ABSTRACT
Mentalism is a branch of psychology which contrasts sharply with Behaviourism. Whereas the latter insists that the only objective evidence for psychological research is behaviour, that is, actions and responses to stimuli, the former values such subjective data as can be established through introspection. Behaviourism and Mentalism have both influenced linguistics. Behaviourists have argued that when a child is born its mind is blank and all language knowledge is the result of conditioning, experience and stimulation; Mentalists claim that children are born with a predisposition to acquire language and that the speed of a child’s acquisition of language can in part be accounted for by the child’s inherited linguistic abilities.
