Verbal Behavior is a 1957 book by psychologist B. F. Skinner, in which he analyzes human behavior, encompassing what is traitionally called language, linguistics, or speech. For Skinner, verbal behavior is simply behavior subject to the same controlling variables as any other operant behavior. The book Verbal Behavior is almost entirely theoretical, involving little experimental research in the work itself. The book Verbal Behavior was an outgrowth of a series of lectures first presented at the University of Minnesota in the early 1940's and developed further in his summer lectures at Columbia and William James lectures at Harvard in the decade before the book's publication. A growing body of research in verbal behavior has occurred since its original publication and is rapidly expanding. This is particularly true in the past decade.