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<TITLE>RE: Chomsky</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2> Actually, many of us who went to LSA in the late 1970s and '80s discovered that the "genuine criticism" our papers received, most of it from Chomskyans, was so ill-informed and narrow minded that we stopped going. So I don't blame Chomsky for not going.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>On the other hand, it is not surprising that Chomsky is addressing the MLA. Anyone who reads stuff from the sciences, e.g. biology, chemiostry, anthropology (the scientific, i.e. physical or biological, parts of it) is apt to discern that linguistics since the Chomskyan revolution (pick whichever one of them you want) has becoming less scientific and more humanistic over the years. Personally, I think that pre-Chomskyan structuralism was a sort of natural history, but what we see mostly today is on a par with literary theory (sic). Incidentally, my own work on how the sciences and a few other disciplines display their results indicates that there are a number of disciplines between the sciences and the humanities (psychology, sociology) that are not unlike linguistics in being unable or unwilling to decide whether they are sciences or humanities.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Carl</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>-----Original Message-----</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>From: A R</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>You know, Funknetters, I don't know that I'd call myself either</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>a formalist or a functionalist. But one of the most damning things</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>I know about Chomsky is that he *never* goes to LSA, the one place where</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>he</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>might face genuine criticism. A friend of mine, a formalist,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>used to argue that he simply never went to academic conferences.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>This year, I discover that this is clearly untrue. Chomsky is going</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>to talk at the MLA, to those who do literature. It's only his own that</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>he</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>refuses to talk to at conferences.</FONT>
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