Noam Chomsky - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Chomsky was born with Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. His/her father William Chomsky was a specialist in the Hebrew originating in a town of Ukraine destroyed later by the Nazis. His/her mother, Elsie Chomsky (born Simonofsky) came from future the Bielorussia but, contrary to her husband, it grows with the the United States and spoke “English about New York”. Their first language was the Yiddish, but Chomsky says that within its family it was taboo to speak it. Its family lived then in a kind of “Jewish Ghetto” shared into two between a side “Yiddish” and another “Hebrew”. Its family lived within this last and raised it immersed in the Hebraic culture and the literature .

Towards the age of eight or nine years, Chomsky spent each Friday evening to reading Hebraic literature. Later, he taught Hebrew. In spite of that, and all the linguistic work carried out during its career, he acknowledged: the only language that I speak and write correctly is English .

Chomsky remembers its first article, writing at the ten years age, on the threat of the expansion of Fascism after the fall of Barcelona. From twelve or thirteen years, it approached the anarchistic ideas.

Starting from 1945, it studies the Philosophie and the Linguistique with the Université of Pennsylvania, near the Philosophe S C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and of the linguist Zellig Harris. The teaching of Harris included/understood its discovery of the transformations as a analyzes mathematical structure of the language (mathematical functions of a subset to another in the whole of the sentences). Thereafter, Chomsky explains why they are operations of the production of a Grammaire out-context. The political ideas of Harris were also determining as for the future orientation of Chomsky.

In 1949, Chomsky Marie with the linguist Carol Schatz. They have two girls, Aviva (born in 1957) and Diane (1960), as well as a son, Harry (1967).

Chomsky supports its thesis of linguistics at the university of Pennsylvania in 1955. It continues the work started during its thesis during the four following years which it spends to Harvard as a Harvard Junior Fellow . In its report, it starts to develop some of its ideas that it deepens in its book of 1957, syntactic Structures , perhaps its most known work in the field of linguistics.

Chomsky off joined then the Massachusetts Institute Technology in 1955 and is named professor in the Département of modern languages and linguistics (nowadays, the Département of linguistics and philosophy ) in 1961. Between 1966 and 1976, it is titular pulpit Ferrari P. Ward of modern languages and linguistic . In 1976, the very rare title of Institute Professor is decreed to him. Chomsky taught without interruption with MIT during these fifty last years.

It is at that time that Chomsky engages publicly in policy: it off becomes one of the principal opponents to the Guerre of Vietnam with the publication in 1967 of its test Responsabilités for the Intellectuals in the New York Review Books . Since, Chomsky is known for its political opinions, which it presents in its many books and at the time of conferences held in the whole world. Its criticisms talented of the American foreign politics and the legitimacy of the American capacity make a discussed figure of it. Chomsky is very appreciated with the Extreme left but is the object of many criticisms on behalf of the liberal American (equivalent mobility of the social democrat lefts in Europe) and de la the American line, in particular because of its comments on the Attentats of September 11th, 2001.

The original pronunciation of its first names and name is /avram noam 'xomskij/ . In English, one pronounces in general /'ævɹæm 'nəʊm 'tʃɒm^pski/ () or /'ævɻæm 'noʊm 'tʃam^pski/ with an American accent, which is the way in which Chomsky pronounces ().

The adjective éponyme chomskyen was created to indicate its ideas, but this term is little appreciated by Chomsky itself.

Contributions to linguistics

Syntactic Structures ( syntactic Structures ) is a continuation of its book Logical Structure off Linguistic Theory (1955, 75) ( Logical structure of the linguistic theory ) into which it introduced the Generative grammar. The theory considers that the expressions (sequences of words) have a syntax which can be characterized (overall) by a formal Grammaire; in particular, a Grammar out-context extended by rules of transformation. The children are supposed to have an innate knowledge of grammar elementary common to all the human languages (i.e what supposes that any existing language of it is a kind of restriction). This innate knowledge is often called universal Grammaire. It is constant that the modeling of the knowledge of the language by a formal grammar explains the “productivity” of the language: with a reduced type font of grammatical rules and a finished whole of terms, the human ones can produce an infinite number of sentences, including sentences that nobody previously said. The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P) ( Approach of the principles and the parameters ), developed in the Conférences (Pisa, 1979), published later under the title Lectures one Government and Binding (LGB) strongly claim universal grammar: the grammatical principles underlying the languages innate and are fixed, the differences between the various languages in the world can be characterized in terms of parameters programmed in the brain (such Parameter of elision, pro-drop parameter , which indicates when an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or if it can be elided, as in Spanish) often compared with switches (from where the term of Principes and parameters used to qualify this approach). From this point of view, a child who learns a language needs only to acquire the items lexical necessary (grammatical words, idiomatic Morphème S and turnings ) and to fix the suitable values of the parameters, which can be made on some key examples.

The partisans of this design allege that speed with whom the children learn from the languages is inexplicably fast, unless the children do not have an innate capacity to learn from the languages. Similar stages that all the children follow throughout the world when they learn from the languages, and the fact that the children make characteristic errors when they learn their first language, while other apparently logical types of error never occur (and, according to Chomsky, they should be attested if the mechanism of training used were general rather than specific to a language) also is perceived like a reason of innéïté.

More recently, in its Minimalist Program (1995) ( Programme minimalist ), while preserving the central concept of the “principles and the parameters”, Chomsky tries an important revision of the linguistic machines implied in the model of LGB, stripping them of very safe strict elements necessary, while recommending a general approach of the architecture of the faculty of the human language which underlines the principles of the economy and the optimal design, returning to the dérivationelle approach of the generation, in opposition with the major part of the approach representative of traditional P&P .

The ideas of Chomsky had a strong influence on the study of the training of a language by the children, although researchers who work in this field today do not support the theories of Chomsky and often advance the processes of emergence or the theories connexionnists, bringing back the language to a particular case of the general processes of the brain.

Generative grammar

The approach chomskyenne of the Syntax, often qualified Generative grammar, is disputed, especially apart from the United States, but profits from a certain popularity. The analysis of Chomsky, largely abstract, rests mainly on the meticulous examination of the interface between grammatical constructions and ruptures in the language (to be brought closer to the pathological Cas S, which play a similar part in mathematics). Such parsings can be realized finely only in our native tongue and the linguists who are interested in it thus devote often to their own language for practical reasons. It is generally of English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese or Mandarin. However, like points out it Chomsky:

The first application of this approach carried on the modern Hebrew , studied in a relatively precise way about 1949-50. The second, in the middle of the Years 1950, related to an indigenous American idiom, the Hidatsa: it was the first exhaustive generative grammar. The Turkish was the subject of the first thesis of doctorate, at the beginning of the Années 1960. This work was then adapted to a broad panel of languages. The MIT became in fact the international center of study of the Australian languages aboriginals by the generative approach thanks to work of Ken Hale, which is also at the origin of the one of the most ambitious research programs on the American indigenous languages; in fact, the first program utilizing natives, brought to the university to be formed with linguistics so that they can work on their own languages, in a way much major than all that could ever have been carried out before. That continued thereafter and became a work of reference on the most varied collection of languages from the typologique. point of view

The theory of the generative grammar proves sometimes not very relevant to analyze languages ever studied before. This approach knew many evolutions as the number of studied languages increased. The thesis of the invariants (or universals) linguistic however knows an increasingly important support; in the Années 1990, Richard Kayne for example suggested that all the languages underlie a structure Subject-Verb-Object, which would have appeared not very plausible in the years 1960. One of the main motivations of an alternative approach as the approach typologico-functional calculus (often associated with Joseph Greenberg) is to confront the assumptions of linguistic invariances with the study of the greatest possible number of languages, to classify the noted variations and to induce theoretical laws of them. Although it was already applied to a great number of languages, the approach of Chomsky is too meticulous person and requires a too pointed knowledge of the languages studied to answer such a methodology.

The hierarchy of Chomsky

Chomsky was made famous while studying various kinds of formal languages and their respective capacities to integrate intrinsic characteristics of the human language. The Hiérarchie of Chomsky breaks up formal grammars of categories of being able of expression growing, i.e. in successive groups being able each one to generate a variety of languages broader than the preceding group. It is interesting to note that, according to Chomsky, certain aspects of the human language require to resort to a more complex formal grammar (in terms of hierarchy chomskyenne) that for others. For example, whereas the group of the regular languages is sufficiently powerful to model the morphology English language, it is not it enough to model the Syntaxe of it.

Beyond its interest in the linguistic field, the hierarchy of Chomsky also appeared relevant in Informatique, in particular for the construction of the Compilateur S and Interpréteur S.

Its famous work Principles of generative phonology ( The Sound Pattern off English , 1968), written in collaboration with Morris Halle, today is regarded as exceeded, even if it were reprinted recently. Chomsky does not publish any more work of phonology.

Contribution to psychology

Linguistic work of Chomsky had a major influence on the Psychologie and its fundamental orientation during the 20th century. For Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of the cognitive Psychologie, true competences in linguistics imply a concomitant comprehension of the aspects of the mental process and human nature. Sa theory of the universal Grammaire is seen by much like a direct challenge with the behaviorist theories established and had major consequences in the comprehension of the training of the language by the children and on what is exactly the capacity to interpret the language.

Many the most fundamental principles of this theory is not accepted by certain circles thought (even if it is not the case of the most important theories based on the principles and parameters described above).

In 1959, Chomsky publishes an outstanding criticism of the book of Burrhus Skinner Verbal Behavior in which Skinner gives a speculative and behaviorist explanation language. The linguistic behavior is defined there like a learned behavior, with for characteristic consequence being transmitted by the behavior already learned by other individuals; this theory brings a comprehensive view of the communicative behavior, much broader than that generally allowed by the linguists. The approach of Skinner differs considerably from the majority of the traditional linguistic theories on the development of the circumstances in which the language is used; for example, to require water has for him a functionally different use to associate water with the word water , or to have to answer somebody who asks for water… These functionally different uses requiring each one a different explanation, the approach strongly contrasts with the traditional notions of the language and the approach psycholinguistics of Chomsky which concentrates on the mental representations of the words and the words acquired which, once learned, can appear in all the functions.

The criticism of Chomsky in its article of 1959, although concerning with the various verbal functions, summarizes itself more largely with an attack of the base even of the approach of Skinner, namely behavioral psychology. The gasoline of the arguments of Chomsky is that the application of the principles comportamentalists, resulting from animal research, does not have any direction when it is a question of applying it to the human ones out of a laboratory, and that to include/understand a behavior he complexes should above all be recognized that there is in the brain of the inobservable entities which of it are basically responsible.

This article of Chomsky of 1959, which calls into question the radical behaviorism of Skinner, itself was strongly criticized inter alia in an article entitled One Chomsky' S Review off Skinner' S Verbal Behavior of Kenneth MacCorquodale in 1970. These different criticisms note important facts generally not recognized out of behavioral psychology and estimate that Chomsky as a whole includes/understands neither the behavioral psychology nor how the behaviorist radicalism of Skinner differs from the other behaviorist alternatives and that it makes embarrassing errors. They also state that the people most influenced by this article of Chomsky were already substantially of agreement with him and did not perhaps even read it.

It was known as that the criticism of Chomsky towards the methodology of Skinner posed the stakes of the cognitive Révolution, movement of the American psychology of the years 1950 to 1970 which passed from the behaviorism to a cognitive approach. In its book of 1966 Cartesian Linguistics and in other work, Chomsky explains why the study of faculties of the human language became a model for the studies in other fields of the Psychologie. The majority of the new designs emitted on the operation of the spirit result from ideas formulated by Chomsky.

Among those, three key ideas:

the spirit is cognitive, i.e. it contains beliefs, doubts, etc the last design did not take into account this cognitive side, recognizing only logical relations of the style “If you me requests if I want X, I will answer you yes”. On the contrary, Chomsky explains that the common way to include/understand the spirit like having beliefs or nonconscious mental states is the approach to be privileged;
most of what the spirit of an adult can do is innate. Even if no newborn is born with the capacity from speaking directly, all are born with the capacity from Acquisition from the language which enables them to quickly learn the language in their first years.

Nombre of psychologists extended this thesis to other fields that the language, in contradiction with the vision of the newborn in tabula shaved ;

the architecture of the spirit is modular. The spirit is composed of a whole of interactions, subsystems specialized (modules) with a limited flood of intercommunication. This theory strongly contrasts with the old design according to which each share of information can be accessible by all the other cognitive processes (for example, one cannot cancel the effect of a optical illusion even if it is known consciously that it is an optical illusion).

Research on the brain

Point of view on the criticism of the scientific culture

Chomsky formally rejects the postmodern post structuralism and criticisms of science:

I passed most of my life to be worked on questions like those, by using the only methods which I know, those condemned here like “science”, “rationality”, “logic” and so on. I thus read these articles by hoping that they could help me “to transcend” these limits or perhaps to suggest me a completely different way. I fear to be disappointed. Perhaps because of my own limits. Regularly, the polysyllabic speeches on the topics of the post structuralism and the post modernism fell me with the hands; what I include/understand changing often obviousness or error but that is only one fraction of the calculation of the words. It is true that there are many things which I do not include/understand: in particular articles of the current publications in the fields of the maths or physics. But there is a difference. In this last case, I know how to make them to include/understand and I already proceeded of the kind when that interested me particularly. Moreover, I know that the specialists in these fields can explain the contents of it while placing themselves on my level, so that I can possibly acquire an at least partial comprehension of it. On the other hand, nobody seems able to explain me in what the last post-Ci-or-that does not concern primarily the truism, the error and the gibberish; as for discovering it by myself, I do not know how procéder.

Chomsky notes that criticisms of white male science are very similar to the attacks anti-semites and ideological carried out by the Nazis to disparage the scientific work of the Jewish researchers:

In fact, all this history of “white male science” recalls me, I fear it, “Jewish physics”. Perhaps is this still the fact of my lack of understanding but, when I read a scientific article, I am unable to say if its author is white or if it is male. The same applies to the professional discussions in class, at the office or anywhere elsewhere. I doubt extremely that the students, friends and colleagues not-white and not-masculines with which I work have more consideration than me for the doctrines according to which them manner of reasoning differs from that of “white male science” because of their “culture, kind and race”. I guess that “surprised” will not be exactly the suitable word to describe to them réaction.

Noam Chomsky influenced much Jean Bricmont, the joint author with Alan Sokal of the intellectual Impostures which Co-directed with Julie Franck in January 2007 a Book of Herne (collective work) devoted to the linguist.

Point of view on the Media

In its works Necessary Illusions and the Factory of the public opinion , Chomsky attempts to highlight the processes by which the media tend to lock up the democratic society in an ideological yoke. Its criticism relates to the total operation of the media institution in its relationship with the capacities economic and political. Chomsky shows how the media drown the electoral mass under a flood of information too much dense to be used as support of reflection and which converges, ultimately, worms of the analyzes with one way, founded on presupposed that one carefully avoids calling in question. It is in particular through the analysis of the media treatment of the armed conflicts that Chomsky reveals the dependence of the media towards the capacities economic and political. By seeking with démythifier the alleged neutrality of the media, Chomsky intends to work for the intellectual emancipation of the company. He also claims that in an democratic society, the political line is not never stated as such but is implied. Thus the “debates” are within the framework of the authorized implicit parameters and hold in edge many contrary points of view.

Influence of Chomsky in other fields

The models chomskyens were used as bases theoretical in several other fields. The Hiérarchie of Chomsky is often taught in fundamental Informatique for the lighting which it gives of the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be considered in mathematical terms and aroused the interest of the specialists in Combinatoire, in particular. Many arguments of the evolutionary Psychologie are derived from its research tasks.

Niels Kaj Jerne, prize winner of the Nobel Prize of medicine in 1984, used the generative model of Chomsky to explain the human immune system, establishing the link between grammatical and proteinic structures. The speech of Jerne to the handing-over of the Nobel was entitled “the generative grammar of the immune system”.

Political opinions

Noam Chomsky was always politically committed. It expressed many opinions on the international policy and businesses, in particular in its books. They were largely quoted, published and are the subject of debates. One can in particular retain:

that he thinks that the word terrorism is an easy label for governments which were unable to recognize terrorist dimension their own activities;
that it deploys a broad spectrum of criticisms quite informed but sometimes unpopular against the US government;
that, although he largely criticizes his concrete applications, he supports a libertarian Socialisme with world vocation;
that it develops from the points of view which one can overall describe as anti-war: it was against the Guerre of Vietnam and is member of the International committee of Support for the victims Vietnameses of the orange Agent, for the lawsuit of New York carried out by this association and generally against all the wars carried out by the United States since;
that he largely criticizes the policy of Israel with respect to the Palestinians and the support of the the United States for this policy;
that it is for the partition of Kosovo between Serbes and Albanian with an aim of cutting the roots of hatred, like the Serb intellectual Dobrica Ćosić (see the magazine NIN of May 2006 the division of Kosovo: the solution? Latin Serb, NIN , 11.5.2006) or the re-creation of large Yugoslavia with integration of Albania gràce to the creation of a party social-revolutionist in Albania and in all the countries of ex-Yugoslavia.

Chomsky largely criticized other aspects of the US government, company and media. It is also very intellectually committed with its pars academicians. It profited from a broad international audience, as well for its academic writings and speeches as political.

Criticisms of Noam Chomsky

Because of the polemical nature of some of its political writings and its thought, Noam Chomsky caused many criticisms. Its most discussed positions relate to the business Faurisson. On this subject, Chomsky explains why:

I learned later that my declaration was to appear in a book in which Faurisson defend of the loads which were to soon be retained against him at the time of a lawsuit. Although this was not my intention, it was not contrary with my instructions. I receipts a letter of Jean-Pierre Faye, a writer and militant well-known antifascist, who was of agreement with my position but pressed me to withdraw my declaration because the climate of the opinion in France was such as my defense of the right of Faurisson to express its point of view would be interpreted like a support for this last. I wrote to him that I accepted his judgment, and asked that my declaration not appear, but it was then too late to stop the publication.

About its request for nonpublication of its declaration, Chomsky specifies that “A posteriori, I think that probably I should not have done that. I should have said " Ok, let text appear thus because it owes paraître". But that put aside, I regard standpoint in this business as not only alleviating, but especially unimportant compared with other positions which I took on freedom of expression.”

Pierre Vidal-Naquet, specialist in the Négationnisme, considers however which the petition signed by Chomsky further went than simple defense from its freedom of expression (to which in addition the French historian subscribes): the petition reported the search and for Faurisson like serious and sizeable. Moreover, Vidal-Naquet reproaches Chomsky for having qualified Faurisson of " liberal relatively apolitique" left; whereas the texts of this last would express according to him a obvious Antisémitisme. " You had the right to say: my worst enemy has the right to be free, provided he does not ask my death or that of my brothers. You do not have the right to say: my worst enemy is a comrade, or a " liberal relatively apolitique". You do not have the right to take a forger and to repaint it with the colors of the vérité."

With the the United States, the majority of criticisms are emitted against its political writings on the military power and the American policy like its work fundamental but discussed in linguistics.

Distinctions

According to the Arts and Humanities Quotation Index (an index of quotations stripping documentation on arts and the social sciences), between 1980 and 1992, Chomsky was quoted like source more often than any teacher living and was the eighth source most quoted in general.

Chomsky was invited to give prestigious conferences in many universities: cycle conferences on John Locke with the Université of Oxford (spring 1969), conference commemorative on Bertrand Russell with the Université of Cambridge (January 1970), commemorative conference Nehru with New Delhi (1972), Huizinga conference with Leiden (1977), commemorative conference Davie on the academic freedom with the Cape (1997), and well of others…

Noam Chomsky received many honorary diplomas of the most eminent universities of the world. He is member of the American Academy of arts and sciences, as well as American national Academy of sciences. Moreover, it belongs to other associations and privately held companies to the United States and elsewhere, and is in particular member elect of the price of the scientific contribution of the American Association of psychology. It also received the price Kyoto, the medal Helmholtz, the price of peace Dorothy Eldridge, the medal Benjamin Franklin in cognitive sciences and of information. It was twice victorious price Orwell granted by the American Council of the English professors for its eminent contributions to the sincerity and the clearness of the public language.

Chomsky was recognized larger intellectual alive by the survey 2005 on the large world intellectuals, published by the British magazine '' Prospect ''. It reacts simply while saying I do not pay great attention to the surveys.

Work

Linguistics

Bibliographie supplements on its personal page with the MIT (in English)

Aspect of the syntactic theory (Threshold, 1971, ISBN 2020027402) [references]
Questions of semantics (Threshold, 1975, ISBN 2020027488)
syntactic Structures (Threshold, 1979, ISBN 2020050730)
Théories of the language - Theories of the training: the debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (Threshold, 1979, ISBN 2-02-005273-3): Collection of the epistemological debate on the nature of the language organized by Jacques Monod gathering various scientific horizons
Language, linguistics, policy: dialogs with Mitsou Ronat (Flammarion, 1992, ISBN 2-08-081261-0): general presentation of the scientific and political ideas of Chomsky
Reflections on the language (Flammarion, 1997, ISBN 2080810464)
the Language and the thought (Small Payot library, 2001, ISBN 2228882690)
Of the human nature (Aden, 2006)
New horizons in the study of the language and the spirit; transl. Richard Crevier and Alain Kihm. Paris: Stock, 2005. ISBN 2-234-05804-X.

Policy, media, economy

Washington connection and Fascism in the third world (with Edward Hermann, I Hallier, 1981, ISBN 2862970522), 2 political Written volumes

(1977-1983) (Acratie, 1984)

new Answers to my Parisian detractors (Spartacus, 1984, ISBN 2902963084)

year 501 - the conquest continues (Herne, 1992)

Responsabilités for the intellectuals (Agonic, 1998, ISBN 2910846083)

Propagande, media, democracy (with Robert W. McChesney, Ecosociété, 2000, ISBN 2923165101)

11-9: autopsy of terrorisms (Plumed serpent, 2001, ISBN 2842613236)

the conference of Albuquerque (Combined, 2001, ISBN 284485057X)

Of the hope in the future: talks on anarchism and socialism (Agonic, 2001, ISBN 2910846865)

Of the hope in the future: matter on anarchism and socialism (Agonic, 2001, ISBN 2910846865)

Two hours of clearness: conversations with Noam Chomsky (Arenas, 2001, ISBN 2912485126)

Elections 2000: reflections on the American democracy & the diagrams of the vote and the abstention (Sulliver, 2001, ISBN 291119974X)

Instinct of freedom: anarchism and socialism (Agonic, 2001, ISBN 2-910846-50-4)

September 11th, 2001, end of “the end of the history” (with Naomi Klein, Jean Bricmont and Anne Morelli, Aden, 2001 ISBN 2960027329)

the Law of the strongest: setting with the step of the States hooligans (with Ramsey Clark, Edward W. Said, the Plumed serpent, 2002, ISBN 2842613473)

Capacity exposed (Ecosociété, 2002, ISBN 2921561611)

Propaganda: a text founder on the modern communication (Public menace, 2002, ISBN 2866454537)

Of propaganda (Beech, 2002, ISBN 226403761X)

Of the war like foreign politics of the United States (Agonic, 2002, ISBN 2748900375)

the American Shield and the declaration of the human rights (Plumed serpent, 2002, ISBN 2842613511)

the Law of the strongest: Put at the step of the states hooligans (Plumed serpent 2002, ISBN 2842613473)

Profit before the man (Beech, 2003, ISBN 2213615691)

the Factory of the public opinion: the economic policy of the American media (the Plumed serpent, 2003, ISBN 284261416X)

Pirate and emperors: international terrorism in the current world (Beech, 2003, ISBN 2213616434)

To be able and terror: talks after September 11th (the Plumed serpent, 2003, ISBN 2842614356)

On the control of our lives (Combined, 2003, ISBN 2844851320)

Dominer the world or to save the planet? (Beech, 2004 - republication in 10-18, coll " Fact and cause" , 2005, ISBN 226404229X)

Politicamente Incorrecto with Thierry Meyssan, postface of Fidel Castro (Ciencias social, 2004, ISBN 959-06-0640-7)

To include/understand the capacity (volume 1) (Aden, 2005, ISBN 2930402032)

To include/understand the capacity (volume 2) (Aden, 2006)

the community property ????

Israel, Palestine, the United States: The fateful triangle (Ecosociété, 2006, ISBN 2923165195)

missed States , 2007

See too

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