-
Birth
Born Avrom Noam Chomsky on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Hebrew scholar William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky Chomsky.vvvvv -
Higher Education
At the age of 16, Chomksy began his path of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. This is where he met linguist Zellig S Harris and became his mentee. Chomsky studied philosophy at the urging of Harris. -
Period: to
Chomsky's Early Works
In his 1951 master’s thesis, The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew, and especially in The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (LSLT), written while he was a junior fellow at Harvard (1951–55) and published in part in 1975, Chomsky adopted aspects of Harris’s approach to the study of language and of Goodman’s views on formal systems and the philosophy of science and transformed them into something novel. -
Graduation
Attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1955. -
Employment
Appointed to a teaching position, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). -
"Syntactic Structures"
Published his groundbreaking work "Syntactic Structures", which established him as a leading figure in the field of linguistics. The book began as a series of lectures and had impressed the university faculty so much that they asked Chomsky and his colleague to establish a novel graduate linguistics program.
Noam Chomsky : A personal bibliography, 1951–1986, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1986. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=802009. -
A new age in syntax
Chomsky co-founded the field of generative grammar with Zellig Harris, which became the dominate theory of syntax in linguistics in the 1960s and 1970s. "Zellig Harris’ influence on Chomsky was ‘enormous’. Harris is pictured here, left, beside his friend, the council-communist Paul Mattick. Chomsky had many discussions with Mattick but considered him ‘too orthodox a Marxist for my tastes’." -
Period: to
Chomsky vs the Vietnam War
In the 1960s, Chomsky became a prominent anti-war activist and played a crucial role in the opposition to the Vietnam War. He gave numerous lectures and speeches, participated in protests, and wrote extensively on the subject. -
Promotion
Chomsky was appointed to a full professor position at MIT. -
"Aspects of the Theory of Syntax"
By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. Obviously, every speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language.
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. 50th ed., vol. 11, The MIT Press, 2014. -
Promotion
Promoted to "Ferrari P. Ward Professor" of Modern Languages and Linguistics -
"Cartesian Linguistics"
"...one fundamental contribution of what we have been calling 'Cartesian linguistics' is the observation that human language, in its normal use, is free from the control of independently identifiable external stimuli or internal states and is not restricted to any practical communicative function, in contrast, to the pseudo-language of animals."
Chomsky, Noam. Cartesian Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central -
Chomsky vs the Vietnam War
In the 1960s, Chomsky became a prominent anti-war activist and played a crucial role in the opposition to the Vietnam War. He gave numerous lectures and speeches, participated in protests, and wrote extensively on the subject. Resistance rally: Noam Chomsky speaking at rally on Boston Common, Alex Jack seated behind, October 16, 1967 -
"Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship"
Chomsky wrote a critical review of a study of the period by the historian Gabriel Jackson -
Period: to
Chomsky and the Palestinian cause
In the 1970s, Chomsky became involved in the Palestinian cause, advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people and criticizing Israeli policies towards them. -
Promotion
Promoted to Institute Professor at MIT -
Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky's war on Propoganda
Published his influential political book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" in 1988, which argued that the mainstream media in the U.S. serves as a propaganda tool for the ruling elite. -
Awarded the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences
-
Chomsky's FAIR
In 1988, he co-founded the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which monitors media coverage and challenges biased reporting.
FAIR -
Retirement
-
Awarded the Sydney Peace Prize
-
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science
-
His work continues...
Continues to be an active public intellectual, speaking out on a wide range of social, political, and environmental issues, and advocating for progressive change.
