Principles and Weaknesses of Behaviourism in 1st Language Acquisition

The question of how language develops in children has given rise to many controversial and contradictory theories. Behaviourists were the first group to try to hypothesise this question. ‘Behaviourism’ was introduced in 1913 by the American psychologist John B. Watson. Although he is considered to be the originator of this theory, two other researchers contributed greatly to it by their research and theories. The two basic theories of ‘Behaviourism’ are the theory of ‘classical conditioning’ by Pavlov (1927) and ‘Operant Conditioning’ by Skinner (1938). 

Behaviourism Theory in 1st Language Acquisition

Here in this article, we will try to know what is behaviourism in 1st language acquisition, what are the main principles of it and all its criticisms. So, without making any delay, let’s start. 

Behaviourism Theory in 1st Language Acquisition

According to Pavlov, all behaviour could be accounted for in terms of stimuli and response. Pavlov’s experiments with animals proved that certain reflex actions can become conditioned responses to entirely new stimuli. For example, a dog’s mouth begins to water as a reflex when the animal smells meat. Pavlov rang a bell each time he was about to give meat to a dog. Eventually, the dog’s mouth began to water when Pavlov merely rang the bell. The flow of saliva had become a conditioned response to the ringing of the bell. 

Another concept is that of reinforcement. Pavlov found in his experiment that the conditioned reflex would eventually be extinguished if it was not rewarded. So, give rewards to encourage behaviour which will become entrenched and withhold rewards to weaken it and make it disappear. This is how researchers come about Behaviourism and gradually they make their idea more sharp and developed.

Main Principles of Behaviourism 

There are some principles of this theory on which this theory is standing. Without these theories, nothing could be believed and no one could accept this.

Habit Formation

The basic notion of behaviourism is that all kinds of behaviour can be made or formed through habit formation. They (behaviourists) consider language as a linguistic behaviour and think that this behaviour can also be learnt through habit formation. They are opposed to the belief that a child possesses innate abilities to learn a language.

Reinforcement & repetition

When a child learns to make a response it will have to be ‘reinforced’. If reinforcement does not take place, the piece of language, the response is not learnt. The notion of repetition is also extremely important because a word that has been uttered thirty times is better learned than one which has been said twenty times.

Environment, not Innate Ability

According to the behaviourists, there is no difference between the reason one learns a Language and the reason one learns to do anything else. The behaviourists are committed to admitting as evidence only that which can be observed. 

There is no need to postulate any complex internal endowments that allow us to learn and use language. Language is only verbal behaviour. Language learning is, therefore, controlled by the conditions under which it takes place. As long as individuals are subjected to the same conditions, they will learn in the same way. What appears to be variation in learning ability is really no more than a different learning experience. 

Stimulus-response

Every utterance and every part of an utterance is a kind of response to the presence of some kind of stimulus. The stimulus may be physically present in the situation; it may be verbal; or it may be internal.

Meaning

Another important point to be mentioned regarding behaviourist views concerns meaning. In learning a language one has to acquire both a formal and a ‘thematic’ repertoire of responses. Most behaviourists eschew use of the word ‘meaning’ altogether. To think of the meaning of a word as something built up and stored inside the individual is to imply a mental structure of some kind which the behaviourist finds objectionable and unnecessary. 

Analogy

Whether in the classroom or laboratory, behaviourist teaching relies more on analogy than on rules for teaching the structure of a language. By arranging each drill repetition the pupil is made to construct his new response along exactly the same line as his previous response. All the responses in any one drill will have exactly the same grammatical structure. With enough properly reinforced repetition of the structure, the ‘rule’ will be acquired in a way that is not only unconscious but also more conducive to spontaneous language use thereafter. 

Weaknesses of Behaviorism Theory

There are some weaknesses of this theory of language acquisition. These weaknesses are also known as problems, shortcomings, criticism and also disadvantages. Let’s see what are these weaknesses of behaviorism theory of language acquisition.

Language is a very Simple Phenomenon

The behaviourists consider language a very simple phenomenon. They make no distinction between linguistic behaviour and other aspects of behaviour. They explain the development of linguistic behaviour with a very simple process of stimulus — response — reinforcement and reorganisation. But language is a very complex phenomenon and this phenomenon is unique to man and linguistic development cannot be compared to the learning by rats how to find their food. 

Children are Passive and Shaped by Environment

The behaviourists’ notion of children to be something passive and to be shaped by the environment is also not very convincing. The reason is that children are very active and creative beings. Sometimes they produce so complex and correct sentences that cannot be considered imitation. And their brilliant responses prove that they have a very strong perception and can understand many complex expressions. 

Behaviourists deny Internal Device in Human Brain

There is a clear contradiction in this theory. Behaviourists deny any internal device in the human brain in the construction of sentences. But they admit the possibility that a child is endowed with an analogy forming mechanism.

Reinforcement and Repetition

The behaviourists’ notion of reinforcement and repetition is also doubtful. It is observed that sometimes children learn pieces of language simply by hearing. A word may be heard once or more than once but not produced by the child at the time it is heard. There is no reinforcement or repetition. In spite of this, they may suddenly produce the word quite correctly in a totally new context. 

Conclusion

Nevertheless, behaviourist ideas about language and language acquisition cannot be simply ignored. They have had such an impact on language teaching over many years. The Audiolingual method, for example, is based on the principle of ‘habit formation’ through repetition. This theory has also paved the way for the linguists for further experimentation on the subject.