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Chomsky vs. Skinner. Skinner, a behavioural psychologist
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Skinner, a behaviouralpsychologist any acquisition was due to a learning process involving the shaping of grammar into a correct form by the re-enforcement of other stimulus, correct grammar is positively re-enforced and will be used in the future, and incorrect grammar is negatively re-enforced and will be not be used again. Chomsky a linguist human grammar acquisition is an innate biological ability that all humans possess, and viewed some form of `generative grammar' which he felt could explain the rapid acquisition and creative nature of grammar and language.
B.F Skinner • Behavioural Psychologist: underlying mental processes are not observable and thus invalid. • No underlying meaning to words • verbal behavior was due to the conditioning that occurs between the words and reinforcement through stimulus • If a person asks for a glass of water, she gets one • social reinforcement in the form of praise and encouragement • past experiences of verbal behavior determine whether it will be used again • Verbal Operant Conditioning • Five Verbal Operants: Mands, Tacts, Ethoics, Textuals and IntraVerbals • grammatical acquisition using an Autoclitic
Mand: command or request is met with production (comMAND, deMAND) Tacts: based on child's reference to non-verbal objects with praise for correct naming i.e. child says "cat" and mother says "good girl, that is a cat". Echoic: imitation of speech and can be reinforced by a variety of means including "repeat after me". Textual: learning to read through positive stimulus Intraverbal: word association, whereby one word controls which other word follows or precededs—table / chair
Autoclitic A form of commentary on one of the Verbal Operants Autoclitics have Verbal Operant qualities Example: Tact: Harry bought a house. Echoic: I hear that Harry bought a house. Text: I read in the paper that Harry bought a house. • Correct Verbal Operant and Autoclitic comment (correct grammar) are positively reinforced (praise, results) • Incorrect grammar is negatively reinforced • Analyzing language through verbal operants and autoclitic parts is very complex
Noam Chomsky • an infant enters this world predisposed to learning a language fluently • In human biological make-up • “Generative Grammar”: limitless generation of meaning • finite set of rules operating on a finite vocabulary to generate an infinite number of acceptable grammatical sentences and no un-acceptable ones • from a small number words, using rules, humans create limitless meaning
transformational grammar: surface structure (language person actually uses) patterned on deep structure (acquisition of rules) once a child can master these rules and transformations, it has the ability to create and expand on his/her grammar by using these rules to create new sentences that it has not heard before
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