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Short biography
Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Hebrew scholar William Chomsky. Starting in 1945, he studied philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. There he studied under Zellig Harris, a professor of linguistics with whose political views he had some sympathy. He received his Ph.D. from Penn in 1955, having conducted most of his research the previous four years at Harvard University. In his doctoral thesis he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures, possibly his best known work in the field.
After receiving his doctorate, Chomsky taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for nineteen years (he now holds the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Languages and Linguistics there). It was during this time that he became more publicly engaged in politics, arguing against American involvement in the Vietnam War from around 1965. In 1969 he published American Power and the New Mandarins, a book of essays on the same subject. Since then, he has been well known for his radical political views, lecturing on politics all over the world, and writing several other books on the subject. His beliefs, broadly classified as libertarian socialism, have earned him both a large following among the radical Left, as well as many detractors. He has continued to write and teach on linguistics also.
Contributions to Linguistics
Syntactic Structures was a distillation of his book Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955,75) in which he introduces transformational grammars. The theory takes utterances (words, phrases, and sentences) to correspond to abstract "surface structures," which in turn correspond to more abstract "deep structures." (The hard and fast distinction between surface and deep structure is absent in current versions of the theory.) Transformational rules, along with phrase structure rules and other structural principles, govern both the creation and interpretation of utterances. With a limited set of grammar rules and a finite set of terms, man is able to produce an infinite number of sentences, including sentences nobody has ever said before. The capability to structure our utterances in this way is innate, a part of the genetic endowment of human beings, and is called universal grammar. We are largely unconscious of these structural principles, as we are of most other biological and cognitive properties.
Recent theories of Chomsky's (such as his Minimalist Program) make strong claims regarding universal grammar — that the grammatical principles underlying languages are completely fixed and innate, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words) and morphemes, and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.
This approach is motivated by the astonishing pace at which children learn languages, the similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism is being employed).
Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers investigating language development in children, but most researchers who work in this area do not support Chomsy's theories, often preferring emergentist or connectionist theories based around general processing mechanisms in the brain. However, this is true of researchers in almost any branch of linguistics, and there is ongoing work on language aquisition from a Chomskyan perspective.
The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, though quite popular, has been challenged by many, especially those working outside of the United States. Chomskyan syntactic analyses are often highly abstract, and are based heavily on careful investigation of the border between grammatical and ungrammatical constructs in a language. (Compare this to the so-called pathological cases that play a similarly important role in mathematics.) Such grammaticality judgments can only be made accurately by a native speaker, however, and thus for pragmatic reasons such linguists usually (but by no means exclusively) focus on their own native languages or languages in which they are fluent, usually English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese or one of the Chinese languages. Sometimes generative grammar analyses break down when applied to languages which have not previously been studied, and many changes in generative grammar have occured due to an increase in the number of languages analysed. However, the claims made about language universals have become stronger rather than weaker over time; for example Kayne's sugggestion in the 1990s that all languages have an underlying Subject-Verb-Object word order would have seemed implausible in the 1960s. One of the prime motivations behind an alternative, approach, the functional-typological approach or linguistic typology (often associated with Joseph H. Greenberg), is to base hypotheses of linguistic universals on the study of as wide a variety of the world's languages as possible, classifying the variation seen, and forming theories based on the results of this classification. The Chomskyan approach is too in-depth and reliant on native speaker knowledge to follow this method, though it has over time been applied to a broad range of languages.
Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal language, and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes with increasing expressive power, i.e. each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modelling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modelling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction), as it has important ties to and isomorphisms with automata theory.
His seminal work in phonology was The sound pattern of English. He published it together with Morris Halle. This work is considered outdated (though it has recently been reprinted), and he does not publish on phonology anymore.
Contributions to Psychology
Chomsky's work in linguistics has had major implications for psychology and its fundamental direction in the 20th century. His theory of a universal grammar was a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how language is learned by children and what, exactly, is the ability to interpret language. The more basic principles of this theory (though not necessarily the stronger claims made by the principles and parameters approach described above) are now generally accepted.
In 1959, Chomsky published a long-circulated critique of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, a book in which the leader of the behaviorist psychologists that had dominated psychology in the 20th century argued that language was merely a "behavior". Skinner argued that language, like any other behavior — from a dog salivating in anticipation of dinner, to a master pianist's performance — could be attributed to "training by reward and penalty over time." Language, according to Skinner, was 100 percent learned by cues and conditioning from the world around the language-learner.
Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for a revolution against the behaviorist doctrine that had governed psychology. In his 1966 Cartesian Linguistics and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in other areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.
There are three key ideas. First, is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. The former view had denied even this, arguing that there were only "stimulus-response" relationships like "If you ask me if I want X, I will say yes". By contrast, Chomsky showed that the common way of understanding the mind, as having things like beliefs and even unconscious mental states, had to be right. Second, he argued that large parts of what the adult mind can do are "innate". While no child is born automatically able to speak a language, all are born with a powerful language learning ability which allows them to soak up several languages very quickly in their early years. Subsequent psychologists have extended this thesis far beyond language; the mind is no longer considered a "blank slate" at birth.
Finally, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).
The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".
Chomsky has written a strong refutation of deconstructionist and postmodern criticisms of science.
Criticism of post-modern views towards science
Chomsky notes that critiques of "white male science" are much like the anti-Semitic attacks against "Jewish physics" (a reference to the terminology used by the Nazis to denigrate research done by Jewish scientists.)
Chomsky is one of the most well-known figures of the American left. He defines himself in the tradition of anarchism, a political philosophy he summarizes as seeking out all forms of hierarchy and attempting to eliminate them if they are unjustified. He especially identifies with the labor-oriented anarcho-syndicalist current of anarchism. Unlike many anarchists, Chomsky does not always object to electoral politics; he has even endorsed candidates for office. He has described himself as a "fellow traveller" to the anarchist tradition as opposed to a pure anarchist to explain why he is sometimes willing to engage with the state. Chomsky has also stated that he considers himself to be a conservative (Chomsky's Politics, p. 188, note Ch.6 #24), presumably of the Classical liberal variety. He has further defined himself as a Zionist; although, he notes that his definition of Zionism is considered by most to be anti-Zionism these days; the result of what he perceives to have been a shift (since the 1940s) in the meaning of Zionism (Chomsky Reader). In a C-Span Book TV interview, he stated:
Criticism of the United States government
He has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the United States government. In his book 9-11, a series of interviews about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, he claims — as he has done before — that the United States government is the leading terrorist state in modern times. He has criticized the US government for its involvement in the Vietnam War and the larger Indochina conflict; its interference in Central and South American countries, and its military support of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Chomsky focuses his most intense criticism on official friends of the United States government while criticizing official enemies like the former Soviet Union and the North Vietnamese Army only in passing. He explains this by the following principle: it is more important to evaluate actions which you have more possibility of affecting. His criticism of the former Soviet Union and China must have had some effect in those countries however, as both countries banned his work from publication.
Chomsky has repeatedly emphasized his theory that much of the United States' foreign policy is based on the "threat of a good example" (which he says is another name for the domino theory). The "threat of a good example" is that a country could successfully develop independently from capitalism, and the United States' influences, thus presenting a model for other countries, including countries in which the United States has strong economic interests. This, Chomsky says, has prompted the United States to repeatedly intervene to quell "socialist" or other "independence" movements in regions of the world where it has no significant economic or safety interests. In one of his most famous works, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky uses this particular theory as an explanation for the United States' interventions in Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, and Grenada.
Chomsky believes the US government's Cold War policies were not shaped by anti-Soviet paranoia, but rather to preserve the United States' ideological dominance of the world. As he wrote in Uncle Sam: "...What the US wants is 'stability,' meaning security for the "upper classes and large foreign enterprises."
Chomsky and Socialism
Chomsky is deeply opposed to the system of "corporate state capitalism" practiced by the United States and its allies. Chomsky instead believes in the superiority of "control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions", referring to this as "real socialism". At the same time, he denounced the Soviet Union for running a brutal authoritarian police state while claiming to be socialist, and viewed the evolution of the Soviet state as a natural growth of the Bolshevik ideology. He calls Soviet-style Communism "fake socialism," and said that contrary to what many claim, the collapse of the Soviet Union should be regarded "a small victory for socialism."
Instead of a capitalist system in which people are "wage slaves" or an authoritarian system in which decisions are made by a centralized committee, in For Reasons of State Chomsky advocates a society with no paid labor. He argues that a nation's populace should be free to pursue jobs of their choosing. People will be free to do as they like, and the work they voluntarily choose will be both "rewarding in itself" and "socially useful." Society would be run under a system of peaceful anarchism, with no "state" or "government" institutions.
Mass media analysis
Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its role in supporting big business and government interests. Unlike totalitarian systems, where physical forece can be readily used to coerce the general population, democratic regimes like the US can only make use of non-violent means of control (despite minor instances of state violence). In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian
state." (Media Control) His book Manufacturing Consent -- The Political Economy of the Mass Media, co-authored with Edward S. Herman, explores this topic in depth, and presents the theory behind the analysis incorporated in subsequent works (see Propaganda model).
Chomsky and the Middle East
Chomsky "grew up...in the Jewish-Zionist cultural tradition" (Peck, p. 11). His father was one of the foremost scholars of the Hebrew language and taught at a religious school. Chomsky has also had a long fascination with and involvement in left-wing Zionist politics. As he described:
Partially because of these criticisms, Chomsky has been accused of being anti-semitic on many occasions. The most outspoken of his critics include writer David Horowitz, who has toured college campuses distributing anti-Chomsky pamphlets, attorney/professor Alan Dershowitz, with whom Chomsky has engaged in many verbal battles through the media, and sociology professor emeritus Werner Cohn, who has written an entire book; Partners in Hate [1], about Chomsky's relationship to Faurisson (see the Faurisson Affair). One of the most common charges is that the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is theoretical, and in practice anti-Zionism is a manifestation of anti-Semitism.
Chomsky's support for Israel Shahak, author of Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, a book that claims that Judaism is a fundamentally chauvinistic religion, has led to more accusations of anti-semitism.
Chomsky rejects charges of anti-Semitism, citing that the definition presented by Israeli apologists is itself racist and ethnocentric. Often speaking out against bigotry of all forms, he dismisses these accusations as "ad hominem attacks" and "typical propaganda."
Chomsky has been involved in many very public disagreements over policy and scholarship. For example, when Chomsky and Herman wrote After the Cataclysm, Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, a book claiming that American media used "unsubstantiated" refugee testimonies, in regard to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot regime, his apparent unwillingness to acknowledge that atrocities were being committed caused many to attack him as being a Pol Pot apologist. Chomsky's views on the Cambodia situation changed as facts were revealed, but he ultimately argued that focusing on Pol Pot's atrocities did little more than serve to take away attention fom what he described as "comparable American atrocities." He would also deny that Cambodian violence was inspired by Marxist ideology, and argue that the United States may have in fact helped Pol Pot rise to power. The entire Cambodia issue was quite controversial for Chomsky's reputation, with many of his supporters arguing that Chomsky had in fact been wrong in his inital assements of the Cambodian situtation, a charge which Chomsky denies. (See Ear, 1995.)
Chomsky's critics often accuse him of being rather close-minded in his analysis of facts and history, and always writing from a pre-determined thesis that government is vicious and oppressive, and that its actions in foreign countries are always completely unjustified. They say Chomsky is overly harsh on American foreign policy makers. As mentioned, he does not criticize or discuss America's enemies or their actions very often in his texts, which critics allege results in a very one-sided view of history. Chomsky's critics therefore argue that Chomsky frequently uses selective quotes and out-of-context facts in his pursuit to always paint the actions of the United States in the worst possible light.
He has also often criticized as being a conspiracy theorist, for his often elaborate explanations of the US government's "concealed" motivations, which some critics view as unsubstantiated. He considers this criticism completely unfounded, as he himself is a critic of the conspiracy-mindedness of some of the left (regarding things like the
Kennedy assassination). He says people's lack of knowledge of government policy is usually more due to their laziness in informing themselves regarding policy, than some supposed secret conspiracy to withhold information from them, since most of the information is in the public domain.
In the Russian language Chomsky is spelled Хомский, indicating that the original pronunciation of the name is with an initial consonant like that which ends the words Bach and loch. The common English pronunciation, which begins with the initial consonant in church, would imply the spelling Чомски.
This is because a traditional way of transliterating to the English alphabet that initial consonant (IPA [x]) is 'ch', as in Chanukah; since English lacks this velar fricative, the first two letters are "pronounced as written."
Criticism
Accusations of anti-semitism
Other criticisms
Quotes regarding Chomsky
See also:
Note on pronunciation and Russian spelling
Bibliography
See a full bibliography on Chomsky's MIT homepage.Linguistics
Politics
Selected Works
About Chomsky and Chomsky archives
External links