This paper offers a historiographie account of the fate of B. F. Skinner’s famous 1957 book Verbal Behavior and N. Chomsky’s more-famous review of it that appeared in Language in 1959. For the period from the late 1950s, four reasons are identified to explain the repression of Skinner’s behaviorist approach to language with respect to Chomsky an generativism: (i) cognitive taste; (ii) the legacy of the 1960s; (iii) the power of essentializing humanism, and (iv) the discipline of linguistics as it conceived of itself through its textual tradition. The paper argues, furthermore, that changes in the same four categories have provided a more positive climate for behaviorism in the late 1980s. As a result of these recent changes, the paper proposes that Skinner’s place in the historical record of linguistics be reconsidered, along with that of V. N. Vološinov whose approach to language is favorably compared to Skinner’s.
1988Review of Paul Friedrich, The Language Parallax: Linguistic relativism and poetic indeterminacy (1986) Language in Society 17:4.600–604.
Andresen, Julie
1990Linguistics in America 1769–1924: A critical history. London: Routledge.
Austin, John Langham
(1911–1960). 1975 [1962]How To Do Things With Words. 2nd. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Bullock, T. H.
1967 “Signals and Neuronal Coding”. The Neurosciences: A study program ed. by Gardner Q. Quarton, Theodore Melnechuck, Francis O. Schmitt, and the associate and staff of the Neurosciences Research Program, 347–352. New York: Rockefeller Univ. Press.
Campbell, Jeremy
1989The Improbable Machine: What the upheavals in artificial intelligence research reveal about how the mind really works. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Chase, Philip & Linda Parrott
eds.1986Psychological Aspects of Language: The West Virginia Lectures. Springfield, I11: Charles Thomas.
Chomsky, Noam
1959Review of Skinner (1957). Language 351:26–58. (Repr. with introduction in Readings in the Psychology of Language ed. by Leon A. Jakobovits & Murray Miron, 142–171. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1967.)
Chomsky, Noam
1965Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press.
Chomsky, Noam
1971 “The Case against B. F. Skinner”. Review of Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner (New York: A. A. Knopf 1971) The New York Review of Books 171:18–24.
Chomsky, Noam
1980Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
Chomsky, Noam
1986Knowledge of Language: Its nature, origin and use. New York-Westport-London: Praeger.
Chomsky, Noam
1988Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge, Mass. & London: M.I.T. Press.
Dreyfus, Hubert & Stuart Dreyfus
1988 “Making a Mind versus Modeling the Brain: Artifical intelligence back at a branchpoint”. Daedalus 117:1.15–43.
Edelman, Gerald
1987Neural Darwinism: The theory of neuronal group selection. New York: Basic Books.
Gleick, James
1987Chaos: Making a new science. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
Hopper, Paul
1988 “Emergent Grammar and the A Priori Grammar Postulate”. Linguistics in Context: Connecting observation and understanding. Lectures from the 1985 LSA/TESOL and NEH Institutes ed. by Deborah Tannen, 117–134. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
Koerner, E. F. Konrad
1983 “The Chomskyan ‘Revolution’ and Its Historiography”. Language & Communication 31.147–169. (Rev. and extended version in Practicing Linguistic Historiography by K. Koerner, 101–146. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins 1989.)
MacWhinney, Brian & Jared Leinbach
1989 “Language Learning: Cues or rules?” Journal of Memory and Language 281.255–277.
Marr, David
1982Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Newmeyer, Frederick J. & Joseph Emonds
1971 “The Linguist in American Society”. Papers from the Seventh Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 285–303. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Papert, Seymour
1988 “One AI or Many?” Daedalus 117:1.1–14.
Pinker, S. & Alan Prince
1988 “On Language and Connectionism: Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language acquisition”. Cognition 281.73–193.
Reeke, George & Gerald Edelman
1988 “Real Brains and Artifical Intelligence”. Daedalus 117:1.143–173.
Rosenfield, Israel
1988The Invention of Memory: A new view of the brain. New York: Basic Books.
Rumelhart, David & James McClelland
& the PDP Research Group 1986Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the microstructures of cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.
Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic
b.1904). 1938Behavior of Organisms. New York & London: Appleton-Century.
Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic
b.1904). 1957Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic
b.1904). 1966 “The Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Behavior”. Science 1531.1205–1213.
Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic
b.1904). 1972 “A Lecture on ‘Having’ a Poem”. Cumulative Record: A selection of papers by B. F. Skinner, 3rd ed., 345–355. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic
b.1904). 1981 “Selection by Consequences”. Science 2131.501–504.
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein
1957 “An New Anatomy of Language”. Unpublished manuscript review of Skinner (1957).
2008. Análise comportamental do discurso: fundamentos e método. Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa 24:1 ► pp. 101 ff.
Castagnaro, Peter J.
2006. Audiolingual Method and Behaviorism: From Misunderstanding to Myth. Applied Linguistics 27:3 ► pp. 519 ff.
Ballier, Nicolas
2005. Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II, The Western Tradition in the Twentieth Century. Journal of Pragmatics 37:5 ► pp. 743 ff.
Morris, Edward K., Junelyn F. Lazo & Nathaniel G. Smith
2004. Whether, when, and why Skinner published on biological participation in behavior. The Behavior Analyst 27:2 ► pp. 153 ff.
Morris, Edward K. & Nathaniel G. Smith
2003. Bibliographic processes and products, and a bibliography of the published primary-source works of B. F. Skinner. The Behavior Analyst 26:1 ► pp. 41 ff.
Schnaitter, Roger
1999. Some Criticisms of Behaviorism. In The Philosophical Legacy of Behaviorism [Studies in Cognitive Systems, 22], ► pp. 209 ff.
Sundberg, Mark L.
1998. Realizing the Potential of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 15:1 ► pp. 143 ff.
Mandell, Charlotte C.
1997. Chapter 2 Stimulus equivalence and meaning: The influence of verbal behavior. In The Problem of Meaning - Behavioral and Cognitive Perspectives [Advances in Psychology, 122], ► pp. 81 ff.
Blackman, Derek
1996. Commentary. Psychology of Music 24:2 ► pp. 117 ff.
Lowe, C. Fergus & Pauline J. Horne
1996. REFLECTIONS ON NAMING AND OTHER SYMBOLIC BEHAVIOR. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 65:1 ► pp. 315 ff.
Czubaroff, J.
1993. Convergences with Behavior Analysis: Recommendations from the Rhetoric of Inquiry. The Behavior Analyst 16:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Morris, Edward K.
1992. The Aim, Progress, and Evolution of Behavior Analysis. The Behavior Analyst 15:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Morris, Edward K.
1993. Revise and Resubmit. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps 18:4 ► pp. 243 ff.
Morris, Edward K.
2002. Not so disinterested or objectivist: John A. Mills’ Control: A history of behavioral psychology. The Behavior Analyst 25:2 ► pp. 235 ff.
Czubaroff, Jeanine
1991. A Post-Modern Behavior Analysis?. The Behavior Analyst 14:1 ► pp. 19 ff.
Hineline, Philip N.
1991. Modesty, Yes; Humility, No. The Behavior Analyst 14:1 ► pp. 25 ff.
Knapp, Terry J.
1990. Verbal behavior and the history of linguistics. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 8:1 ► pp. 151 ff.
Knapp, Terry J.
1992. Verbal Behavior: The other reviews. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 10:1 ► pp. 87 ff.
Knapp, Terry J.
1997. Meeting the Enemy: An Essay Review of Noam Chomsky : A Life of Dissent by Robert F. Barsky. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 14:1 ► pp. 105 ff.
[no author supplied]
2003. Bibliography. In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ► pp. 744 ff.
[no author supplied]
2017. Bibliography. In The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics: A Handbook for Language Teaching, ► pp. 744 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.