ABSTRACT
Throughout this book we deal with numerous approaches to second language learning, many of which have their counterparts in child language research. In chapter 4, we discussed a behaviorist theory of language when discussing the role of the native language. Primarily coming from research on child language acquisition, during the 1950s and 1960s there were challenges to the behaviorist theory of language and language learning. Language came to be seen not as a set of automatic habits, but as a set of structured rules. These rules were claimed to be learned not by imitation, but by actively formulating them on the basis of innate principles as well as on the basis of exposure to the language being learned. Three examples from the child language literature are often cited as evidence against the imitation view of language acquisition.
