Words are not things.
Treat every word as an operant maintained by its consequences, not as a symbol that represents a thing.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Embregts (2000) wrote a short theory paper. It says words are not little pictures of things. Instead, words are acts that get strengthened or weakened by the listener’s reactions.
The paper tells analysts to drop the idea that a word "stands for" an object. Look at what the speaker gets for saying it right now.
What they found
There is no data set. The finding is conceptual: treat every utterance as an operant. Ask, "What consequence keeps this response alive?"
If you do that, you stop hunting for hidden meanings and start changing the environment that shapes talk.
How this fits with other research
Blackman (1970) set the stage. It first argued language must be defined by its contingencies, not by grammar. Embregts (2000) sharpens the same blade thirty years later.
Layng et al. (1984) extends the stance to psychotic speech. Delusional statements are also operants; map their pay-offs and you can reduce them. The two papers share one message: words are acts, not labels.
Vargas (2013) seems to push back by saying "form matters too," but it really agrees. Form only signals meaning inside the verbal community’s contingencies. So the papers converge: function first, form second.
Why it matters
When a child with autism says "car," stop asking, "Does he really know what a car is?" Ask, "What did the last adult do when he said that?" Then deliver, withhold, or swap the consequence to build new verbal functions. Shift your data sheets from "correct symbol" to "source of reinforcement" and your teaching will move faster.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
On a traditional view, words are the fundamental units of verbal behavior. They are independent, autonomous things that symbolically represent or refer to other independent, autonomous things, often in some other dimension. Ascertaining what those other things are constitutes determining the meaning of a word. On a behavior-analytic view, verbal behavior is ongoing, functional operant activity occasioned by antecedent factors and reinforced by its consequences, particularly consequences that are mediated by other members of the same verbal community. Functional relations rather than structure select the response unit. The behavior-analytic point of view clarifies such important contemporary issues in psychology as (a) the role of scientific theories and explanations, (b) educational practices, and (c) equivalence classes, so that there is no risk of strengthening the traditional view that words are things that symbolically represent other things.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 2000 · doi:10.1007/BF03392961