Chomsky’s argument was that language was not something you learned. Instead, you were born with a built-in “language organ” that thumped away in your brain the way your heart thumped in your chest. This physical organ conveyed “deep structure” and “universal grammar” and had a “language acquisition device.” The organ was physical and biological.
In short, Chomsky offered a physical explanation for how humans generate languages. He was turning linguistics into a real science.
What struck me immediately was that the organ Chomsky had discovered was imaginary.
Despite this minor flaw in his argument, Chomsky dominated American linguistics for the next 50 years. If you wanted to be a professor of linguistics in the United States, you were trained in Chomsky, you upheld Chomsky's imaginary organ and you wrote for publication variations on Chomsky.
Chomsky was a brilliant spokesperson, and when he came out against the Vietnam War he became doubly famous. His opposition to the war made his imaginary organ more central in linguistics departments, and his fame in the Untied States as the greatest linguist in history made his antiwar message more compelling. Chomsky became—for Americans—as illustrious as Plato and Tolstoy combined. (On other continents, other thinkers led linguistics.)
Eventually Chomsky dropped his big theory, the one my friends had sworn by, and came up with a second big theory, which was, unfortunately, soon refuted by people looking at actual facts. Today Chomsky’s official position is that the physical basis for how we acquire language is a mystery.
That's 50 years of American linguistics we won't get back. The question I ask is why can't we see nudity when the emperor has no clothes?
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