The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 1992, 10, 87-95 Verbal Behavior: The Other Reviews Terry J. Knapp University of Nevada, Las Vegas The extensive attention devoted to Noam Chomsky's review of Verbal Behavior by B.F. Skinner has resulted in a neglect of more than a dozen other rewiews of the work. These are surveyed and found to be positive and congenial in tone, with many of the reviewers advancing his/her own analysis of speech and language. The dominant criticism of the book was its disregard of central or implicit processes and its lack of experimental data. An examination of the receptive history of Verbal Behavior offers a more balanced historical account than those which rely excessively on Chomsky's commentary Verbal Behavior (1957) is B.F. Skinner's also evident in Skinner's own work. In A most distinctive work. There is reason to Matter of Consequences (1983), he men- believe it is the book that he most valued, tioned only one review, other than that and many people regard it as the most by Chomsky. original of his contributions. Open to vari- The continuing impact of Chomsky's ous readings, and carrying with it a history review is apparent in data gathered from of criticism, it continues to attract new the Science, Social Science, and Arts and readers. Its composition history is complex. Humanities Citation Indexes for the period The outline and early notes for Verbal 1972 through 1990 (see Figure 1). During Behavior originated in the mid-1930's, this nearly two decade period the review though the book itself did not appear for of Verbal Behavior by Chomsky was cited another 23 years, in 1957. Between these once for each two citations of Verbal years, aspects of the functional analysis Behavior itself. A very unusual relation- contained in the book were presented in ship between a book and a review, per- public lectures by Skinner, and in sec- haps a unique one in the history of the ondary accounts based upon his talks. social sciences. Thomas Leahey, a histo- When reactions to Verbal Behavior are rian of psychology, believes that discussed, disproportionate attention is "Chomsky's review is perhaps the single given to the critical review by Noam most influential psychological paper Chomsky (1959). For example, one com- published since Watson's Behaviorist mentator suggested that only a few manifesto of 1913" (1987, p. 347). The reviews of the work appeared, and that various attempts to lessen the impact of none of these were in psychology jour- the Chomsky review (e.g., Mac- nals (Andreson, 1990). There were, how- Corquodale, 1970) have, for the most ever, more than a dozen reviews of part, not succeeded in displacing the Verbal Behavior in journals ranging in timeliness or relevance of Chomsky's content from speech pathology to psy- comments. choanalysis, as well as reviews in the The other reviews of Verbal Behavior mainstream journals of American and died the quiet death associated with many British psychology. The lack of attention academic works. An attempt at resuscita- to the other reviews of Verbal Behavior is tion is motivated by two considerations; first, to describe the contemporary recep- Reprint requests should be sent to Terry Knapp, Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las tion of Verbal Behavior by the established Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154. psychology community and other disci- 87 88 TERRY J. KNAPP 900 800 700 -tn-- Chomsky -El--- Skinner 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 1972 1975 1980 1985 1990 Fig. 1. Cumulative number of citations of B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior and Noam Chomsky's review of the book based on the Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, 1972 to 1990. plines, and secondly, to understand some- the verbal summator study of 1936, also thing of the general stance that is taken by suggested the outlines of a functional critics in regards to a book of novel con- analysis. Secondly, something must be tent. Are the criticisms developed internal said about the state of mainstream psy- to the text itself, or are they rather con- chology in the late 1950's. The so called structed from the critics own theoretical 'cognitive revolution' was still almost a formulation? An examination of the decade away; the humanistic psycholo- receptive history of Verbal Behavior will gists had yet to organize. Academic psy- provide a context for clarifying how the chology was largely comprised of various book was, and is, understood, as well as forms of behaviorism. Spence and offering a more balanced historical Tolman were still living. The newest per- account than those which rely excessively spective in the academic psychology of on Chomsky's commentary. mid-1950's was that of Broadbent, whose Before examining the reviews them- Perception and Communication had selves two brief reminders are in order. appeared in 1953. In that same year As noted, the ideas contained in Verbal Osgood's (1953) mediational behaviorism Behavior did not come fresh to the review- had received extended treatment in his ers. The functional analysis of verbal massive Method and Theory in Experimental behavior it presented had been pre- Psychology. The invention of psycholin- viewed on a number of occasions. The guistics was underway at Harvard (see William James Lectures of 1947 at the preface to Brown, 1958). Harvard University (Skinner, 1947b), the The summer course in the same year at Reviews in Mainstream Psychologyjournals Columbia University (Skinner, 1947a) and In 1957 Contemporary Psychology, the the chapter on "Social Behavior" in Keller major journal for book reviews in psy- and Schoenfeld's Principles of Psychology chology, was only one year old-having (1950) all provided a general sketch of the been established under the impetus of E. later book. The papers on verbal behavior G. Boring the previous year. Boring Skinner had published, beginning with assigned two reviewers to Verbal Behavior. VERBAL BEHAVIOR: THE OTHER REVIEWS 89 Both of them were widely known for their ciency of Skinner's conception, not its cor- contributions to the emerging field of psy- rectness as far as it goes" (p. 210). Osgood chology of language. Their reviews is continually seeking examples from appeared sequentially in the August issue Verbal Behavior that cannot be "explained of 1958. without a mediational account," and pas- The first reviewer was Charles E. sages where Skinner is implicitly commit- Osgood, then Professor of Psychology at ting himself to such accounts.2 There is the University of Illinois.' Osgood is not nothing, according to Osgood, which short on praise for Verbal Behavior. It is would prevent a "merging" of Skinner's described as "remarkably wise and one-stage model with "representational insightful" (p. 209), a "must" read for (symbolic) mediation processes" (p. 212), those in the psychology of language (p. while still maintaining a "rigorous and 212), and "certainly one of the two or behavioristic" stance (p. 212). three most significant contributions to this Thus, Osgood finds Skinner's Verbal field in our time..." (p. 212). Verbal Behavior making many valuable contribu- Behavior is admittedly a difficult book, one tions, and he regards it as a "must" read "to be studied rather than scanned" (p. for anyone interested in "language behav- 209), and one for which the reviewer ior." However, it is not a "sufficient" admits that Part IV, The Manipulation of account because, while seemingly Verbal Behavior, especially the autoclitic, acknowledging implicit or nonverbal pro- "remained obscure...even after careful cesses, it does not explicate them, nor does study" (p. 211). it, being a single-stage theory, have the Osgood's praise is a prelude to a major requisite concepts to do so. Osgood con- criticism: the inability of a single stage cludes, "Having agreed that there are account to handle known phenomena. implicit, nonverbal processes in behavior, "...the overt R required for an objective, Skinner does not go on to explicate their single-stage account just simply may not nature and function. This is the major occur in situations where, on other insufficiency of Verbal Behavior, but it grounds, we must assume the listener has would require another book and probably 'understood' directions or the reader has one that Skinner himself would not write" silently 'comprehended' the text or the (p. 212). problem-solver has 'thought out' a solu- The second reviewer selected by Boring tion" (p. 211). It will not do to speak of was a philosopher of reputation, Charles reinforcement of a covert response for "to Morris, who "for a long time advocated a say it [a response] occurs 'covertly' can- behavioral 'nonmechanistic' approach," cels the pristine objectivity of the system which differed from that of Skinner by and eliminates any real distinction being cast in a "more general theory of between single-stage and two-stage mod- signs" (p. 213). The theory of signs origi- els" (p. 212). nated in the 19th century with the pragma- The problem for Osgood is "the suffi- tist Charles Pierce, and was continued by 'Osgood's works are worth inspecting for their cita- Morris, among others, with his Signs, tion of Skinner's views, and for an examination of the range of verbal behavior then being examined by 2The arguments which Osgood advances for the mainstream academic psychology. Method and Theory necessity of mediational variables may be found in in Experimental Psychology contains a chapter titled Osgood, 1953, pp. 392-412, especially p. 410 where he Language Behavior (Chapter 16, pp. 680 - 727). concludes "We have shown that representational Skinner's general formulation as available in the mediation processes of some kind must be postulated William James Lectures or the Hefferline Notes is not to account for the experimental and observational discussed.