Chomsky's language background

Sat Apr 19 15:27:35 UTC 2003

Could one then argue that Chomsky's universalism is an attempt to
suppress his linguistic background
   (not at all fair to the positive dimensions of politics -
        but can a rationalistic model really make us all free?
     I've just been reading Amos Elon's The Pity of it All
        a history of the intellectual and other currents shaping Jewish life
        in Germany from 1743 to 1933 -
        It is a very enlightening book)

Karl Reisman
Bryllars at concentric.net


At 04:42 PM 4/18/03 -0700, you wrote:
> >From a filmed interview Chomsky did when he was a guest lecturer here at UW
>in 1989 (taken from the transcript), it certainly doesn't seem as if he saw
>his language background as homogeneous:
>
>"So take me--my father spoke with a Ukrainian accent and my mother spoke
>with a mixed New York-Lithuanian accent, and I spoke Urban Philadelphia
>because that's what the kids were talking in the streets.  And undoubtedly,
>if you really took my speech patterns and so on aside, you'd find influences
>from the parents and uncles and so on."
>
>As someone has already mentioned, it depends on how you define
>"monolingual"...
>
>Laada
>
>--
>Laada Bilaniuk
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Anthropology
>University of Washington
>Box 353100/Denny Hall M32
>Seattle, WA 98195-3100
>
>
>----------
> >From: "Harold F. Schiffman" <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> >To: Gabriella Modan <modan.1 at osu.edu>
> >Cc: Ronald Kephart <rkephart at unf.edu>, <linganth at cc.rochester.edu>
> >Subject: Re: linguistic questions
> >Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2003, 1:21 PM
> >
>
> > In a recent issue of the New Yorker there is an article about Chomsky, and
> > it says that a great deal was known about Hebrew in his family, but no
> > mention of Yiddish is mentioned.  (New Yorker Mar. 31, 2003, pg 64-ff.)
> >
> >  One quote: " While the boys were growing up, William Chomsky [his
> > father] became well-known as a Hebrew scholar; in 1957, he published what
> > became a classic history: "Hebrew, the Eternal Language." (p. 68).  Both
> > his parents trained as Hebrew teachers and "cared a great deal about
> > promoting Hebrew as a living language." (p. 68)  "Although the family
> > spoke English at home, Noam and David became fluent in Hebrew when they
> > were young." (ibid.) The article goes on to document the ways Chomsky
> > learned and used Hebrew, e.g. in summer camps.
> >
> > Hal Schiffman
> >
> >
> >
> >  On Fri, 18 Apr 2003, Gabriella Modan wrote:
> >
> >> Chomsky's dissertation was on the morpho-phonemics of modern Hebrew, and
> >> I'm pretty sure he's done work on and/or speaks Yiddish.  Regardless
> of his
> >> bi/multilingualism (which it's worth pointing out that we don't even know
> >> if we're working with similar definitions of bilingualism), it's patently
> >> ridiculous to claim that Chomsky has nothing of interest to say about
>language.
> >>
> >> I'm interested in these discussions about who is a linguist and who is
> >> not.  I would argue that people who are good at learning languages as
> >> adults can be seen as linguists  in some sense, because they have to go
> >> through the same kinds of explicit structural and pragmatic analyses
> as the
> >> people who do it for a living in the process of becoming competent
> >> speakers/signers/writers.  So what makes a linguist a linguist?  Getting
> >> paid for it?  And what's at stake for us in who we allow into the
> >> definition?  I've been noticing for the last few years that this issue
> >> always seems to be brewing beneath the surface of the annual Society for
> >> Linguistic Anthropology meetings, where people, depending on the year and
> >> on the issue, want to either separate Linguistic Anthropology from
> >> Linguistics, which seems to serve the purpose of bolstering credentials as
> >> anthropologists, or to emphasize Linguistc Anthropologists' identity as
> >> linguists (this played out last year in the discussion about whether
> or not
> >> the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages was gonna meet with AAA
> >> or LSA); promoting an identity as linguists *also* seems to work to
> bolster
> >> our credentials vis-a-vis the rest of anthropology, as people who have
> >> difficult technical skills which are critical to the work of anthropology
> >> (something along the lines of, you need us, otherwise anthropology will
> >> have no rigor, so we're worthy of respect).  This stuff also often seems
> >> somehow to segue from or into how many linguistic anthropologists are on
> >> various AAA committees.  In light of this, I would be interested to hear
> >> other people's thoughts on how our definitions of "linguist" tie into
> >> material concerns, and what the implications of that are for the work of
> >> linguistic anthropology (and linguistic anthropologists, broadly
> construed).
> >>
> >> Galey Modan
> >>
> >> At 10:16 AM 4/18/2003 -0400, Ronald Kephart wrote:
> >> >At 6:02 PM -0400 4/17/03, hmfaller at umich.edu wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>And thank goodness my invocation of snot caused such a flurry of
> >> >>activity. I actually was thinking about Jakobson in comparison to
> Chomsky
> >> >>(for all his good politics)...
> >> >
> >> >But didn't Chomsky grow up speaking both English and Hebrew? As I
> >> >understand it, his parents were both involved in the movement to
> >> >revitalize Hebrew, his father was a respected scholar of Hebrew, and
> >> >Chomsky himself taught Hebrew as a young fellow and wrote his masters
> >> >thesis on Hebrew. So I think it's a bit unfair to claim Chomsky as
> >> >"monolingual," whatever else you might think of him.
> >> >
> >> >And, while I'm here, I also disagree with whoever stated that all people
> >> >who have language are linguists. I do agree that people have what I would
> >> >call folk theories of language, and also culture, and probably even
> >> >digestion. But I don't think that makes them linguists, or cultural
> >> >anthropologists, or gastroenterologists.
> >> >
> >> >Hiding under my desk now...
> >> >
> >> >Ron
> >> >
> >> >--
> >> >Ronald Kephart
> >> >Associate Professor
> >> >English & Foreign Languages
> >> >University of North Florida
> >> >http://www.unf.edu/~rkephart
> >>
> >>
> >