Noam Chomsky: Fake Linguist

Right Wing News (blog of conservative John Hawkins) ^ | 2002 | Marc Miyake

[IronJack]

I've never read much of Chomsky's linguistic theories. I just assumed that they were as muddled as his politics. It took an expert in the field to validate my suspicions. Thank you.

[chilepepper]

Chomsky's *REAL* game with linguistics isn't to 'discover' an existing universal grammar, rather IMHO is to IMPOSE one.

As Goebbels knew so well, and as Orwell exposed so completely, the totalitarian system requires a "new" totalitarian man, one who is unable to even frame in his own mind a disenting thought.

The Soviets were adept at this, and it shows with the careful grooming of words by the Left(example? how about the neat trick of replacing the word NAZI everywhere with the word FASCIST. Why? Obvious! NAZI stands for National Socialist - by replacing with FASCIST you hide the evidence that Hitler was a rabid SOCIALIST, and in NO WAY a capitalist. If Hitler and Stalin were both SOCIALISTS, gives the movement a bit of bad odor, sort of like everything French, n'est ce pas?).

The EXACT SAME PRINCIPAL is at work with Politically Correct speech. The goal of PC is to make it impossible to even say something that goes against the PC agenda, since the words and concepts themselves no longer even exist. A scary example of the totalitarian attack on freedom of thought...

Kudos for posting this article. It provides a succinct and powerful counter to Chomsky, and was great food for (free) thought...

[esopman]

Excellent posts!

The search for the 'universal grammar' is appropriate I think. While every cell of my body despises what Chomsky promotes politically, he is right in linguistics to look for the 'deep structure' - even if we disagree that he found it. Not unlike the 19th Century German linguists on the trail of Proto-IndoEuropean.

The idea of a universal grammar is indeed an indirect indicator of something created (Chomsky would pass out if compelled to really confront that notion...).

[AndyJackson]

I am a physcist with degrees from the top 10. I view linguistics as a sound objective field of inquiry. Linguists pose valid hypotheses which are capable of proof through the assembly and analysis of empirical data. And I think it is a lot more rigorous than the social sciences. For instance, grammar within a particular language and melieu is pretty much fixed, varying little from person to person. Except among the ill-educated, for instance, there is little statistical about the rule of subject-verb agreement as to number and person.

Among your arguments you have resorted to putting words in the mouths of others and then beating them over the head for it - a cheap liberal trick. You have resorted to namecalling - another cheap liberal trick. And you have smeared them with false facts - another cheap liberal trick.

I find the question of how the structure of language reflects the organization of the brain to be a fascinating endeavour. I would hope that you do to - or are you one who has no curiosity about the world?

[AndyJackson]

Ahh, the good old days when the Times' communism was coded!)

Brilliant!

[facedown]

bump

[js1138]

Chomsky contribution was a basis of rigor in an unrigorous field. Even if his theoretical framework is wrong, he can hardly be accused of a soft-headed PC approach to his field.

Sure he can. Applying an inappropriate and counterproductive paradigm to human language stifles both linguistics and computer science. If you think an analysis of human language that ignores connotation and emotion is actually a study of language, then something's wrong.

Chomshy's linguistics is like Bible Code or the game of casting out nines. It can never be wrong because it is circular. Anything can be fixed by just one more transformation.

Problem is, it sheds absolutely no light on the physical implementation of the mind. It predicts nothing, adds nothing to our understanding.

[ez]

He claims that we formulate 'deep structures' in our heads using 'universal grammar'. Then we use 'transformations' to change these (invisible, nonexistent) 'deep structures' into 'surface structures' (which are what we actually say and write).

Chomsky is a moron. Surface structures are thoughts, Deep structures are electromagnetic brain waves, and universal grammar is nothing more than the common way in which our synapses interconnect.

Yes, Noam, we all use the same brain cells to generate the same electrical activity which, with repetition, becomes thoughts that are formed differently by people speaking different languages.

Major drug use involved here, I suspect...

[js1138]

Except among the ill-educated, for instance, there is little statistical about the rule of subject-verb agreement as to number and person.

Except that Chomsky predicts that these kinds of rules are embedded in the mind and do not need to be explicitly learned.

[AndyJackson]

Chomsky's *REAL* game with linguistics isn't to 'discover' an existing universal grammar, rather IMHO is to IMPOSE one

The antidote to liberal ideology is not conservative idiology [sic]. It is rational debate. If you had even passing familiarity with several rather unrelated languages you would also be struck by the similarities in structure between them. For instance, we and the Arabs use prepositions in similar fashion? Why is that? I guess because of fundamental features of human cognition, which is what a "universal" grammar is expressive of. I am curious about the explanation for these things. I presume that you are not. That is fine - but don't count yourself a member of the republic of ideas, even conservative ones.

If one were to believe the great Alan Bloom, the language of the Marxists is a kind of educated German that uses enormously long words that none of the rest of us understand. So, that is the grammar that Noam Chomsky would be trying to impose on us, I suppose. Personally, I have seen no evidence of that.

[Mamzelle]

My, my. I always love it when a poster trots out his list of virtual degrees on a discussion forum. I'm supposed to be blown away by your CV?

Linguistics is mildly interesting, but of limited application. Sort of like theoretical physics--if there was an eager need for this knowledge there wouldn't be such a glut of unemployed PhDs. As for being linguistics being rigorous, that's only is in comparison to the other social sciences, which themselves verge on seances and astrology.

[AndyJackson]

I think that his argument is that what has to be learned are the conventions of the particular dialect you are using. I.e. in standard English "we are" vs "we be" (although "we be" has a proper use as the present subjuntive, and given how it is used in those circles that use it, I think may be more correct than most of the pseudosophistates even know.)

I think that Chomsky's real question is, how is it that most people know these things by age 3 without having to have a PhD in linguistics in order to understand it all? It is a very simple question with very profound consequences. But that is often the case with simple questions. Einstein asked a simple question and got the special and general theories of relavitity as a consequence.

[eno_]

Chomsky's *REAL* game with linguistics isn't to 'discover' an existing universal grammar, rather IMHO is to IMPOSE one.

In a way this is true, but it could only serve some political purpose if you think the entire foundation of sythetic languages, computabilty, Turing machines, etc. is not universal and equivalent and interchangable.

As it is, there is no alternative to the way Chomsky imposed a framework on what had been a branch of philosophy - there is no other consistent symbolic system for describing linguistics, and there are good reasons to think there can't be.

[AndyJackson]

Actually, there isn't such a glut of unemployed PhDs as you imagine. Second, I am just pointing out, since you wish to debunk linguistics as a serious field of study, that some people in serious fields of study view it otherwise

Much of the linguistics that I have read is every bit as rigorous as the experimental physics research that I am familiar with.

And while I am an experimental physicist, your ignorance about physics is showing as well.

[AndyJackson]

Major drug use involved here, I suspect

You are as bad as all of the other Chomsky detractors. His politics is despicable, but his science is not. If you want to be taken seriously you also need to take seriosly the fundamental contributions to what we regard as modern thoght.

[Theo]

You're right.

I could tell it was going to be bad when it started off with the author appealing to the validity of his argument by referring to his Ph.D. Whoopey! I've earned two master's degrees, one in communication with an emphasis in ESL, but that doesn't mean much beyond the fact that I was able to spend money and time for my eduction.

This is a pretty poorly written attack piece.

"Universal grammar" is a fascinating concept! I'm a computer software developer, working on voice applications, and any understanding I can gain on "grammars" and so on is very helpful to my craft.

Weak article....

[cookcounty]

"At this point in history, field linguistics is the one and only endeavor in which a Christian organization (Wycliffe Associates) is recognized as being the best in the world."

Ironically, it's the evangelicals (through Wycliffe and SIL), who are leading the world in the effort to collect, catalogue, and "save" the diversity of languages (and hence, cultures) in the world. This always strikes my funnybone.

[Theo]

My, my. I always love it when a poster trots out his list of virtual degrees on a discussion forum. I'm supposed to be blown away by your CV? ...

Isn't that exactly what the author of this article did? I agree with your argument, Mamzelle, that propping one's argument up with a reference to one's degrees is weak.