Behaviorism on Language Acquisition

Author(s)	Prof. Dr. Sanchali Banerjee
Country	India
Abstract	In the 1950s, the social sciences were dominated by Behaviorism- the school of thought popularized by J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Behaviorism viewed psychology as the science of behavior that can be objectively observed and described. Thus, behaviorism stated that the behavior can be explained scientifically without any reference of inner mental states. In other words, mentalistic concepts such as consciousness, images or mind has no place in scientific and objective study. Language development occurs in all children with normal brain function irrespective of race, culture or general intelligence. Several theories try to define the process of language learning from their own perspectives. Here we will discuss the behaviorist models as proposed by J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner in relation with language learning. Behaviorism will not accept anything over and above overt behavior. For them, all our behaviors are product of conditioning. Language, is thus for behaviorists, is a learned behavior that occurs as a result of this process. Thus, the behaviorists can be considered as the proponents of extreme empiricist model.
Keywords	Behavior, stimulus, response, reinforcement, condition, environment, operant
Field	Arts
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 1, January-February 2026
Published On	2026-02-19
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i01.69371

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