Five Decades After Chomsky An Experienced - Based Awakening

Over 50 years ago, Noam Chomsky (1959, 1965) threw down the nativist gauntlet on language, and has withstood potshots from many quarters. His debut involved a critique of B.F Skinner’s (1957) account of language acquisition. Central to Skinner’s account was the important influence of the linguistic environment. Fundamental reinforcement principles would effect the association of spoken words with meaning. Quine (1960, 1990/1992) had not yet popularized the Gavagai challenge in which a child has to determine which of many possible meanings correspond to an uttered word. Similarly, Rescorla and Wagner had not yet broadened Rescorla–Wagner model of association learning with the concept of reinforcement as information or surprise value (Rizley & Rescorla, 1972). Skinner viewed the child as being reinforced when she realizes that a particular word has a particular meaning. The child learns to distinguish the words milk and spinach because she is reinforced to reply appropriately to her father’s request because she likes one and not the other.