Beheviorism And Mentalism

República Bolivariana de Venezuela
Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Educación Universitaria
Universidad Nacional Experimental
“Simón Rodríguez”
Núcleo, Maracay. Edo. Aragua.

Carrera:Licenciatura en Educación
Mención: Docencia en Ingles.
Materia: Lingüística General

Tema: behaviorism and mentalism

Facilitador: Participante:
September 2012
Before 1960 everybody wholearnt a language learnt it through behaviorism. It was Noam Chomsky who revolutionizes linguistics with his L.A.D or language acquisition devise and universal grammar. He said that all children areborn with de L.A.D and universal grammar when they are put in a linguistics community and hear the language spoke around them, they acquire it as their native language.
It all began with the Russianscientist; Ivan Pavlov who experimented with dogs to prove that if they are well stimulated they produce a positive response. He though that human beings reacted the same way. Language teachers beganto use stimulus and response in the classroom. This gave good result.
Then came John Watson with his famous quotation of 1920: “Give me a dozen healthily infants, well-formed and my own specifiedworld to bring them up in and I will guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select, doctor, lawyer, engineers, artist or thief, regardless of histalents, abilities, or race at his ancestors; I am going toi do ir because they have done it for thousands of years. This quotation shows how Watson believed in Behaviorism without thinking ofinheritance.
Then come B. F. Skinner who wrote “verbal behavior” in 1959. He gave verbal stimulus that produced specific responses without reference to hypothetical mental structures. He mentioned sixdifferent themes. The first was emission. It exists or it doesn’t exist; the second was energy level- it was strong or weak. Then he mentioned speed. He said that ir the response was quick, it had high...