Behaviourist Theories and the challenge by Chomsky

 

Behaviourist Theories

The study of Second Language Acquisition began in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The first theories to emerge derived from Behavioural Psychology studies. Behaviourism studied animal and human behaviour and the effect of the environment on behaviour. Pavlov’s conditioning of dogs to salivate in response to a sound after repeated association with food, demonstrated that when two events are linked such as food and salivating, then a third event, a sound, can produce the same response of salivation (VanPattern & Williams, 2015). Advocates of Behaviourism believed that the same association between events could explain human behaviour and that human behaviour is based on a response to their environment which is either positive or negative. Furthermore they proposed that mental processes are not involved and “all learning is seen as the acquisition of new behaviour”, (Vanpatten & Williams, 2015, p. 19). When applied to L2 (second language) learning, Behaviourists believed that the learner’s L1 (first language), would interfere with L2 acquisition and errors would occur, (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). Behaviourism viewed L2 learning as the same as L1 learning, (Ellis & Shintani, 2014).

Chomsky

The challenge of language acquisition from a cognitive perspective

The Behaviourist theory was challenged in the 1960s and 1970s by theorists including Chomsky, who argued “that L1 acquisition was distinct from other kinds of learning and could not be explained in terms of habit-formation” (Chomsky, 1959, in Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 5). Chomsky argued that “human language is too complex to be learned in its entirety” from what is available to the child, “we must therefore have some innate predisposition to expect natural languages to be organised in particular ways and not others” (Chomsky, 1959, in Mitchell, R, et al., 2019,  p. 11-12). Furthermore, Chomsky believed that learning happens inside the head and that there is an innate ability for language, he called the ‘language acquisition device’ (Chomsky, 1959, in Ellis & Shintani, 2014,  p.5). Chomsky argued that humans have a “core” of abstract knowledge that, “provides a foundation for all human languages” (Chomsky, 1959, in Mitchell,  et.al., 2019, p. 12) and the core of knowledge was called Universal Grammar or (US). The implication of this view was that humans should be able to learn any language readily. Chomsky’s approach was a foundation for cognitive and SLA research.

Chomsky’s UG has inspired theorists in the field of SLA to explore the mental representations of grammar that learners build and to understand the innate grammar knowledge that learners have. (Ortega,  2009). Interlanguage researchers believe that humans use the same “cognitive learning mechanism” (Ortega, 2009, p. 111), to learn any type of information as it helps them also learn the rules for linguistic data available to them from their environment. The internal rules were believed to evolve over time and was also seen as being independent of the L1 and L2 languages. The role of the environment, or the input was then studied by researchers.

Ellis, R. & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition. Research London: Routledge.

Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Mitchell, R, Myles, F., & Marsden, E. (2019) Second Language Learning Theories. 4 Routledge.

VanPatten, B., & Williams, J., (2015). Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction. London: Routledge.