Assignment No 1 Q.1 There are two psycholinguistic approaches to language acquisition; Behaviorism and Mentalism.

These two theories involve the mind, but one is based on empirical observation and the other is based on pure belief. In the following I shall illustrate the details and differences between them with examples. In the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, behaviorism, a was dominating the learning/teaching scene. Behaviorism In the behaviorism, (Skinner, 1957), language acquisition is seen as any other type of learning, i.e. as the formation of habits. This view has its foundations in work in psychology which saw the learning of any kind of behavior as being based on the notions of stimulus-response-reinforcement. In this view, human beings have been regarded as being exposed to numerous stimuli in their environment to which they respond. The responses they give to such stimuli will be reinforced if successful, that is if some desired outcome is obtained. Skinners theory is based on the idea that all behavior is learned and that humans enter the world with no innate abilities. He famously said, "Give me a child, and I'll shape him into anything. His entire system is based on operant conditioning. Operant Conditioning: Conditioned Behavior is behavior which is the result of repeated training. Operant means that it is voluntary behavior; it is the result of learner's own free will, not forced by any foreign agent. The learner, in everyday activities, is in the process of operating on the environment. Operant conditioning thus studies the behaviors of humans and animals that operate on environmental factors that create negative or positive consequences. Also known as response-stimulus, operant conditioning allows the study participant to associate certain behaviors with either positive or negative consequences and learn from these consequences to eventually form an automatic response. One example was found by Edward Thorndike, who observed that cats in a puzzle box associated getting out of the maze with a food reward. This positive reinforcement shaped the behavior of the cats and conditioned them to immediately open the trap door for the reward. In a nutshell, operant conditioning works as follows: STIMULUS RESPONSE REINFORCEMENT REPETITION

What Is Operant Conditioning? Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. Operant conditioning was coined by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, which is why you may occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that internal thoughts and motivations could not be used to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior.