Noam Chomsky: Fake Linguist

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

[ultimate_robber_baron]

Pariah Against A Prophet

By Marc Miyake, Amritas.Com

Many conservatives regard Chomsky as a linguist who falters out of his field. Unfortunately, they are giving Chomsky too much credit. Chomsky's linguistics are as warped as his politics.

As someone with a PhD in linguistics, I think I am qualified to judge his professional credentials.

Prior to Chomsky, linguists engaged in a lot of data collection to understand the diversity of human language. I'm vehemently anti-PC, but in this case, I think the word 'diversity' is justified. There's a lot out there, and someone's got to catalog it.

However, Chomsky rejected this approach. He wanted to look into something 'deeper' (academese for 'pretentious and nonexistent'). So he invented something called 'universal grammar' which is somehow programmed into us at birth. Now it is obvious to anyone who's studied a foreign language that there is no such thing as 'universal grammar': there are a lot of differences between any two languages' structures. How does Chomsky account for these differences? 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). There are innumerable problems with this. For starters:

1. Where did this 'universal grammar' come from, and how did it end up becoming part of our biology? Not many Chomskyans are interested in evolutionary biology. 'Universal grammar' simply IS. (I myself suspect that there may be a universal grammar sans scare quotes, but I doubt that it has much in common with Chomskyan 'universal grammar'.)

2. How can we see this 'universal grammar' and 'deep structures' if they are hidden behind 'transformations'?

3. How can we see the 'transformations'?

4. How can any child learn the 'transformations' (which are extremely complex and often counterintuitive, even to university graduate students in linguistics)?

Since no one can see 'universal grammar', 'deep structures', or 'transformations', one can imagine ANYTHING and create a maze of rules to convert ghost forms into what is actually being said and written. The Chomskyan approach to grammar is oddly English-like, even though many languages are UNlike English. This has absurd but dangerous consquences:

1. As a friend of mine pointed out, Chomsky, the enemy of "AmeriKKKa", is actually an ethnocentric advocate of imposing an English-like structure on all of the languages of the world.

Imagine if some professor said that there was a 'universal religion' programmed into us at birth. What if this person were, say, Buddhist? How would he explain the diversity of faiths around the world? He would say that all deities are 'transformations' of the 'underlying Buddha', all religious codes (e.g., the Ten Commandments, Sharia) are 'transformations' of the 'underlying dharma (Buddhist law)', etc. But, you then ask, how could a Muslim knowing nothing of Buddhism be an 'underlying Buddhist'? The professor would answer: 'Underlying religion' just IS.

Ridiculous? But that's how Chomskyans approach language.

2. This (let's be frank) *junk science* is very convenient for lazy academics who do not want to do real research but want to appear 'profound'. Chomskyans compete to create 'deep structures' that are the furthest from reality and the most complex 'transformations' possible. Never mind that neither of these non-entities can be depicted or tested except in a circular manner: "This transformation Z exists because it is needed to change deep structure X to surface structure Y. Deep structure X exists because if you take surface structure Y and undo transformation Z, you can see X underneath." I know of NO hard science (e.g., neurological) evidence for any of this. But the jargon sure looks impressive. This site parodies Chomskyan obscurantist writing by generating unreadable prose worthy of the master himself:

http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl

3. The combination of junk science and junk politics has made Chomsky an attractive - and unstoppable - juggernaut in the academic world. Academics - mostly left-wing to begin with - agree with his politics and assume his linguistics are as 'good'. Linguists who reject the Chomskyan paradigm such as myself are often either marginalized or shut out of the profession entirely. And not a few of Chomsky's linguistic opponents agree with his politics, I'd bet. I am the only linguist I know of who rejects both.

The late Nicholas Poppe, a Soviet emigre who was a master of Oriental linguistics, had this to say about Chomskyan linguistics in the US (_Reminiscences_, p. 207):

"Unfortunately, _true_ academic freedom, freedom to adhere to a scholarly theory of one's own choice, is often lacking in American universities, and scholars who do not comply with currently fashionable theories have little chance at a university. This makes an American university somewhat like a Soviet university: in the Soviet Union it is Marxism, in the United States it is, say, a currently obligatory method in linguistics."

Poppe does not specify what the "current obligatory method" of lingustics was. It was, and is Chomskyanism. Edublogger Joanne Jacobs was forced to learn it - and she hated it:

http://www.joannejacobs.com/ ...

"Structural linguistics was required for a degree in English at Stanford. I put it off till my last semester; finally I had to take the class. It consisted of uncritical worship of Noam Chomsky. I kept disrupting class by asking questions: Why do we believe this is true? Just because Chomsky says so? How do we know he's right? Why is this class required?"

She asks precisely the right questions. Chomsky is not a scientist. He is a prophet who demands that people believe him. I call him 'Noamuhammad'. Since his claims cannot be proved, they have to be taken on faith.

And too many place their faith in him. Jacobs took her course in the mid-70s. Little has changed in a quarter of a century. Chomskyanism has been the dominant paradigm in linguistics for nearly forty years, and its major competitors share some of its weaknesses. Even if Chomsky's own version of nonsense dies out, others will continue to pump out 'junk science' that contributes little or nothing to language learning, language teaching, or intercultural understanding. And peer review has done nothing to stop the cult of Noamuhammad. Like James Hudnall said:

http://hud.blogspot.com ...

"Science in this day and age has become one big pimp act for government grants ... 'Peer review' is just another word for log rolling. It's as useful as what David Duke thinks of Mein Kampf."

Our tax dollars are funding Chomskyanism.

And linguists like me are paying the price in another way. I have been looking for a professorship in linguistics for four years with very little success - a semester here and a year there amidst countless rejections. I don't attack Chomsky in my cover letters, interviews, etc. but I don't pretend to worship him either. Exile from academia is my reward.

Is Chomsky a double fraud in both science and politics? I honestly don't know. I have never met him and don't want to - the urge to verbally attack him is too strong. Maybe he really believes what he says in one or both fields. But in any case, Chomsky is a troublemaker on two fronts. He is like Lenin and Lysenko rolled into one.

If you liked this editorial, you can read more of Marc's work at Amaravati: Abode Of Amritas.

[Tax Government]

I have degrees in both linguistics and CS. As you know, there is huge synergy and overlap between these two areas.

Chomsky has destroyed his credibility as a thinker by creating a cult around himself. Even if 'Guru' Chomsky has one or a hundred inventive ideas, I would never look to him for intellectual leadership.

My solution to the 'Chomsky problem': end tenure, and vastly scale back federal support of graduate education. (The states can support higher education on their own, if they choose.)

[Devil_Anse]

Time for an amateur to weigh in. All I know is, if you control the language, you can control the thought to a degree. What I am thinking of is when we study a language which is not our first, and we are told "there's no corresponding expression in that second language for the expression [fill in the blank] which you know from your first language.

And I guess if someone claims to have discovered that there is some universal element in all languages, that person is setting himself up as the only purveyor of this great understanding which HE has, and which he may now share with the rest of the world--IF he feels like it. It's a power-grab.

I think more credit goes to the geneticists, than to the linguists, concerning the now-accepted solution to the Gypsies' origins.

[chilepepper]

You're a Chomskyphobe ;-)

The truth is that I distrust mathematics, and the tendency of mathematicians and physicists to worship 'formulas' without really understanding what a formula is. Chomsky falls into this category, searching for a 'formula' which describes the 'universal grammar'. This search gets very deep and very basic in a hurry: Aristotle believed that ideas had an existence in a separate, timeless dimension, but IMHO ideas are an invention by human consciousness, wonderful and beautiful, but that is ALL that they are: an attempt to predict things based on what has come before.

Problem is that people get wrapped up in formulas and forget the real thing that the formula is trying to describe.

It seems to me that the 'universal grammar' is just the way the language centers of our brain represent reality, as things and actions. If you want to call this the universal grammar, so be it.

IMHO one of the most profound statements about people, symbols and reality was uttered by the much maligned Dr. Timothy "LSD" Leary, and it is an important concept to remember... here it is:

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRAIN.

[Tax Government]

Time for an amateur to weigh in. All I know is, if you control the language, you can control the thought to a degree.

This is true.

The government is involved in higher education *precisely* so it can give its own sympathizers a podium and control public discourse.

I frankly have nothing but contempt for aveage academics, not because of what they may do in their careers, but because they look to mammoth institutions (universities, governments) to sanction and approve them. Every academic in this country receives a degree that has at least tacit government support. The degree-holders passed through a government-supported selection process, and 'succeeded' in some respect. All of them are in hock to the 'system,' although they may protest to the contrary.

There is nothing as silly and contradictory as Chomsky, who holds tenure from a government-assisted institution, trashing government and claiming to speak for the political opposition. It's ludicrous. But Chomsky & Co. are too much part of the big system to notice the problem.

[Consort]

Chomsky: A man of independent memes.

[MinuteGal]

Can someone post a sample paragraph of Chomsk's "universal linguistics" so those of us who speak Freeperese can see what this discussion is all about?

Leni

[chilepepper]

I speak fluent Spanish, a fair bit of Japanese, German, French and Russian.

The human brain is the human brain. If you want to try to express human language in terms of a 'universal grammar', be my guest. I'll do it in PERL, or perhaps FORTRAN, or perhaps in mythological terms.

SO, which of these is 'CORRECT'??

[George W. Bush]

Chomsky's early work intuited that language was instrinsic to the human being, that there was an innate faculty. He stood against the Skinnerian behaviorists who said that human beings were essentially born as blank slates and that therefore science and government could do with them as they willed without moral objection. Chomsky repudiated Skinner and was an important voice in bringing down the Skinnerian establishment.

Whatever his other failings in analysis of foreign policy, Chomsky used linguistics to champion human dignity and human rights in the constitutional sense against the Skinnerians and Pavlovians who considered human beings to be little more than livestock. So, Chomsky's life has not been wasted entirely, even from a conservative standpoint.

Chomsky is also the enfant terrible of linguistics, the towering quirky charismatic intellect about which the entire field has revolved. Both his successes and his failures have been instructive for his colleagues. I think his linguistic work drives them nuts and awes them by turns. Perhaps this has to do with the nature of linguistics work, which is not really a hard science and probably never will be.

[George W. Bush]

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.

True enough. But surgery failed pretty badly in the Civil War era. And yet, look what it has become.

Linguistics isn't a hard science yet. Maybe it never will be. It is mostly collecting information. But someday, it may lead to some real science. Give it another fifty years. It does occasionally produce some useful information even now. I suspect as our ability to analyze brain function increases, linguistics will provide more valuable contribuitions to research in related sciences.

Look at how often it takes decades or more than a century for a particular bit of mathematics to become useful. Basic research yields all sorts of benefits though I'd doubt that linguistics is more promising than space research or materials research.

[RWG]

Chomsky may have contributed to the analysis of computer languages...are you saying he works for microsoft?

[x]

Where did this 'universal grammar' come from, and how did it end up becoming part of our biology?

I have to wonder about this. Have evolutionary biologists figured out how certain chemicals rather than others came to be used in seeing, feeling and thinking? Maybe the author demands too much for the current state of science to provide.

His real quarrel may be with Kant. How did, if Kant is right, certain categories come to determine our understanding of the world? It may not be a question that can be answered by evolutionary biologists.

[WOSG]

I suspect many Freepers are into computer science, and Chomsky may have contributed to the analysis of computer languages. I have long suspected that this is the underlying reason for the failure of AI.
---

Yes, a CS freeper here ... Chomsky did have some contributions that we learn of when taking theoretical computer science, ie, the Chomsky grammar, in between the finita automata and the turing machine. What you say may well be true, there were certain flawed assumptions in AI about how easy it would be to characterize human understanding. many of us learned list way back when and learned how to convert input into a comupter 'parrot' that could carry on conversations, "Eliza like". Impressive, but it turned out to be more of a parlor trick than deep AI ... those approaches have come up short.

It may indeed be a generalization of the failure of Chomsky's grammer to account for deeper human "ontologies", ie, knowledge structures. AI over-reached and came up short. You could argue that CHomsky and some of the AI pioneers must be *wrong* because if they were *right*, we'd have been able to program language/knowledge-bases much better by now.

Assuming a grammar/structure does or doesnt represnt how human think - without studying neurology - is not science, it's conjecture. It strikes me that Chomsky is guilty of the same junk science that Freud passed down. Interesting that another poster made a similar point.
In both cases, their general and superficial ideas are subjectible to neuroscience review/checking, and will be superceded by it over time.

Only "constipated" academic tunnel vision will keep bad ideas alive well past their point of usefulness.
This does not make his contribution non-useful, but it does mean its application and meaning are more limited,
and should be challenged if we want to move 'forward' scientifically.

Finally, Chomsky is a 19th century style Communist. he is not above telling total and known lies to get his views spread. how and why he has any respect when his anti-human political views are worse than a vehement racists is beyond me. His extremism calls into question the rest of his work, IMHO.

[DrNo]

The human brain is the human brain. If you want to try to express human language in terms of a 'universal grammar', be my guest. I'll do it in PERL, or perhaps FORTRAN, or perhaps in mythological terms.

FORTRAN?!

You must be as old as me!

[Lx]

I read, "He is like Lenin and Lysenko rolled into one."

as, "He is like Lenin and Lewinsky rolled into one."

LOL. Need more coffee.

[ez]

What a tragic and uncreative and boring and meaningless and hopeless existence if that's what you believe!

Please pray for me.

[ez]

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

Couldn't "embedded in the mind" be another way to say "inherent in the physical structure of the brain?"

[MinuteGal]

Professorial "publish or perish".......Chomsky does both at the same time.

Thanks,

Leni