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MS. DANICA D. DUCSA, LPT

 Language
It is an attribute that sets humans apart from all other creatures and
binds humans together across all geographic barriers.

Language can be the tool for great achievement in any discipline.

Language helps in the formation of concepts, analysis of complex

ideas, and to focus attention on ideas which would otherwise be
difficult to comprehend.

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BEHAVIORAL
THEORY
B.F. Skinner

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Burrhus Frederic Skin
(1904 – 1990)

• American psychologist, inventor,

social philosopher, poet
• Bachelor: English Literature
(Hamilton University)
• Master: Psychology
(Harvard University)
• Doctorate: Psychology
(Harvard University)
• Professor of Psychology in Harvard
University
• Proponent of Behaviorist Theory

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 BEHAVIORAL
THEORY

He is a man who opposes Chomsky's linguistic

theory with his behaviorist approach.
Skinner believes that behavior explains the
speaker's verbal activity as an effect of
environmental contingencies.
According to him, reinforcement of appropriate
grammar and language would therefore lead to a
child's acquisition of language and grammar.

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 BEHAVIORAL
THEORY

A child acquires language when relatively

unpatterned vocalizations, selectively reinforced
gradually assume forms which produce appropriate
consequences in a given verbal community.
According to Skinner, a child acquires language
when relatively unpatterned vocalizations,
selectively reinforced gradually assume forms which
produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal
community.

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 BEHAVIORAL
THEORY

He believed that a sentence is merely part of a

behavior chain each element of which provides a conditional
stimulus for the production of the succeeding element
(Fador, Bever and Garrett).
The probability of a verbal response was contingent on
four things: reinforcement, stimulus control, deprivation,
and adverse stimulation.
The interaction of these things in a child’s environment
would lead to particular associations, the basis of all
language.

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 BEHAVIORAL THEORY
suggests that…

• Behaviors, such as acting, thinking, and feeling, can be

scientifically observed and measured
• Language, as a behavior, is a set of habits acquired by
operant conditioning and reinforcement
• Language
-is as a subset of other learned behaviors a set of
associations between meaning and word, word and phoneme,
and statement and response,
-is learned or conditioned through association between a
stimulus and the following response
-is a verbal behavior modified by the environment

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 OPERANT
CONDITIONING

Skinner Box aka operant conditioning chamber is used to contain

animals such as rats or pigeons
• study behavior conditioning (training)by teaching a subject animal to
perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli. If
the subject correctly performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers
food or another reward
• the mechanism delivers a punishment for incorrect or missing responses

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 OPERANT
CONDITIONING

Operant Conditioning
• If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual. Thus, children
produce linguistic responses that are reinforced, and loses those that are left out 10

Reinforcer- any event that increases the probability of occurrence of a preceding

behavior
Positive Reinforcer- benefits the person receiving it. Examples: praising ,
repetition , frequent exposure , material reward
Negative Reinforcers- has no value to the person receiving, causes the recipient to
try to escape from it. Examples: physical punishment, discomfort ,criticism and scolding

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 CONCLUSION
• Language is a behavior.
• As a behavior, it requires reinforcers and
stimuli from the environment.
• Reinforcers may be positive or negative,
primary or secondary.
• Languages can be unlearned by putting away
the stimuli/reinforcers

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