The Role of Modeling and Automatic Reinforcement in the Construction of the Passive Voice

Abstract

Language acquisition has been a contentious topic among linguists, psycholinguists, and behaviorists for decades. Although numerous theories of language acquisition have surfaced, none have sufficiently accounted for the subtleties of the language that children acquire. The present study attempts to explain the role of modeling and automatic reinforcement in the acquisition of the passive voice. Six children, ages 3 to 5, participated in this study. The results indicated that the children began using the passive voice only after the experimenter modeled passive sentences. Furthermore, the usage of the passive voice increased with repeated exposure to the experimenter's verbal behavior. Given that the children were not explicitly reinforced, it is proposed that their behavior was automatically reinforced for using the passive voice.

The Long Good-Bye: Why B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior is Alive and Well on the 50Th Anniversary of Its Publication

“…Numerous programs around the world now emphasize a verbal behavior component as a critical ingredient to their treatment regimen. Furthermore, research on teaching manding, tacting, echoic, and intraverbal behavior, as well as powerful but subtle variables such as automatic reinforcement, is also becoming more common, although still largely restricted to journals devoted to publishing behavior analytic work (e.g., Hernandez, Hanley, ingvarsson, & tiger, 2007;lerman, Parton, Addison, Vorndran, Volkert, & Kodak, 2005;Miguel, Petursdorrit, & carr, 2005;Wallace, iwata, & Hanley, 2006;Wright, 2006;Yi, christian, Vittimberga, & lowenkron, 2006). Moreover, a number of books based in large part on Skinner's analysis are now on the market (e.g., Greer & ross, 2008).…”

Three Myths from the Language Acquisition Literature

“…As evidence of this common misreading of Brown and Hanlon, consider Salzinger's (1994) claim that in Brown and Hanlon's study ''only obvious events (such as the presentation of candy) are accepted as signifying the occurrence of reinforcement'' (p. 325). Similarly, Wright (2006) claimed that Brown and Hanlon counted only ''an expression of approval such as Good job'' (p. 155) as reinforcement, in apparent disregard of ''other parental responses'' that can reinforce a child's speech.…”

“…So, it is easy to see why Salzinger (1994), Wright (2006), and many others have the mistaken view that Brown and Hanlon narrowly defined reinforcement. However, contrary to Salzinger, Wright, and others, Brown and Hanlon provided definitions of reinforcement that belie this interpretation.…”

“…Although it is the case that Brown and Hanlon (1970) endorsed a very broad definition of reinforcer, Wright's (2006) interpretation is at least partly correct. In the study itself, Brown and Hanlon limited their inquiry to the potentially reinforcing role of explicit verbal approval, to the exclusion of other possible forms of reinforcement.…”

“…In addition, other studies (e.g., Silvestri, Davies-Lackey, Twyman, & Palmer, in preparation; Wright, 2006) have examined whether automatic reinforcement can be similarly effective in promoting a child's acquisition of complex grammatical structures. For example, Wright investigated the role played by modeling and automatic reinforcement in the acquisition of the passive voice.…”