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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 17:1/2 (1990) ► pp.145–165

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Skinner and Chomsky thirty years later

 | Duke University
Published online: 1 January 1990
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.17.1-2.12and
Summary
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.
Résumé
Cet article propose une analyse historiographique de la fortune du livre renommé de B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (1957), et du compte-rendu encore plus connu qu’en avait fait N. Chomsky dans Language (1959). Notre étude, en tenant compte de la période de la fin des années cinquante jusqu’au début des années quatre-vingt, identifie les quatre raisons suivantes pour expliquer la réfutation du behaviorisme de Skinner vis-à-vis du générativisme de Chomsky: (i) le goût cognitif; (ii) l’héritage des années soixante; (iii) la dominance d’un humanisme essentialisant, et (iv) la discipline de la linguistique circonscrite par sa propre histoire. En outre, nous remarquons nettement que des changements dans les quatre mêmes catégories ont produit un climat plus favorable au behaviorisme à la fin des années quatrevingt. Aussi réinterprétons-nous le statut de Skinner dans l’histoire de la linguistique, ce qui nous mène à comparer son approche aux problèmes langagiers à l’œuvre importante de V. N. Volosinov.
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