Chomsky: Obsolete?

Thu Oct 11 21:24:07 UTC 2007

As someone who, like Dan, cut my teeth on the Chomsky doctrine in the 1960s, my own work evolved subsequently in a different direction altogether in frustrated response to the persistent isolation of language within the GTG framework.   It's worth pointing out, in response to Katie's comment about undergraduates "thinking that Chomsky and Skinner are the only two people ever to have written anything about language acquisition" that, indeed, neither Chomsky nor Skinner actually studied real live children acquiring a real live language.  In a letter to me (dated November 2, 1987 regarding discussion at a BU conference), Noam referred to "many of the people [there] well-known in child language acquisition studies (about which I know next to nothing)."  The MIT enterprise is about acquisition in only the most abstract, theoretical sense admitting neither the rest of cognition nor a child's social and emotional life.  One might well wonder why, in the world according to MIT,  these things were, at best, ignored or, at worst, denigrated.  Perhaps fitting them into the theory is just too hard. 

Lois Bloom

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dan I. Slobin 
  To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org 
  Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 3:00 PM
  Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete?

  I agree.  Note, that I made no claims about "relevance."  Clearly, linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their thinking
  still seriously influences much current work in various fields.  In my case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero;
  he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions.  And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades
  ago.  With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email.

  Dan

  At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote:

    I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, not to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is not relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists find relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes functionalists and formalists alike. Right?

    From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] 
    Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM
    To: Jeff MacSwan
    Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete?

    It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature."
    I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, diachronic,
    developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical
    linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress with little
    or no reference to generativist work.  There was hardly a mention of Chomsky,
    for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of
    the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of
    associated workshops on many topics.  Like many ideologies in our world,
    things look different depending on which camp you live in.

    Dan

    At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote:

    It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which
    disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most
    influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant."

    But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and
    influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics
    generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences,
    computer science and mathematics, and philosophy.

    While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does
    not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic
    theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or
    significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current
    linguistics literature.

    Jeff MacSwan

    -----Original Message-----
    From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
    [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio
    Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM
    To: r.n.campbell
    Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
    Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete?

    Hi Robin,

    Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's 
    now a more relevant figure than before?

    Anat Ninio

    r.n.campbell wrote:
    >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?*
    >
    > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth 
    > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. 
    > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so.
    > -- 
    >   
    > Dr Robin N Campbell
    > Dept of Psychology
    > University of Stirling
    > STIRLING FK9 4LA
    > Scotland, UK
    >
    > telephone: 01786-467649  facsimile: 01786-467641
    > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk
    > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php
    >
    > -- 
    >
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    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School
    Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics

    Department of Psychology        email: slobin at berkeley.edu
    3210 Tolman #1650                 phone (Dept):  1-510-642-5292
    University of California             phone (home): 1-510-848-1769
    Berkeley, CA 94720-1650         fax: 1-510-642-5293
    USA                                      http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School
  Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics

  Department of Psychology        email: slobin at berkeley.edu
  3210 Tolman #1650                 phone (Dept):  1-510-642-5292
  University of California             phone (home): 1-510-848-1769
  Berkeley, CA 94720-1650         fax: 1-510-642-5293
  USA                                      http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm
  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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