Skinner: How does a child learn language?

The main principle of operant conditioning, as defined by Skinner is positive

and negative reinforcement. Reinforcement is the process in which a
behaviour is strengthened, and thus, more likely to happen again. Positive
Reinforcement is making a behaviour stronger by following the behaviour with
a pleasant stimulus. For example, a rat presses a lever and receives food.
Negative Reinforcement is making a behaviour stronger by taking away a
negative stimulus. For example, a rat presses a lever and turns off the electric
shock.
Skinner viewed babies as empty vessels which language had to be put in to.
He said children learn language from their environment and consequences of
their actions (a nurture view of language).
Skinner would say that a child learns language through positive reinforcement!
His basic explanation for the development of speech was that parents tend to
reward infant vocalisations (such as babbling) by giving the infant attention.
This increases the frequency of vocalisation. He would suggest that the child
will not progress from babbling to language unless the parents shape the
childs language behaviour.
After rewarding vocalisations for a while, parents become used to a childs
babbling and pay less attention to it. This motivates the infant to vary the
babbling. Sometimes, by accident, the child produces more recognisable
speech sounds e.g. if an infant suddenly said Dadadada, parents might
respond excitedly to this, thinking that the child is trying to say the word
Daddy. The response reinforces the childs production of this type of speech
sound. Other sounds that are less like actual speech tend to be ignored.
However, parents soon get bored by repetitions of Dadadada, and this
motivates the child to modify such sounds until the shaping process results in
recognisable words. This process continues, resulting in sentences of
increasing complexity and grammatical correctness. In addition, the use of
language is rewarded when a child asks for something and as a result,
succeeds in getting it. Skinner did not claim that parents intentionally set out
to shape the language development of infants, but that this happens
naturally!
Another important feature of Skinners theory is the idea that children imitate
speech sounds and words spoken by caregivers and, provided this imitation is
rewarded, learning will take place. This is how children learn new words.
However, this theory assumes that without reinforcement, imitation will not
result in learning. This is a rather unconvincing explanation for several
reasons:

Some parents pay very little attention to the vocalisation of their infants,
who still develop language despite this could use Chomsky (the biological
approach here)
Shaping (as described above) is a very lengthy process, whereas a childs
language development, particularly during the second year of life is rapid
Observational studies of parent-child conversations (Brown and Hanlon,
1970) show that parents rarely reinforce correct grammar in a childs
speech, but instead tend to focus on the truthfulness or accuracy of
statements. This makes it less likely that shaping enables children to learn
grammar.
The theory assumes that imitation without reinforcement will not lead to
learning (explain Banduras theory of language to show that this is
unlikely)