Criticizing Chomsky

[Ronald Kephart]

Hi Everybody,

This is one of my hobby-horses, because I may be the last living linguistic
anthropologist who incorporates more than a mention of Chomsky into my
courses. I would suggest a reading of Neil Smith's Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals
(Cambridge 1999 but there's a 2nd edition I haven't seen). In particular re
this discussion, the section on idealization (12-16 in the 1st ed) strips
away some of the misunderstanding about this and shows why idealization is
necessary in the natural sciences (one of which I take linguistics to be).

In terms of use of language in social contexts, I am frankly certain that NC
does not dismiss this as "irrelevant." Indeed, in the principles and
parameters approach social context is what allows children to set, say, the
head parameter, among others. Consider also NC's writings on the use of
language in public discourse, in particular to limit information and
understanding available to the general public: the propaganda model, his
frequent comments on the (mis)use of words like "terrorism," "terrorist" and
"freedom fighter," and so on. Some of this is also dealt with nicely in
Smith's book.

And you gotta appreciate anyone who can write something like this:

"McCain is supposed to be a specialist on national security issues. Why?
Suppose that some Russian pilot was shot down bombing heavily populated
areas in Kabul and tortured by Reagan's freedom fighters in the l980's.
Well, we might feel sorry for him, but does that make him an expert on
National Security? But McCain is an expert on national security because he
was shot down bombing heavily populated urban areas in Hanoi and he was
tortured by the Vietnamese. Well, we feel sorry for him, but he is no expert
on National Security. But you can't say that. These elections are run by the
public relations industry."
http://www.alternet.org/audits/101530/chomsky:_%22if_the_u.s._carries_out_te
rrorism,_it_did_not_happen%22/?page=entire

And don't get me wrong: I'm not a blind follower. I've been roundly spanked
by some of his followers for clinging to the phoneme-as-psychologically-real
thing, and yet I remain stubbornly unswerved. But NC's given us so much rich
stuff to think about, and work on, I for one can't help using it when it
explains things that I don't see any other very satisfactory explanations
for. My biggest complaint about the linguistic (anthropological and
otherwise) textbooks that I see is that he is usually pretty much ignored,
or what is presented is so absurdly outdated that I have to pull a Dead
Poets Society thing on the syntax chapters.

Feel free to fire at will...

Ron