This book presents a discussion by Noam Chomsky of some of the much controversial issues raised within the scientific field of linguistics since the inception of generative grammar in 1957. Based on the text of the talk given by Noam Chomsky at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, in 2002, the book presents Prof Chomsky's views on the philosophical bases and the historical development of the field of biolinguistics in the course of which he focuses on issues such as cognition, linguistics as a science, how the field developed, its nature and how it fits into the other domains of science The questions raised within the question-comment session lead Prof. Chomsky to expand his views on the nature of Universal Grammar, in particular on the philosophical underpinnings of the program which disfavors the view that languages are radically different. Prof. Chomsky also answers questions on the implications of theory-internal assumptions such as the determinants of phasehood in syntax, the nature of the innateness hypothesis, the nature-nurture debate within language acquisition, in particular the validity of the poverty of the stimulus arguments, the nature of the semantic component and the representation of the mental lexicon and the political implications of his Universal Grammar position on his activist stance.
Author
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century. He also helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology through his review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, in which he challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of behavior and language dominant in the 1950s. His naturalistic approach to the study of language has affected the philosophy of language and mind. He is also credited with the establishment of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. Beginning with his critique of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Chomsky has become more widely known for his media criticism and political activism, and for his criticism of the foreign policy of the United States and other governments. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–1992 time period, and was the eighth-most cited scholar in any time period.
