learning.
It also tells us that there is a need for the use of language that responds to the satisfaction of certain needs by children (if a child wants to eat a cookie and cannot reach it, they should ask someone for help).
Therefore, to try to complete those issues that the Theory of Behaviorism could not clarify, there are other theories about language acquisition and development which we will talk about shortly.
However, and until I see all these theories, I throw a question on the air: what do you think about language acquisition? Is it a natural or learned process?
