Bloomfield betrachtet mit dem Behaviorismus den Sprecher als black box, in dessen Kopf man nicht schauen könne. Wissenschaftliche Forschung müsse sich strikt auf die Analyse beobachtbarer Prozesse beschränken. Kleinkindlicher Spracherwerb wird in diesem Zusammenhang als habit formation verstanden. In diesem Prozeß werden angemessene Reaktionen auf einen Stimulus verstärkt, während unangemessene Reaktionen nicht belohnt werden und sich deshalb nicht verfestigen. Der Lernprozeß selbst wird als Imitation vorbildlichen Verhaltens verstanden. Er skizziert 5 Stadien des kindlichen Spracherwerbs.
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Exactly how children learn to speak is not known; the process seems to be something like this:
- Under various stimuli the child utters and repeats vocal sounds. … inherited trait. This results in a habit: whenever a similar sound strikes his ear, he is likely to make these same mouth-movements, repeating the sound da. This babbling trains him to produce vocal sounds which strike his ear.
- Some person, say the mother, utters in child's presence a sound which resembles one of the child's babbling syllables. For instance, she says doll. When these sounds strike the child's ear, his habit (1) comes into play and he utters his nearest babbling syllable, da. We say that he is beginning to "imitate".
- The mother, of course, uses her words when appropriate stimulus is present. She says doll when she is actually showing or giving the infant his doll. The sight and handling of the doll and the hearing and saying of the word doll (that is, da) occur repeatedly together, until the child forms a new habit: the sight and feel of the doll suffice to make him say da. He has now the use of a word.
- The habit of saying da at sight of the doll gives rise to further habits. … "He is asking for his doll," says the mother, and she is right, since doubtless and adult's "asking for" or "wanting" things is only a more complicated type of the same situation. The child has now embarked upon abstract or displaced speech: he names a thing even when that thing is not present.
- The child's speech is perfected by its results. If he says da, da well enough, his elders understand him; that is, they give him his doll.
In short, his more perfect attempts at speech are likely to be fortified by repetition, and his failures to be wiped out in confusion. This process never stops. At a much later stage, if he says Daddy bringed it, he merely gets a disappointing answer such as No! You must say "Daddy brought it"; but if he says Daddy brought it, he is likely to hear the form over again: Yes, Daddy brought it, and to get a favorable practical response.
At the same time and by the same process, the child learns also to act the part of a hearer. … The child forms habits of acting in conventional ways when he hears speech.
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L2-Erwerb: Behaviorismus - Bloomfield 1933: 
Bloomfield, Leonard (1933) Language. London: Allen & Unwin, 29-30