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Born - December 7, 1928
Pictures From: Wikipedia contributors. "Noam Chomsky." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Aug. 2022. Web. 29 Aug. 2022. -
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Career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chomsky got a job at MIT in 1955 starting out as an assistant professor. Among many projects he did, Chomsky also founded MIT's graduate program for linguistics. In 1961 he became a full professor in the Modern Language and Linguistics Department. In the video provided, Chomsky says why to study linguistics at MIT instead of Harvard. https://youtu.be/LlBpBdKx1b0 -
Chomsky Hierarchy
The Chomsky Hierarchy is a rating of formal languages on a scale dependent upon different restrictions and complexity that exists in the grammar. Languages have 2 basic elements, the syntax and semantics, sometimes having usage as another factor. The Hierarchy consists of 4 levels; Type-0, context-sensitive, context-free, and regular. Each level the grammar is less restrictive but harder to automate (Jager 2012). -
Universal Grammar Theory
Chomsky started working on the Universal Grammar theory in the 1960's. It was widely accepted within the linguistics community after the publication of Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965. The Universal Grammar theory basically states that humans are born with a certain mental grammar that helps learn language (Barsky 2018). -
The Responsibility of Intellectuals
This article published by Chomsky was very risky for his career. It went over the political stance of the US government's involvement in the Vietnam War. It went through and pointed out the contradictions, corrupt policies and wide self-deception regarding American government (Brown 2018). Lucky for Chomsky, the scientific community separated his political views from his scientific stature and his career wasn't harmed. -
Works Cited
Barsky, Robert F.. "universal grammar". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Nov. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/universal-grammar. Accessed 31 August 2022. Brown, Theodore. “Noam Chomsky (1928-), Fierce and Formidable Critic of the Vietnam War.” American journal of public health vol. 108,8 (2018): 1025. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304465 -
Works Cited
Jäger, Gerhard, and James Rogers. “Formal language theory: refining the Chomsky hierarchy.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences vol. 367,1598 (2012): 1956-70. doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0077 McGilvray, James A. "Noam Chomsky". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 May. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky. Accessed 29 August 2022.