This study originates in concern over the apparent fact that many secondary school students learn to dislike literature while studying works of literature in their English classes. The study eventuates in a behavioristic theory of literature; literature is described in terms of the meaning-making activities in which the reader engages rather than in terms of the formal properties of literary artefacts by which it is more conventionally described. This description is made possible by a theory which provides for a scientific language and an expressive language. The sources of the language theory are selected writings of George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, and Philip Wheelwright. A large portion of this study is devoted to formulating the language theories latent in their works. The inquiry is kept parallel by pursuing four fundamental questions in the treatment of the three subordinate language theories and the larger theory synthesized from them: (1) How may language be described behaviorally? (2) What is the relationship between self-object-language? (3) What is the relationship through language of one self to others? and (4) How is meaning developed, communicated, warranted in science? in art, specifically literature? Scientific and expressive languages are demonstrated to be differentiable on the basis of these four questions. It is suggested that expressive language allows the artist to communicate directly to the reader while scientific language works differently. It is also suggested that the failure of the schools to give recognition to these differences may be partly responsible for students' dislike of literature. (Author/CK)