MULT10015 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Linguistic Modality, Behaviorism, Second Language
25 Jul 2018
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Document Summary
For second as well as first languages: language as a phenomenon of the mind/brain; language as not a product of culture or society, but of the mind and the brain, chomsky- Built on the structuralist heritage of saussure and revolutionised linguistic theory from the 1950s. Focused on human mind"s capacity for language, not the social and cultural influences of language a branch of psychology . 1959- chomsky against the behaviourist accounts of language development. Skinner"s paper of observing the behaviour of humans and connecting this to brain function- stimulus response theory. Chomsky critiqued skinner"s paper- skinner extended his theory to language acquisition (positive reinforcement) stimulus response. Chomsky said that this was not the case. A child is not a blank slate moulded by external stimulus. The mind has organs, and one organ is a language organ. Language is not taught; it is not even learned; language grows, like puberty (following birth, c. f.
