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Home , Leonard Bloomfield, Verbal behavior

ISSN 1413-389X Temas em Psicologia – 2007, Vol. 15, no 2, 161 – 172

Skinner’s Definition of Verbal Behavior and the Arbitrariness of the Linguistic Signal

Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/University of Massachusetts Medical School- Shriver Center

Abstract The linguistic of the arbitrariness of the linguistic signal is at the center of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior. The role of the conventions of the verbal community, instead of mechanical and geometrical principles, in establishing the contingent relation between the verbal response and its consequences constitutes the crucial distinction between verbal and non- verbal behavior. A change of emphasis on the elements in the definition of verbal behavior from the agent of , the listener, to the criterion for reinforcement, the conventions of the verbal community, is advocated. The concept of the arbitrariness of has its origins in ancient Greek and was kept alive through an uninterrupted tradition that reached . Skinner’s formulation of verbal behavior was influenced by that tradition, especially in the version presented by the linguist Leonard Bloomfield. Keywords: Definition of verbal behavior, Distinction verbal/non-verbal behavior, Arbitrariness of the linguistic signal, Skinner, Bloomfield.

Much has been written about Skinner’s the differences in complexity, verbal approach to verbal behavior, which has behavior is considered to be the realm been evaluated as either innovative and where science can possibly find differences revolutionary or inadequate and between the behavior of men and other problematic (see e.g. Hayes, Blackledge, & animals (p. 442). Barnes-Holmes, 2001; Leigland, 1997; Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957, p. 1- Moore, 2008, p. 162; Osborne, 2003). This 2) clarifies the of the phrase “non- paper analyses Skinner’s definition of mechanically effective”: while a non-verbal verbal behavior, examines its boundaries, response is reinforced according to the and suggests a change of emphasis in its geometrical and mechanical relations that elements; discusses especial problems on its properties have with the environment, a the study of verbal behavior raised by the verbal response acts indirectly upon the conventional nature of the relations environment through the mediation of a encompassed by its contingencies of listener. In spite of the inclusion in this reinforcement; and briefly presents one root broad definition not just of language, but of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior also of gestures, drawing, etc., Skinner took on philosophical and linguistic discussions vocal verbal behavior based on , of language, especially in the concept of the generally English, as his main data (p. 14), arbitrary nature of the linguistic signal. and in practice confined his analysis to it. Key elements of Skinner’s distinction Explicit restrictions were soon added to the between verbal and non-verbal operants definition: “the ‘listener’ must be already appear in The Behavior of responding in ways which have been Organisms (Skinner, 1938): (a) Verbal conditioned precisely in order to reinforce responses are “non-mechanically effective” the behavior of the speaker” (Skinner, in contrast with the responses that produce 1957, p. 225). Verbal behavior is shaped by their reinforcement by acting upon the a verbal environment in which people environment (p. 50); (b) The verbal field is respond in ways which are characteristic of “defined as that part of behavior which is the group to which they belong (p. 226). reinforced only through the mediation of These ways are the language of the another organism” (p. 116). In addition to community (p. 36), the languages studied

Maria de Lourdes R. F. Passos - E-mail: [email protected]. 162 Passos, M. L. R. F.

by the linguist (p. 461). Verbal behavior frequency, its energy and pitch level arises from the interaction between speaker (Skinner, 1957, p. 22)- arise from the and listener related to the practices of the relation that they maintain with the verbal community– its language (p. 226). consequences of this behavior, and this The definition of verbal behavior in relation has a particular nature. It is not Skinner’s Upon further reflection (1987) is described by geometrical and mechanical very clear about the relationship between principles, but by the ones that describe the verbal behavior and languages: “Verbal language, the collection of the conventional behavior is behavior that is reinforced practices of a verbal community. Thus, the through the mediation of other people, but properties of verbal behavior are selected only when the other people are behaving in by the environment according to the ways that have been shaped and maintained conventions of the language, and a listener by an evolved verbal environment, or is a necessary mediator due to the inability language” (p. 90). of verbal behavior to achieve practical For now we will be talking about consequences by itself. Verbal behavior has verbal behavior based on languages, but little environmental support and constraint, later we will return to the broader with its limits dictated by the compatibility definition. of the topographies involved in its many Skinner characterized and and various forms, the need to reach the distinguished verbal from non-verbal listener, and, above all, by the conventions behavior by means of two interrelated of the verbal community. In this way the criteria: (1) The properties of the verbal critical distinction between verbal and non- operant do not relate it to its consequences verbal behavior lies in the criterion of through the geometrical and mechanical reinforcement, not in its source or agent, principles that describe the organization and because this criterion gives rise to the functioning of the physical environment, properties that distinguish verbal from non- but through the practices of the verbal verbal behavior. According to Skinner community; (2) The consequences of verbal (1957,1987), vocal verbal behavior: (1) is behavior are presented through the executed at an energy level not related to mediation of a listener, whose behavior of the magnitude of the effect it achieves in presenting the consequences was the environment (Skinner, 1957, p. 204); conditioned according to these practices. (2) is normally very fast (p. 205); (3) The two criteria were presented together, frequently receives intermittent and delayed but while the reinforcement through the reinforcement (p. 205); (4) has its effects listener had been frequently stated, the lack multiplied by reaching many listeners (p. of geometrical and mechanical relations 206); (5) does not depend on vision to be between verbal behavior and its effective (Skinner, 1987, p. 80); (6) does consequences, though not denied, has been not involve the use of the hands (p. 80); (7) much more rarely mentioned. Even more has available a great variety of speech rarely mentioned is the role of the language sounds (p. 80); (8) allows easy comparison of the community in conditioning the between emitted and heard sounds making listener’s behavior. That language is it possible to achieve great similarity referred to much more often by the between them (p. 80); (9) is learned by somewhat vague expression “the practices means of product duplication, which is of the verbal community”. Almost never highly precise (p. 80). highlighted is that the presentation of the consequences by the listener is contingent The verbal environment and upon the presence in the speaker’s behavior of the properties that are conventionally the boundaries of the definition of characteristic of the language of the verbal verbal behavior community. Because the relations involved in the The essential properties of verbal contingencies that shape verbal behavior behavior – its form (the topographies that are conventional, arbitrary, they need to be integrate the operant ), the probability kept stable and to be taught by the verbal of a given form of response, its over-all community. The conditioning of the listener

Skinner’s Definition of Verbal Behavior 163 consists mainly in the establishment of programmed by the experimenter (Michael discriminative control by the phonetic & Mallot, 2003; Hayes, Blackledge & forms over his operant behavior. This Barnes-Holmes, 2001). Verbal also would control includes the arbitrary relations that be the behavior of the dog whose barking or link phonetic forms to meanings in the sitting by the door had been reinforced by language: On hearing Give me the doll, the the opening of it by someone (Michael & listener must give the doll and not the table. Mallot, 2003). If the consequences are The discriminated repertoire of the listener arranged or delivered by humans, so the under control of verbal stimuli transforms behavior selected is verbal. Skinner’s him automatically into a teacher of verbal definition of verbal behavior has been behavior, into someone who can shape and criticized as being in fact so broad as to maintain a speaker’s verbal behavior. The encompass actually all operant listener will reinforce the speaker’s verbal experimental studies and as being not behavior that presents the forms contained functional because, instead of turning to the in the arbitrary relations that are history of the organism of interest (the conventional in the verbal community. speaker), it would turn to the history of Although the lack of geometrical and another organism (the listener) (Hayes, mechanical relation of the verbal response Blackledge & Barnes-Holmes, 2001). to its consequence had been mentioned in The narrower interpretation appears to the literature as the critical feature of verbal do more justice to what Skinner apparently behavior (e.g. Lee, 1984), the mediating meant. In The behavior of organisms (1938) role of the listener has been more he presents, as one of the reasons for emphasized, giving rise to some choosing pressing the lever by the rat as the misconceptions, like the misunderstanding operant in the experimental situation that he that the behavior of the rat in pressing the will study, the fact that pressing the lever is bar is verbal because it is reinforced not like verbal behavior, given that it acts through the experimenter, trained by his upon the environment (p. 50). The note in scientific community to do so, and who Verbal Behavior probably refers to shaping would be acting as a listener (Hayes, by hand (Peterson, 2004) and to Blackledge & Barnes-Holmes, 2001). A experiments where the reinforcer is footnote in Verbal Behavior started this contingent upon response properties misconception: arbitrarily defined by the experimenter, Our definition of verbal such as raising the head at certain height, behavior, incidentally, includes the irrespective of any kind of effect in the behavior of experimental animals environment (Skinner, 1953, p. 91-92). In where are supplied both cases the immediate cause for the by an experimenter or by an delivering of the reinforcer is not the action apparatus designed to establish of the response in the environment, but the contingencies which resemble those action of a special listener, the maintained by the normal listener. experimenter. The animal and the experimenter comprise a small but genuine verbal If we test the experimental animal and community. (Skinner, 1957, dog examples against the two interrelated footnote 11, p. 108) criteria that fully define verbal behavior they will fail the test and not qualify as This understanding has been kept in such. It is true that in all of these cases there our field in two forms: in a narrower sense, is another organism involved, at different whose content is not clearly specified levels depending on the example, in the (Osborne, 2003), the behavior seems to be delivery of the consequences. But the considered verbal only in those situations delivery of consequences is not contingent where the experimenter is personally upon the presence in the animal’s behavior delivering the reinforcement; in a broader of properties that are characteristic of the sense, the behavior of interest in animals in practices of a verbal community. Instead, in operant experiments is considered to be most of the cases, the delivery of verbal just because the reinforcer is consequences is contingent upon some

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relation of the behavior with the physical behavior. And it is just not true that the environment. experimenter and the animal, or the human The properties of pressing the lever – and the dog, constitute a “genuine verbal e.g. the rate, magnitude, and topographies community”, because a verbal community of responses - are selected by the is constituted by organisms plus a set of environment according to the mechanical conventional practices, which are shared by and geometrical relations that they have the community and transmitted through with the experimental apparatus, qualifying generations (Bloomfield, 1933/1961, p. 42; this operant as non-verbal. In spite of the Skinner, 1957, p. 226, 461, 1987, p. 75). experimenter’s arranging the contingencies, The distinction between verbal and they work according to geometrical and non-verbal behavior is more properly mechanical principles. Even in the case of established through the criterion by which shaping, the moving criterion of the environment selects the properties of reinforcement is defined by the the response: If the selected properties of experimenter in general (see e.g. Skinner, the response are described by the 1953, p. 91-93; Donahoe & Palmer, 2004, mechanical and geometrical relations that p. 116-117), although not necessarily, they have with their consequences, the according to the relation of the behavior to behavior is not verbal; if the description of the physical environment, not according to these properties specifies the conventions of the conventional practices of a community. a verbal community, it is verbal. Maybe The similarity between the situations instead of stressing the role of the listener, of verbal behavior related to languages and our definition should be something like the behavior of interest in experimental this: Verbal behavior is operant behavior animals or in barking and sitting dogs is whose properties are selected according to quite limited. On one hand, those situations the conventions of a verbal community. share the characteristic of having another This definition would be along the lines organism mediating the reinforcement. On suggested by Skinner, particularly in his the other hand, the absence of a verbal study on the evolution of verbal behavior community in the case of non-human (1987, p. 75), where he analyzed an animals deprives their behavior of imaginary example of two men fishing: A important characteristics of verbal pulls and pushes the net from the water behavior: (a) There is no verbal community following the vocal response of B, who to whose complex and rich conventional observers when a fish is caught in the net. practices (its language) the behavior of the On deciding when B’s vocal behavior can animals should conform. As a consequence, be properly called verbal, Skinner did not the forms of their behavior under choose the alternative “when it was first consideration are not richly differentiated strengthened by A’s action in pulling the and they do not show the level of net (that is, when it became a vocal operant) productivity that is characteristic of verbal (1987, p. 89)”, but the one “when it was behavior; (b) There is no verbal community shaped and maintained by a verbal constituted by organisms whose behavior environment transmitted from one produces similar audible products. Thus the generation to another (when it became part animal does not have the opportunity of of a ‘language’) (1987, p. 89).” learning by imitation and modeling, and As mentioned above, the definition of functioning as the listener to its own verbal verbal behavior encompasses several kinds behavior, processes that possibly would of behavior, such as gesturing and drawing, make very fast and precise the learning of in addition to the ones that involve verbal behavior (Skinner, 1987, p. 74, 80; languages. However, “verbal” is an Donahoe & Palmer, 2004, p. 318-319). adjective whose usual meaning involves This does not mean that animals are languages. The naming of the whole set of necessarily incapable of verbal behavior, different kinds of verbal behavior with an but it does mean that a verbal community – expression more suitable for the specific a set of conventional practices characteristic one that involves languages induces the of a group – is a precondition for the understanding that a language is indeed shaping and maintenance of verbal involved whenever the expression appears.

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Verbal behavior based on languages instead of in the physical environment is comprises a realm of a rich set of referred to by linguists as “the arbitrariness phenomena because it is the product of the of the linguistic signal”. The linguistic sophisticated environments called signal is a unity of the language constituted languages. To make clear what we are by a phonetic form together with its related talking about and also to have an expression meaning. According to the physicalist to refer to these particular set of definition given by Bloomfield phenomena, maybe we should use the (1933/1961), the linguistic meaning is expression “linguistic verbal behavior”. constituted by the stimuli that regularly The arbitrariness of the relationship precedes and follows the emitted form (p. between sound and meaning in linguistic 27). verbal behavior poses specific challenges Linguistic signals have been for our research and contributes to slowing considered arbitrary since early down the accumulation of knowledge in philosophical debate (for divergences or this field. The mechanical and geometrical limiting considerations see Benveniste, principles that relate non-verbal operants to 1966, p. 49-55; Jakobson, 1990, p. 407-421; their consequences work universally in the Jespersen, 1922/2007, p. 396). Like many same way, which facilitates the other issues in Linguistics, as well as in understanding of the contingencies other sciences such as , the involved in experimental procedures. In origins of this debate are found among the addition to the contingency shaped ancient Greeks. This discussion appears in behavioral repertoire that we have in ’s as the phýsis-nómos (or relation to these principles, they are very nature-convention) debate, as opposite well described by sciences such as physics answers to a question about the origins and and mathematics. On the contrary, the functioning of : Is the connection conventions that relate verbal operants to between words and their meanings natural their consequences vary according to the and necessary, or conventional various verbal communities, and the (Bloomfield, 1933/1961, p. 4; Jakobson, researcher will find more difficult to 1990, p. 407-421; Robins, 1997, p. 23-25)? understand a procedure that involves Coseriu (1977, p. 21) considers practices of verbal communities in relation to be the first source of an to whom he has no contingency shaped unbroken tradition asserting the repertoire because he is not a member (for arbitrariness of language that extends itself the same problem in the linguistic field, see from philosophy through nascent scientific e.g. Diekhoff, 1915/1970, Aron, linguistics in the 19th century reaching to 1918/1970). In addition to this, most 20th century . Aristotle languages are insufficiently, or not at all, considered that “[e]l nombre es sonido con described by linguistics (Bloomfield, significado en razón de lo que ya está 1933/1961, p. 57, Crystal, 1997, p. 286- establecido” (quoted and translated from 287). In any case, even when the analyst is Greek to Spanish by Coseriu, 1977, p. 23). a member of the verbal community related [The name is sound with meaning in regard to the verbal behavior of interest, as to which is already established.]. According behavior analyses studies the behavior of to Coseriu, in modern wording, it means individual organisms, not the functioning of that for Aristotle the relationship between verbal communities, we will need the sound and meaning in language is descriptions of the practices of verbal historically established. Aristotle’s communities made by other sciences, was descriptive-functional (it was especially the ones made by linguistics. about how linguistic signals work), not genetic (it wasn’t about the origins of linguistic signals), and meant that words The arbitrariness of language in work by virtue of a historical tradition, not philosophical and linguistic by means of a natural and necessary inquiries of language relationship between sound and meaning. The anchoring of language in the The subsequent long journey of this conventions of the verbal community conception sometimes highlighted the

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negative component of Aristotle’s view – Two textbooks of Bloomfield, both not of necessity by nature-, sometimes the mentioned by Skinner (1979) in 1934 positive one – historically instituted (Vargas, 1992), are of interest in connecting (Coseriu, 1977, p. 24). A certain the linguistic issue of the arbitrariness of displacement of Aristotle’s descriptive- the linguistic signal to Skinner’s definition functional perspective in the direction of a of verbal behavior. The first is An genetic one soon appeared: Very often, the introduction to the study of language authors discussed the origins of the (1914), written under the influence of the tradition that established the relation psychology of Wundt (Bloomfield, between sounds and meanings. Already in 1914/1983, p. vi), and largely mentalistic in , Aristotle’s “historically respect to some more general, fundamental instituted” became “intentionally explanations of language. It was considered established”, considering the intentionality to be a scholarly synthesis of the available of the establisher of the linguistic signal. linguistic knowledge at the time, giving Subsequently, the philosophical discussion continuity to a few very good, but not up to is kept in same lines, and we see the date, existing introductions to linguistic appearance of expressions like ex arbitrio, science, such as Whitney’s Language and arbitrary, arbitrarius (p. 27). Regardless of the study of language (1867) and Strong, the fact that from the beginning of the use Logeman and Wheeler Introduction to the of the term in this context arbitrary meant study of the history of language (1891) “intentionally established or imposed”, it (Bolling, 1970/1917; Diekhoff, 1970/1915; subsequently came to mean just “not Kess, 1983). It was influential as a textbook motivated or related by nature”, which is but was superseded by the extremely not necessarily a genetic statement (p. 28). influential second one, Language (Bloomfield, 1933), and nowadays it is not Through the philosophical weave of very well known even in the field of this notion, the diversity of languages was linguistics (Kess, 1983). considered to be evidence supporting the notion of the arbitrariness of the linguistic The first chapter of the book signal (p. 28). The arbitrariness of the (Bloomfield, 1914/1983) discusses the linguistic signal was, and still is, nature and origins of language, mainly in understood as the lack of a natural causal line with Wundt’s psychology (Aron, 1918; connection (such as the one found in the Esper, 1968, p. 188-192; Kess, 1983; see relation smoke–fire) or sameness (such as also Bloomfield, 1913/1970). It presents an the one linking a thing to its image) evolutionary point of view according to between sound and meaning (or between which mental states of animals give rise to the linguistic signal and the extra-linguistic expressive movements, natural physical world) (p. 51). Even though the authors reactions (such as, e.g., a facial expression sometimes considered onomatopoeias as a of bitterness, which would have appeared as possible exception to the arbitrariness, a result of the movement of withdrawing philosophers and subsequently linguists the back of the tongue, more sensitive to also argued that they are just a few and their bitter tastes). Gesture-language (such as role in the language is not very important pointing or depicting something through (Coseriu, 1977, p. 33, 49, 55; Robins, 1997, movements, for example, a hat p. 23-24); onomatopoeias are more often characteristically used by someone) is conceived of as also arbitrary as the expressive movement weakened or differences on them from language to somewhat modified and used for language evidence (Coseriu, 1977, p. 43). communication. The relation between the gesture and what it expresses is generally From the very beginning of their apparent, such as the act of pointing, which science in the early 19th century, linguists in would have evolved from a child’s grasping general embraced the thesis of the something that he or she could not reach. arbitrariness of the linguistic signal, as did Vocal language arose from expressive the influential linguists Whitney and H. movements, and appeared when not the Paul (19th century) and Saussure and movement itself but the sound it produced Bloomfield (20th century). became the object of the attention of the

Skinner’s Definition of Verbal Behavior 167 others. Differently from most part of is much more concise about gestures and expressive movements, the sounds of vocal their relation to vocal language. Speech and language are not indicative of what they gestures are conceived of as similar kinds express. Even onomatopoeias, where there of behavior in the sense that they do not act seems to be a direct connection between the directly in the extra-linguistic world, but sound and the related experience, are very function as stimuli for a listener, whose limited in number and their forms are behavior acts directly in the extra-linguistic related to other forms of the language world (Bloomfield, 1933/1961, p. 22-27, (Bloomfield, 1914/1983, p. 81). The 38-39). In spite of some measure of absence of a natural (immediate) imitation present in gestures (for ex, two connection of sound and meaning allows fingers imitating a man walking), and thus transference of meaning and explains some similitude or natural relationship to linguistic change and the diversity of what they mean, they are mostly languages through time and space: In vocal conventional and used as an accessory to language, “there never was a stage in which language (p. 39, 144, 147). Still more than a hearer could recognize any but an in the case of gestures, “the connection of arbitrary connection between sound and linguistic forms with their meanings is sense” (Bloomfield, 1914/1983, p. 16). The wholly arbitrary” (Bloomfield, 1933/1961, form of utterances depends on the habits of p. 145) and established by the conventions the speaker’s speech community on both of the verbal community. Different words sounds and meanings: for the same meaning in different languages (for example, doll in English and boneca in … just as each language uses Portuguese) indicate the arbitrariness of the only a limited set out of the infinity relationship between form and meaning, of sounds possible to the human instead of a necessary natural relation. vocal organ, so each language Requiring some more subtlety to divides the infinitely various apprehend, but very important for the experiences of life into a limited understanding of languages, the linguistic number of classes within each of forms of different languages do not which all experiences are named by correspond to their meanings in the same the same expression. The classes so way (277ff), that is, there is not a one-to- recognized by the different one correspondence between the linguistic languages are … very different.… forms of different languages. The whole the description of the various system of the language is arbitrary, is experience-classes and of the conventional, and the way that each sound-complexes used to express language classifies the world is unique. For them, constitutes the lexicon or example, in English A person plays a guitar dictionary of a language. and A child plays with the toy; in (Bloomfield, 1914/1983, p. 90) Portuguese A person toca a guitar but A Bloomfield stressed the advantages of child brinca with the toy. The same vocal language over soundless expressive phonetic form – plays - is related in English movements. It: (1) allows more variation; to an action that a person performs with the (2) is less laborious and slow, demanding guitar and to an action that a child performs not much muscular effort; (3) depends on with the toy. In Portuguese two different hearing instead of sight, the former but not phonetic forms – toca and brinca - are the latter being almost always open for the related to each one of these two actions. incoming stimulation and independent from the necessity of turning the body The link between the conceptions (1914/1983, p. 8). of verbal behavior and the Bloomfield’s 1933 textbook Language, exceptionally influential in linguistics arbitrariness of the linguistic (Coseriu, 1986, p. 149; Hockett, 1984, signal 1999; Lepschy, 1982, p. 84-85; Robins, Skinner distinguished the non-verbal 1997, p. 237-238), briefly but fully states operant of pressing a lever down from the arbitrariness of the linguistic signal, and verbal operants on the basis that the former,

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but not the latter, has an external support (it sounds and hence are fewer in needs the lever) through which it acts upon number, and the sounds one the environment (Skinner, 1938/1991, p. produces are more like the sounds 50). Verbal behavior escapes easily from one hears than the gestures one , “because by its very makes are like the gestures one sees nature it does not require environmental (because they are seen from a support -that is, no stimuli need be present different point of view). One learns to direct it or to form important links in to gesture through movement chaining responses” (Skinner, 1957, p. 47). duplication but to speak through When responses that do not act on the product duplication, which is more environment, such as flexing a leg, are precise. (Skinner, 1987, p. 80) reinforced, “they become gestures” (Skinner, 1938/1991, p. 50). According to The relations involved in the Skinner (1938/1991, p. 50; 1957, p. 47), establishment of verbal operants are, in gestures are verbal responses, but many of general, arbitrary, reflecting the them might have originated from responses arbitrariness of the language. In all the that had practical effects in the world, and operants the relation between the verbal are extensions of these practical responses response and the reinforcer is arbitrary. (such as the traffic officer stopping a car by Also arbitrary is the relation of: (a) the a gesture that would stop someone if it aversive stimulus or deprivation and the really reached the person). Skinner (1957, verbal response, in the mand (1957, p. 35); p. 466) offers several examples in which (b) the discriminative non-verbal stimulus behavior that is mechanically effective over and the verbal response, in the tact (p. 81); someone (such as stopping a person by (c) the discriminative verbal stimulus that pressing the hand in the person’s chest) control textuals (p. 65-69) and intraverbals comes to be made in an incipient form (p. 71); (d) and the discriminative verbal (such as just extending the hand without and non-verbal stimuli that control touching the person), and acquires an effect autoclitics (p. 311). However, although in the behavior of the other, case in which it close related, verbal operants are not is a gesture and is verbal behavior. On linguistic units, in the former we will find discussing the evolution of a verbal similarity in some controlling relations. In environment, a language, Skinner (1987, p. echoics (p. 55), there is formal similarity 75) debates also the evolution of gestures. between the verbal discriminative stimuli Movements can be either physically very and the verbal response. In transcriptions similar to the situations that they mean (as (p. 69-71) the relation between the verbal the ones used to model a behavior of discriminative stimuli and the verbal opening a sliding door) or less similar, as response can be either arbitrary, as in taking they become farther from having a practical dictation or writing in a script different effect in the world and closer to becoming a from the one functioning as the verbal gesture by acting on the behavior of others discriminative stimuli, or of formal (p. 78-79). similarity as in copying from a written He mentions the advantages of vocal source through the same script. The behavior over gestures in natural selection similarity found in the relations of verbal in terms that strongly resembles discriminative stimuli and the verbal Bloomfield’s comparison: response in echoics and transcriptions Sounds are effective in the happens because their function in a dark, around corners, and when speaker’s repertoire is to build the units listeners are not looking, and they from which other verbal operants are made. can be made when the hands are These units must have formal similarity busy with other things. There are with the ones found in the verbal special advantages, however, in community. Verbal operants where there is large operant repertoires, especially formal similarity between discriminative the enormous variety of available stimuli and the verbal response allow speech sounds. Gestures are not as comparison and self-reinforcement (p. 70) conspicuously different as speech that can make their learning easier.

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The arbitrariness of the relations Because we are not able to find out the involved in verbal operants is clearly original forms of words, and also because discussed by Skinner in his approach to the the diversity of the languages of the world stimulus control in the tact. The (Skinner, 1987, p. 91), Skinner (1957, p. correspondence between the speech forms 468) argues against presenting that constitute tacts and the stimuli or onomatopoeias as an explanation for the properties of stimuli that control these origins of language based on the physical forms is not simple of being studied similarity between stimulus and response. empirically. The repertoire of tacts found in a given verbal community corresponds to the particular and arbitrary way as this Conclusion given community analyzed the non-verbal The peculiar relation of language to the world. Thus, for example, in Portuguese extra-linguistic world, embodied in the carne refers to a part of the body of notion of the arbitrariness of the linguistic animals, independently of the context to be signal, is at the heart of Skinner’s concept or not of feeding. In English two different of verbal behavior. Skinner was influenced words, meat and flesh, refer to this identical especially by Bloomfield’s discussion of aspect of the extra-linguistic reality. The the arbitrariness of language, which arbitrariness of the analysis is due partially emphasized not only the lack of any kind of to the fact that many of the properties of the natural relation between linguistic units and stimuli that control tacts can be identified their meanings, but also the ineffectiveness only by means of a verbal environment. of language in the extra-linguistic world, The control of the forms of responses by and its effectiveness in a listener. In brief, stimuli or properties of stimuli occurred in several elements raised in philosophical and an unplanned way, and there is not any linguistic debate about the arbitrariness of apparent logical necessity for which some the linguistic signal appear in Skinner’s but not other stimuli or properties have conception of verbal behavior: the acquired control on the forms: ineffectiveness of verbal behavior on the physical environment, gestures as an evolutionary precursor of vocal verbal In studying the properties of behavior and as a kind of verbal behavior, the world of things or events which the advantages of signaling by means of are responded to verbally we must vocal instead of visual ones, the lift ourselves by our own nature of the relation between sound and bootstraps; many properties of meaning in onomatopoeias, the differences nature can be identified and dealt of words in different languages and the with only through verbal practices. variety of languages as a of the Nevertheless the problem of arbitrariness of language, the lack of stimulus control in the tact can be sameness between the speech sound and the meaningfully examined. If the extra-linguistic world, the general world could be divided into many arbitrariness of the analysis and separate things or events and if we classification of the world made by could set up a separate form of languages. verbal response for each, the Bloomfield ascribed to psychology the problem would be relatively simple. task of elucidating the behavior of speakers But the world is not so easily and listeners: analyzed, or at least has not been so analyzed by those whose verbal We do not understand the behavior we must study. In any mechanism which makes people say large verbal repertoire we find a certain things in certain situations, confusing mixture of relations or the mechanism which makes between forms of response and them respond appropriately when forms of stimuli. The problem is to these speech-sounds strike their ear- find the basic units of drums. Evidently these mechanisms "correspondence." (Skinner, 1957, are a phase of our general p. 115-116) equipment for responding to

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stimuli, be they speech-sounds or Bloomfield, L. (1983). An introduction to others. These mechanisms are the study of language. studied in physiology and, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John especially, in psychology. To study Benjamins. (Original work publicated in them in their special bearing on 1914). language, is to study the psychology of speech, linguistic psychology. In Bolling, G. M. (1970). An Introduction to the division of scientific labor, the the Study of Language, by Leonard linguist deals only with the speech- Bloomfield [Resenha]. Em C. F. Hockett signal …; he is not competent to (Org.). A Leonard Bloomfield anthology deal with problems of physiology or (pp. 50-54). Bloomington: Indiana psychology. (1933/1961, p. 31-32) University Press. (Original work publicated in The Classical Weekly, 10, Skinner’s Verbal Behavior takes this 166-168, 03/26/1917). task attributed by Bloomfield to psychology. It is the first attempt in the Coseriu, E. (1977). Tradición y novedad en history of language sciences to specify and la ciencia del lenguaje. Madrid: Gredos. explain a speaker’s and listener’s repertoires by means of a scientific model Coseriu, E. (1986). Lecciones de lingüística amenable to experimental approach. general. Madrid: Gredos. Skinner’s very original contribution was to show the behavioral processes by which the Crystal, D. (1997). The Cambridge arbitrary connections between sounds and encyclopedia of language (2a ed.). meanings that constitute languages are Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University inserted in the contingencies of Press. reinforcement that shape the behavior of speakers and listeners. Diekhoff, T. (1970). An Introduction to the Study of Language, by Leonard Bloomfield [Resenha]. Em C. F. Hockett References (Org.). A Leonard Bloomfield anthology Aron, A. W. (1970). An Introduction to the (pp. 45-50). Bloomington: Indiana Study of Language, by Leonard University Press. (Original work Bloomfield [Resenha]. Em C. F. Hockett publicated in Journal of English and (Org.). A Leonard Bloomfield anthology Germanic , 14, 593-597, (pp. 54-60). Bloomington: Indiana 1915). University Press. (Original work publicated in American Journal of Donahoe, J. W. & Palmer, D. C. (2004). Philology, 39, 86-92, 1918). Learning and complex behavior. Richmond, MA: Ledgetop. Benveniste, É. (1966). Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard. Esper, E. A. (1968). Mentalism and Bloomfield, L. (1961). Language. New objectivism in linguistics; the sources of York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Leonard Bloomfield's psychology of (Original work publicated in 1933). language. New York: American Elsevier. Bloomfield, L. (1970). Elemente der Völkerpsychologie, Grundlinien einer Hayes, S. C., Blackledge, J. T., & Barnes- psychologischen Holmes, D. (2001). Language and Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschheit, cognition: Constructing an alternative by Wilhelm Wundt. [Resenha]. Em C. F. approach within the behavioral tradition. Hockett (Org.). A Leonard Bloomfield In S. C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes & B. anthology (pp. 39-43). Bloomington: Roche (Orgs.). : Indiana University Press. (Original work a post-Skinnerian account of human publicated in American Journal of language and cognition (pp. 3-20). New Psychology, 24, 449-453, 1913). York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

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Verbal Behavior, 19, 115-118.

Moore, J. (2008). Conceptual foundations Received December 2008 of . Cornwall-on- Accepted January 2009 Hudson, NY: Sloan. Published October 2009

Author’s note and Running Head I: A first version of this paper was presented at the 33th Annual Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) Convention, San Diego, 2007. I am very grateful to David E. Eckerman for his careful reading of the paper and wise suggestions. Running Head: Verbal behavior and arbitrariness of language.

Author’s note II: In September 2007 this version of my paper was submitted to the journal Behavior and Philosophy. In January 2008 the editor sent me two reviews, together with his decision not to publish the paper (Marr, 2008). “Reviewer A” stated that the connection between the first and the second half of the paper was vague, but thought the first part could be published despite disagreeing with the author’s central points about the definition of verbal behavior. “Reviewer A” said that it was:

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…helpful to distinguish two kinds of definition. When we make a mathematical model or any other kind of formal system, we have the luxury of defining our terms in advance. "A circle is a set of points in a plane equidistant from any [sic] point in that plane." But when we study nature and attempt to classify our observations, our definitions are empirical, rather than a priori. An a priori definition can cut cleanly between members of the class and nonmembers. But empirical definitions have fuzzy boundaries. "A dog is a furry quadruped that barks, chases cars, sheds on the carpet, etc." No matter how hard we work on such a definition, we will face ambiguous cases. (Is a coyote a dog? Is a coy-dog a dog?) Verbal behavior is of this sort. Classes of behavior, like classes of organisms necessarily have fuzzy boundaries. The best definition will not carve up the domain of behavior into perfectly discrete classes; rather, it will be useful. It seems to me that the definition the author settles on has this . That is, I believe the author has done a very good job of identifying a useful definition, but it is asking too much of such a definition to decide on borderline cases.… In summary, I think the author has done a very good job of summarizing Skinner's various attempts at a definition of verbal behavior and has combined them into a coherent amalgam that is particularly useful. However, I feel that the use to which the author puts this definition is open to controversy. The discussion of the topic of the arbitrariness of the signal, while of interest in its own right, seems to me to be tangential.

Yet the arbitrariness of the relations involved in verbal behavior has been stressed in recent discussions of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior. For example, Palmer (2008) recently also published a paper on this issue and his interpretation of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior - “Verbal behavior emerges in a community that maintains contingencies of reinforcement for behavior that reflects conventional but arbitrary relationships between stimuli and responses” (p. 299)- is similar to the definition of verbal behavior that my paper suggests could be formulated from Skinner’s distinction between verbal and non-verbal behavior: “Verbal behavior is operant behavior whose properties are selected according to the conventions of a verbal community.” (In philosophical and linguistic discourse about language, where the “conventional” and “arbitrary” about this issue originated, these words have basically the same usage.)

Marr, J. E-mail to the author, January, 4th 2008. Palmer, D. C. (2008). On Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 8(3), 295-307.