-
Bio summary
Noam Chomsky, he was born in Philadelphia in 1928. His father, William Chomsky, was a prominent Hebrew researcher and had a great influence on Chomsky’s becoming a linguist. He studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his Ph.D. in linguistics in 1955. He became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1956, and a research professor since 1976. He is called as the father of modern linguistics. -
Syntactic structure
He published his first book “Syntactic Structure”. It brought a breakthrough in the field of linguistics. He suggested a theory called “transformational grammar”, underlining that all human language has similar grammar, rules and structure. He focused how sentences could mean same things, after changing or add words, or the sentence structure. He also suggested the concept “Language Acquistion Device (LAD) which means human has natural capacity to acquire and produce language. -
Political activity- Vietnam war
Noam Chomsky began to engage in politics. He was against Vietnam war and he wrote an anti-war essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.” He had to spend some time in jail because of his activity. His book highlights the role of intellectuals in society especially when it comes to political decision and the importance to have moral responsibility. -
Noam Chomsky’s reaction to death of Osama bin Laden
He was not just merely linguist, he
also provided his sharp insight to society. He critiqued that Osama bin Laden’s death was a planned assassination, and international law was violated in the process. He encouraged people to think how we would feel if George Bush died and his body was dumped in the Atlantic.
He said “It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism.” -Media control: The spectacular Achievements of Propaganda