Title TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION:LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Author(s) Ahern Timothy F.

Citation 沖縄短大論叢 = OKINAWA TANDAI RONSO, 9(1): 47-59

Issue Date 1995-03-01

URL http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12001/10664

Rights 沖縄大学短期大学部

TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION:

LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Timothy F. Ahern

Euripides is quoted as having said, "xaxr;r; 'a7!' 'apxr;r; ytyvb:at -rHor;

xaxov." "What is all of this Greek stuff in this paper?" Sorry, but the

reader's thoughts came through the page. "It is all Greek to me," as the

saying goes. Why? Why should one little sentence in Classical Greek throw

the reader into a panic? The reader is probably an English or a Japanese

educator. A few words in a foreign language should not trouble a profes­

sional teacher. Keeping this in mind another Greek, Antisthenes, is known

to have said," 'Z"ffJ ~or/Jif r;Evov o'vc!ev." "Oh no, that is enough Greek for

one day!" perhaps the readers thought. Of course there must be something

better that the readers can do with their time than try to read something

that has Greek in it. Western society generally gave up on trying to learn

Greek in mass a long time ago so those of us who are westerners and have

struggled through this can advise our Japanese friends not to. Still, allow

the author to ask one simple question: Why should two simple sentences in

a "difficult" foreign language, a language that is credited as being part of

the foundation of Western culture, cause the readers for if not only a

moment lift their eyes from the page in anxious retreat? What is it about

Greek that makes it so foreign, so alien, and possibly so threatening?

It is foreign, but foreign to whom, certainly not to a Classical Greek?

Yet the Classical Greeks are all dead the reader could say - good point.

Then perhaps the reader's immediate reaction to the above quotations has

something to do with relevance. To what or to whom is the above Greek

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Timothy F. Ahern

relevant? Is Classical Greek relevant to the reader? This author must

confess that Classical Greek may not be generally relevant or readily

readable to most modern day English speakers. The reader is right; the

reader wins, reader 1, writer 0.

However, if we look at the word relevant more closely we must agree

that there is a relationship between how each of us defines the term in a

linguistic sense and the relationship of that sense to the concept of social

verbal behavior. Therefore if both of us used Classical Greek in our every

day lives to buy food, pay our bills, and talk to our loved ones maybe Greek

would not be so irrelevant. Nevertheless, we do not use Classical Greek in

our every day social interactions and that is why we call it a dead language.

In this sense dead means that the language in question is not part of modern

day verbal behavior. Going into the average Mac Donald's and asking for

a "Big Mac" in Classical Greek will probably not get us what we are looking

for, it may prove more productive in a computer store, yet the response

from the store clerks would be based on a different set of referents.

Furthermore, in either situation, if we were to stick to Classical Greek as

our only means of communicating it would be difficult to establish a mutual

line of understanding. Again, this would be related to the fact that in both

of the above two hypothetical situations Classical Greek would generally

not be the normal vehicle for acceptable verbal behavior.

The term verbal behavior and by extrapolation behavioral linguistics is

not without its critics, notably N oam Chomsky who has been a proponent

of what is known as transformational-generative grammar which developed

from a more general theory that was based on structuralism.'

Yet, there is more than one school of thought on the subject of structur­

alism, but generally speaking this theory and related interpretations of it

have had tremendous impact on the study of language and consequently

have been significant factors in the development of new approaches to

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

second language acquisition. However, many of these new approaches to

language acquisition are extrapolations from structuralism but are them­

selves not part of the main stream of where the study of structuralism is

headed today. If we understand the meaning of the word in terms of

Chomsky's definition, structuralism, or the science of structural linguistics,

" ... .is primarily concerned with the fundamental question of how a speaker

of a given language achieves surface structure from what is termed deep

structure."2 The theory holds that these deep structures function as subcon­

scious psycholinguistic templates that affect grammatical "base rules." It

is these base rules, or subconscious semantic paradigms that formulate the

rules that guide the grammatical transformations that create the suiface

structures. It is surface structure that would be identified as being an

utterance that has meaning in a given linguistic context.

Perhaps the reader feels that this discussion has degenerated back to

our original topic of Classical Greek -- not at all. The above discussion was

brought to light because the topic of the relationship between the utterance

and the "grammatical rules" that form as a template to create the utterance

is at the frontier of modern day linguistic inquiry. The major research of

many modern day linguists seems to revolve around the idea that, if a

speaker makes an utterance that can be termed "grammatically accept­

able" to a listener, it can only be due to the fact that they both share a

common generative deep structure that actively works to shape words and

sentences so that they will be capable of transmitting meaning. The theory

of the transfer of pattern from deep structure to surface structure is very

similar to the theory of the way DNA transfers information and produces

RNA. It is the DNA that is the parent structure. The DNA therefore

divides and attracts identical molecules. Once the empty spaces are filled

in the copy molecule carries to a relative degree the same information as

the DNA. The copy molecule then becomes a complete unit of RNA.

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Timothy F. Ahern

In terms of language this approach to linguistics is one from a view

point of structure. This is a highly relevant discussion to the language

teacher because N oam Chomsky's structural linguistics displaced many

earlier theories, for example the earlier view that grammatical structure

should be "prescriptive" rather that "descriptive." The year that grammar­

ians and linguists began shifting in mass in this direction was 1957. This

movement was spurred on by the publication of Chomsky's Syntactic

Structures. 3

Another major change in theory that was inspired by the works of

structuralists such as Noam Chomsky beginning in the early 60's was the

usurpation of a group of linguists who were associated with a theory of

linguistics known as behaviorism by a movement associated with the idea

of cognitive ability. •

This new movement directly applied theory to methods of second

language acquisition in a variety of ways that are classified as cognitive

approaches. Since the 1970's cognitive approaches have been very influential

in the inner circles of language acquisition theory. Generaily in cognitive

theory language learners are credited with having the natural ability to use

their cognitive mental capabilities to construct a hypothesis about the

structure of the target language. 5

If this sounds like a phrase that has been puiied off the back cover of

an English language text book, it very weii could have been. Many modern

text books have their roots in a cognitive approach. General cognitive

theory greatly expanded during the 60's. 70's, and 80's with the result that

behaviorist approaches to language acquisition were pushed aside. In some

cases this was simply due to the fact that the behaviorists were out number­

ed.

There were many reasons for this but the result has been that "edu­

cated" teachers walking into classrooms in Japan, without knowing it, are

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

generally doing so armed with techniques and materials that have been

hatched from a "cognitive" nest. Materials that have their roots in

cognitive approaches to language acquisition are usually arranged in pat­

terns that agree with methodology that stems from generative­

transformational grammar. Essentially during the 60's, 70's, and 80's there

seems to have been to a certain degree a reaction against behaviorism. This

was most likely related to the various hypotheses proposed by individual

behaviorists on how humans arrive at meaning.

What does this mean for the language teacher in Japan? It means that

there is no theoretical "bridge" that is recognized as being necessary to

stand between the initial contact phase and the cognitive phase of the

second language acquisition process. In a quantitative sense this means that

many teachers are walking into their second language classrooms (not just

in Japan), and presenting material to students who are not habituated in

terms of behavioral factors towards the target language. The habituaion of

language at a biological level is not an issue widely covered in the camps of

cognitive theory.

To quote the indelible behaviorist Willard V. 0. Quine from his book

Word & Object, page 82, "It remains clear in any event that the child's early

learning of a verbal response depends on society's reinforcement of the

response in association with the stimulations that merit the response, from

society's point of view, and society's discouragement of it otherwise. This

is true whatever the cause of the child's first venturing of the response; and

it is true even when society's reinforcement consists in no more than

corroborative usage, whose resemblance to the child's is the sole reward."6

(This author's italics) If the reader has any experience in teaching a foreign

language in Japan it is easy to notice how this could relate to some of the

difficulties that can arise.

It is this verbal socialization that is not just shaping the verbal behavior

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Timothy F. Ahern

of a young child, but in forming what would be felt as "acceptable" or

"normal" the same process would then be consequently providing guidelines

for forming negative subjective responses to speech that fell outside the

realm of what had become thought as "normal" or "acceptable." It is

noteworthy that these subjective responses will be very consistent within a

given sociolinguistic group. In the field of sociolinguistics it has long been

a tenet that: "The correlate of regular stratification of a sociolinguistic

variable is uniform agreement in subjective reaction towards that

variable. "7 Thus as language is acquired so are subjective attitudes about

speech.

The average beginning teacher underestimaties the power that this

process can have over many of his or her students. Steven D. Krashen has

often referred to this process as the "affective filter" c.£.1981, Principles and

Practice in Second language Acquisition, i.e., that subjective responses to

stimulus act as a kind of "filter" that "affects" the acquisition of a second

language. In a qualitative sense this theory is certainly applicable to the

process of second language acquisition. However, in a more quantitative

sense this theory does not seem to calculate into its qeneral rationale that

spoken language is resultant and a function of motor ability. Accordingly

the process of the socialization of verbal behavior is also a complex process

of motor skill development.

In Clinical Neurology by Dr.David A. Greenberg, Dr.Michael J, Aminoff, and Dr.Roger P.Simon8 the respective neurologists list 6 basic

classifications of motor disorders. 9 Depending on the stage of development

at diagnosis and the idiosyncrasies of specific individual cases, diseases and

syndromes that are manifested by abnormal movements all potentually

effect speech.10 This statement is tempered by the fact that extremely mild

and relatively mild cases of individual movement disorders are difficult to

identify and thus difficult to diagnose. The major neurological disorders

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

that are most prevalent in humans are respectively: Parkinsonism, propres­

sive supranuclear palsy, Hunting's disease, Syenham's chorea, idiopathic

torsion dystonia (This disorder can effect the region of the mouth in which

case it is more specifically classified as "oromandibular dystonia."), Wilson'

s disease, and Gilles de Ia Tourette's syndrome. All of these illnesses which

are clinically classifies as movement disorders can have a devastating effect

on speech.

Therefore, neurologically speaking, speech is fundamentally a motor

skill. It is a fundamental motor skill that is developed according to patterns

that are socially guided and thus accepted. This acceptability is a type of

behavior that follows certain patterns or structures. Even though a person

may be able to process information presented to him or her through a

second language on a cognitive level, that same person may not be able to

process the information without some type of negative reaction because

that information does not parallel recognized patterns of the individual's

established verbal motor skills which are the fundamental bases for the

structures of what has been socially reinforced as correct patterns of

speech. Negative responces therefore cannot be classified as purely subjec­

tive, but rather as language is fundamentally a motor skill, an inability to

perform certain motor functions would certainly have to be classified as

also being objective.

We can see this by example by returnig to our two earlier sentences

that were written in Classical Greek. If the reader is not familiar with the

Greek alphabet then he or she could have referred to one very easily with

an English dictionary. Most if not all of them will have one listed. Through

the examination of cognates, the reader could have arrived at a reasonable

translation. Again if the reader is not familiar with Greek and English

cognate roots then he or she could have found them easily with almost any

English dictionary. Here the author will repeat the Greek sentences as an

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Timothy F. Ahern

example: xax7!f; "bad" as in "kakistocracy," a7c' "from" as in "apology,"

'apxf7f; "beginning" as in "archaic," ytyvf:rat "become" as related to the

word "genetic," rf:.:tor; "end" as in "telophase," and xaxbv again as "bad"

with a different ending but an ending that would not have necessarily

confused the reader. We can now see that it was a command of the English

language that was all that was necessary to understand what was in fact

Greek. Apart form the alphabet, a separate issue, it would not have taken

a "rocket scientist" to have arrived at something similar to, "A bad start

gives birth to a bad finish." Perhaps the foreign nature of the Greek

alphabet in itself was enough to cause the reader to fail to comprehend the

two sentences. It should not have. Again, most if not all English diction­

aries have a Greek alphabet listed. A significant number of English

teachers are cognitive of this. Cognitively speaking this Greek sentence

should not have been quite so strange as in fact it is not. "Strangeness" is

a very subjective term.

The second sentence reads: rif rroc/>if "To the wise" as in philosophy,

f;Evov "strange" as in "xenophobia," and ovOc:v "nothing or not" a Greek

particle related to our English words "no," "not," and "nothing." With a

good command of the English language and access or knowledge of the

Greek alphabet it would have been a pedestrian feat to arrive at, "To the

wise nothing is strange."

The point of the above illustration is not to give a Greek lesson, but to

point out that people will often reject second language input based on a

negative subjective reaction that stems from sociolinguistic circumstances.

This negative reaction can function independently from the overall

cognitive abilities of a given individual. This reaction is not just a subjec­

tive one that is related to what S.D.Krashen calls the "affective filter;" in

terms of trying to reproduce the sounds heard in a second language, a

negative response can be an objective one. This is due to the fact, that the

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

individual's sociolinguistic group associations may not have provided the

individual with verbal motor skill training that can readily adapt itself to a

given second language. In a very realistic sense this is related to muscle

development. This points out that at times there is a very fine line between

what is behavioral and what is cognitive.

Of course there is the problem of how the human ear hears language.

This is an important variable in the equation of how people acquire a

language. Many teachers of foreign languages are asking their students to

repeat sounds that the student is not adequately familiar with. The listening

phase is an important part of the socialization of verbal behavior, but this

paper will have to limit itself to the topic of language as behavior in a

general sense as behavioral linguistics it now somewhat out of vogue and

the topic of the listening phase is a more complex issue related to both

behavioral and cognitive factors in the initial phase of lingual motor func­

tion. It is hence the goal of this paper to point out that although there are

a variety of theories that are theoretical extensions of behavioral linguistics

that are possibly out dated, there are still practical applications of behavior­

al linguistics that are quite useful in a second language classroom.

An example of a linguist who still believes that there is a place for

behaviorism in linguistics in a general sense is the before mentioned Willard

V.O. Quine. Although much of what Dr. Quine has written was produced

during the 60's he still holds to a general theory of behaviorism. In 1989 in

his book titled In Pursuit of Meaning he stated plainly,!' "I hold further

that the behaviorist approach is mandatory .... " Furthermore he states in the

same work that, "In psychology one may or may not be a behaviorist, but

in linguistics one has no choice."12 This statement is somewhat controver­

sial to be coming from a linguist in light of all that has happened in the field

of linguistics since 1957.

Nevertheless, it is not quite so controversial in the area of language

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Timothy F. Ahern

teaching, a practical extension of language theory in the field of Applied

Linguistics. Due to the nature of their profession language teachers

although linguists have the immediate need to be pragmatic.

So what is the pragmatic necessity for theory? That is simple enough.

Without an effective and realistic general theory on what language actually

is, where it comes from, and how it is acquired it is impossible to develop

material and technique that will maximize both the teacher's and the

student's energy and time. This means that the teacher simply must

approach his or her classroom more scientifically. Language teachers who

attempt to use techniques and materials who do not understand the theories

from which these tools have evolved will not be maximizing their classroom

time. Therefore it is necessary for a language teacher to have a wide

theoretical base.

Most of the writing of Willard Van Orman Quine will prove to be an

invaluable resource from a theoretical point of view for the language

teacher living and working in Japan. Perhaps one of the most helpful would

be Word and object (1960). However, two of his other works From a

Logical Point of View (1970) and In Pursuit of Meaning (1989) would also

prove to be of some assistance.

It would have been conceivably more "fun" to have started a paper such

as this directly with examples of language teaching materials that have

evolved from ideas that have their roots in behavioral linguistics. N otwith­

standing this without an understanding of behavioral linguistics the reader

would probably not understand the imperatives that were the bases for the

organization of the material. This seems to relate back to our axiom, "A

bad start gives birth to a bad finish." It is for this reason that this paper has

occupied itself with only a few of the fundamentals of behavioral linguistics.

Yes, today this term is somewhat out of use and is in some circles a

little "taboo". Still is has been behaviorist theories that have proven to be

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

some of the most useful tools in actual language classroom settings for this

author here in Japan. It is unfortunate that the term behavioral linguistics

may sound a little strange in 1995. Yet to this writer nothing sounds

strange; if it works, use it. After all, "Everything in season." Sounds like

something coming from another Greek (Hesiod); let's not get into that

again.

Maybe Greek philosophy is not immediately relevant to teaching for·

eign language in Japan, but what is relevant is that, taboo or not taboo, the

language teacher must be familiar with both cognitive and behavioral

theories in teaching a second language.

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Timothy F. Ahern

Notes

1 . After the turn of the century and before 1957 in the field of linguistics

most of the leaders in this area of study were focusing their attention

on homan be-havior. However, with Chomsky's observation that,

"Nevertheless, we do find many important correlations, quite naturally,

between syntactic structure and meaning; or, to put it differently, we

find that the grammatical devices are used quite systematically."

(Syntactic Structures, p.108) This simple observation helped turned the

attention of most researchers away from behavior studies to "structur­

alism." It has been noted by many researchers that human behavior

also follws given structural patterns.

2. Chomsky, Language and Philosophy, A Symposium, New York Univer­

sity Press 1969, pp. 53-54_

3. Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, Mouton Publishers, The Hague,

1957.

4. Cognitive Ability is the supporting theory behind such language teaching

theories as The Silent Way, Counseling-Learning, Suggestopedia, and

Naturalism. See Stevick, Teaching Languages, 1980, and Sandra

Nicholls and Elizabeth Hoadiey-Maidment, Teaching English as a

Second Language to Adults, 1988 for a for more in-depth study on the

above.

5. Ibid.

6 . Willard Van Orman Quine, Ward & Object, The MIT Press, 1960.

7. W. Labov, Sociolinguistics, ed. ]. B. Pride, Penguin Modern Linguistics

Readers, 1972, p.197.

8. David A. Greenberg, Michael]. Aminoff, and Roger P. Simon, Clinical

Neurology, 1993, Prentice-Hall International Inc., 1993, p.208.

9. In addition to the above work Merritt's, Textbook of Neurology, Lea &

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TABOO OR NOT TABOO, THAT IS THE QUESTION: LANGUAGE AS VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Febiger, 1989, pp. 645-676, lists the same correlation between these

diseases and speech disorders.

10. Compare Merritt, 1989, pp. 645-676 with Greenberg, 1993, pp. 208-229.

11. W. V. Quine, Pursuit of Truth, Harvard University Press, 1990, pp. 37.

12. Ibid., pp. 37-38.

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