The Behavior Analyst 1982, 5, 9-19 No. 1 (Spring) Can Linguistics Contribute to the Study of Verbal Behavior? Pere Julia Harvard University A number of publications during the last decade reveal a growing interest in linguistics and psycholinguistics among some radical behaviorists, who have proposed a direct rapprochement between a formal analysis of language and a functional account. It is argued that whereas function has to do with the circumstances under which verbal behavior is emitted, structure has to do with its "internal organization," the ways in which sentences or parts thereof are presumably interrelated. These are said to be different dimensions of verbal behavior; together they should lead toward a coherent psychology of language. But psychologists bent on in- corporating techniques from linguistics should be aware of its underlying assumptions, lest their work be deflected in essentially unproductive directions. The line between rapprochement and subservience is thin in- deed, as the extant literature shows. This paper traces the development of mainstream contemporary psycho- linguistics and examines the linguist's assumptions about the subject matter in the light of a behavioral analysis. The possibility of an effective reconciliation seems to be a long way off. A recent article in The Behavior underlies the learning of such terms as Analyst concludes that a terminology toy, clothes, furniture and the creative use based on the notion of generalization of language in general, i.e., class has advantages over other ter- The capacity . to understand and to produce minologies. Concepts, categories, and the sentences we have never heard before like, are to be rejected because they We further read, bring the psychologist to ignore the dependence . on the nature of the original entities. This may ... this capacity appears to stanid behind the psycho- be the reason why some of the treatments of so- logical reality of syntactic categories, such as the called cognitive psychologists are methodologically category of noun or of verb phrases . such unsatisfactory. (Stemmer, 1980) syntactic categories must be available for children in order to enable them to learn a generative gram- mar. This should hardly come as a sur- (p. 47) prise to the behavior analyst. Stemmer So, when it comes to language we still draws a distinction between "normal" need categories after all! The explicit generalization classes, which are strongly reference given is Chomsky (1965). Is not determined by genetic factors, and "un- language a form of behavior? common" generalization classes, which Statements of the sort are merely symp- are determined, to a great extent, by ex- tomatic of a broader trend. It was not so perience. (Why so bold a tone for the long ago that the Journal of the Ex- former and so guarded a style for the lat- perimental Analysis of Behavior pub- ter?) The author brings his discussion to a lished the following sentences: "It may be close with a brief reference to language. more accurate to say that some internal Rather surprisingly, he does so in terms of trace or representation may serve as a the capacity to acquire uncommon cue" and "S(ubjects) learned a represen- generalization classes, which play a fun- tation of the sentence" (cf., Branch & damental role in human life, especially in Malagodi, 1980, for more). language acquisition. This capacity, It is perhaps not too far-fetched to sug- which in his view has been neglected, gest that this "sudden" fascination with internal cues, mental representations, capacities, and so on, has been greatly A shorter version of this paper was presented at the facilitated, at least among radical be- annual meeting of the Association for Behavior haviorists, by early attempts to translate a Analysis, Milwaukee, WI, May 1981. Requests for certain brand of of reprints should be addressed to the author: Depart- formal analysis ment of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard natural language into behavioral terms University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. (Catania, 1972). After discussing the 9 10 PERE JULIA status of such formal concerns as linguistics to F. de Saussure (1916), who language universals, transformations, conceived language as "a system where syntax and semantics, hierarchical everything is related to everything else and organization, linguistic competence, etc., which recognizes no rule but its own." Catania summarized his position as Subsequent developments have been follows, predicated on this view of the subject mat- The controversy between cognitive and behavioral ter to this very day. accounts is in part simply a matter of speaking of the Structuralism is brought about by the same things in different ways. But sometimes also, need to go beyond individual speech ut- as when we fail to distinguish between structural and functional problems, controversies arise because we terances and zero in on features shared by mistakenly speak of different things as if they were the members of a speech community. the same. (p. 15) Thus viewed, language becomes an abstraction; but the study of language as Only a year later Catania (1973) writes. an abstraction is hardly an improvement It is not unfashionable these days to be a mentalist; on previous practices and forces similar only dualism is reprehensible. In fact, the possibility of an internally consistent mentalism is conceptual and methodological twists. implicit in the notion that a behavioral translation of When the description of the so-called mental or cognitive vocabularies is feasible. (p. 441) "system" is brought to bear on the actual . psychogenesis must deal with the development activity of speakers and listeners, one in- of the organism's behavioral or mental capacities; evitably brings in ostensibly undemon- this is what the psychology of learning is supposed to strated notions. Thus, de Saussure's la be about. (p. 441) langue, the system, is only part of the Conciliatory repertoires must have been over-all verbal phenomenon, le langage, at an unusually high strength at the time. which is then referred to a faculte de Segal (1975) is perfectly aware that langage. This faculty of language makes possible la parole, the speech of in- . .the direction of research on verbal behavior, dividuals which constitutes, so to speak, the different kinds of data that behaviorists and psycholinguists collect, the different methods of the data from which la langue or abstract collecting them, and the different conclusions drawn system is abstracted. from them (p. 158) Under the leadership of L. Bloomfield, structural linguistics in America eschewed differ; even so she writes: the mentalistic outlook and emphasized ... the languages, the linguistic and the behavioral, the actual speeh utterances. For this are roughly equivalent, that is they display com- reason, as well as for his stand on the parable respect for the phenomenal complexities "problem" of meaning, much has been of grammatical processes. (p. 154) made in recent years of Bloomfield's It is perhaps only natural that behaviorism. It is true that in his attempt psychologists concerned with verbal to set up an autonomous science of behavior turn to the linguist for help. But language Bloomfield insisted on dispens- incorporation of techniques and pro- ing with what he called "random theoriz- cedures from another field is always a ing," "teleological explanations," and delicate matter-one that should not be "premature psychologizing." But does taken lightly. So it is probably reasonable that alone make him a behaviorist? to ask whether linguistics can contribute While he often appealed to terms to the study of verbal behavior. To like "stimulus," "situation," and answer this question we must look closely "response," the case has been overstated. at the nature of the linguist's data, what What Bloomfield had to say about mean- he does with them and, above all, what ing was often inconsistent and ultimately are his underlying assumptions about the proved less than constructive: in one case, subject matter. meaning is the situation in which the speaker utters a linguistic form and the THE STRUCTURAL OUTLOOK response it evokes in the listener; in Origins another, meaning would embrace rela- It is customary to trace structuralism in tions between speech forms, on the one LINGUISTICS 11 hand, and objects, events, and the per- teraction. In the words of Harris and sons participating in the speech event, on Voegelin (1953), the other. Rather surprisingly, he also in- As long as our informant repeats what he said, or cludes relations between speech forms and even what we have said, or as long as he repeats the other speech forms. Elsewhere Bloom- morphemes we seek in a repetition of the environ- field (1927) takes Jespersen (1924) to task ment in which we are interested, we have an ut- terance of the language, that is, a combination of for considering forms apart from mean- and of the ing and "the actual necessities and conve- phonemes morphemes language. (p. 66) niences of communication," which do not This is "one of the indications that we include the "thoughts and feelings of are dealing with authentic linguistic speakers. " In Bloomfield's view, these material." "Environment" here means, are a matter ofparole; since prediction of of course, linguistic environment, not en- what somebody will say and how he will vironment in the behavioral sense. Harris say it is not possible (as he put it), and Voegelin's classic paper is a plea to go linguistics must concentrate on langue, beyond