[ultimate_robber_baron]

On his website at http://www.amritas.com , Marc Miyake posted a follow-up about this:

"I want to make a couple of points clear to my first-time visitors:

"1. I am not a crank amateur. I have a PhD in linguistics and have taught linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and the University of Oregon. I am currently a visiting assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, where I teach introductory linguistics, morphology and syntax, and semantics. In the past I have also taught phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and several specialized courses on the history and structure of East and Southeast Asian languages. I have presented at international linguistics conferences since 1995 and have been invited to be a member of a elite panel of Japanese language historians which will meet in Copenhagen this August. I have a book on the history of Japanese coming out from Routledge late this summer.

"2. I am not attacking Chomsky merely because of his politics, which have been attacked to death. I wrote the article mainly to dissuade non-Leftists from saying things like "His politics are wrong, but he is a brilliant linguist" (often presumably without ever having examined his theories for themselves). I am really sick of that caveat which I see from time to time in conservative and libertarian critiques of Chomsky.

"A Right-winger or libertarian espousing the same linguistic views would be equally wrong. If Noamuhammad became a Dubya cultist overnight, that still wouldn't change my stance on his theories. Moreover, many of the best arguments I have ever heard against Chomsky come from Leftist friends and colleagues who agree to varying degrees with Chomsky's politics. Although Eugene, Oregon (whose campus David Horowitz called a "disgrace") is hardly Rush Limbaugh-land, none of the linguists I knew there were Chomskyans. Besides, I loathed Chomskyan linguistics long before I ever heard of his political views (which added to my dislike of the man but were not the source of it). And I don't even think he's the worst Leftist alive. He hasn't killed anyone. He is not Stalin or even Pol Pot. Most importantly, rejecting scientific theories because of their advocates' political opinions is wrong. To cite a non-linguistic example, whether punctuated equilibrium is right or wrong has nothing to do with whether Stephen Jay Gould's Marxism was right or wrong.

"However, I should note that some think that Chomsky's politics and linguistics are really two sides of the same coin. I can't read Chomsky's mind, so I don't claim to know, but I did find Cinderella Bloggerfeller's theory intriguing:

" 'From what I've read, I think Chomsky's basic problem is the same whether it's his linguistics or his politics. He creates an a priori theory then he tries to makes the facts fit it

" 'Chomsky's politics and linguistics are similar too in that they are both extremely Anglocentric or "Americanocentric". From what I've read on your blog, Marc, Chomsky's language theory is almost exclusively based on English and ignores languages that are totally different. His political theories boil down to the statement: "The USA is responsible for all the evil in the world today." I can see the appeal of this "one solution fits all" approach. It certainly cuts down on the need for research. Now we need never investigate all those difficult foreign grammars and the complicated histories and politics of other nations. This might be an attractive attitude to those in search of a guru, but it doesn't impress me.'

"Or me. I would add that language is culture is history is politics. (Hence the political-historical-cultural-linguistic slant of this blog.) Chomskyans have not only relegated language into a mystical pseudoscience of invisible 'underlying' forms, but have also robbed language of its context. What is language without its past, without the society that used it, cultivated it, or in some cases, abandoned it? Give me the wealth of Sanskrit philology any day over sterile speculations about phantom pronouns.

"I agree with Cinderella Bloggerfeller's point about the Anglocentric appeal of Chomskyanism. Many Leftists are monoculturalists in multiculti clothing who think they appreciate other cultures but in fact impose their ignorant fantasies onto others (hence the myth of a pure Third World of noble savages contaminated by AmeriKKKa, etc.). Chomskyan linguistics is a junk science version of this, imposing English-like characteristics onto other languages in the name of 'human' language. Many pro-Chomskyans are either native English speakers or people who have mastered English as a second language. Chomskyanism feels 'right' to them since English is native to them and/or a language they value highly. (Anyone who says to me, "It works for English!" will get this answer back from me: "Oh yeah? It doesn't work for ...!") And such people are often wholly unaware of the diversity of human language (which is suppressed in Chomskyan classes that focus on English and, if you're lucky, a handful of European languages with a token non-European language like Japanese - this results in a highly imbalanced picture).

"But even the Chomskyan analysis of English is suspect. How do children learn invisible words and constructions that no one ever pronounces or writes - that never existed until Chomsky and his followers invented them? These invisible entities only 'exist' if you believe they exist.

"An emphasis on belief over empiricism makes Chomskyanism a religion rather than a science. Although I severely doubt this, future hard scientific investigations into the brain may prove Chomsky correct. But until then (= almost certainly never), Chomskyans come off as highly pretentious, thinking they know for a fact what cannot be known for a fact (yet). Their beliefs have become rigid dogmas that few linguistics students can afford to question. The emperor is nude, but if enough people respect him anyway, others who have never seen the emperor for themselves will assume that he is deserving of respect."

[Yardstick]

*rebump*

This has been an excellent thread!

[eno_]

Anglocentrism could only be a flaw in Chomsky's theories if it were possible to come up with another, different, theoretical framework. Because Chomsky's theory is, fundamentally, that synthetic language tools are useful for explaining a number of things about human languages, it isn't really possible for there to be an alternative except in the details of the way these tools are applied. The tools themselves are equivalent to tools used to explain computability, and it is proven that there is no way to "step outside" any theoretical framework or notation system and arrive at different results about computability. The same holds true for linguistics.

Similarly, study of any other human languages in the world will lead you to the same place: either you can, or you can't, use the tools of computability theory in linguistics. There is no "third way."

Now Chomsky could be wrong and we may need something in addition to the computational power of the human brain to understand language. So Chomsky is very much in the "We are meat machines." camp. But apart from that fundamental departure point, there really isn't anything political about the way Chomsky changed linguistics.

[ez]

I still think Chomsky, and I only know what I read here about his "linguistics theory", is searching for a mystical, ethereal explanation for the obvious.

People DO form different languages from the same "deep structures"...neuro-synaptic electrical activity.

It stands to reason that basics like grammar would have a common construction in the same way that the physical structures of our mouthsand throats dictates the common range of sounds that we can produce.

[palmer]

I took linguistics from a Chomsky-loving true believer and believed it myself until I tried to actually apply his theories in code. I quickly realized that the grammatical form was another level of meaning that can't simply be transformed away and ignored.

I think the political linkage is Marxism. Transformational grammar is like depicting an economic system by its results rather than its principles. It is just a simple form of linguistic deconstruction.

[AndyJackson]

I am not a crank amateur. I have a PhD in linguistics

Unfortunately, he is even worse. He is a crank professional. These kinds of crackpots show up in every field, even theoretical physics, and their attributes are always the same - usually taking pot shots at a well establsihed central tenant of the field while calling its supporters names. But even the Chomskyan analysis of English is suspect. How do children learn invisible words and constructions that no one ever pronounces or writes - that never existed until Chomsky and his followers invented them? These invisible entities only 'exist' if you believe they exist.

I am not a Chomskyan, I am a physicist and don't have a dog in this fight. I do have a dog in the fight of those who think that they can reject empirical science because they don't like its author. And I assure you that this guy is a nutcase. You can tell. He does not state that thus and such is a theory of Chomsky which is demonstrably false based on the following observations. Instead he attacks "Chomskians." It is like the folks around here who attack "Darwinians." Chomsky's theories can stand or fall on their own without the baggage of unnamed followers who hold unspecified things that we can never check up on.

Furthermore, this passage has problems. I have also watched my child learn English. The Chomsky question is a sound question, namely, why does my child know how to correctly put together complex English sentances, and without benefit of a PhD in linguistics. It must be because there is something about the human language facility that directs that language works in certain ways and not others. Perhaps my 13 year old is also a Chomskian. I won't refute that argument. I would add that language is culture is history is politics....Chomskyans have not only relegated language into a mystical pseudoscience of invisible 'underlying' forms, but have also robbed language of its context. What is language without its past, without the society that used it, cultivated it, or in some cases, abandoned it? Give me the wealth of Sanskrit philology any day over sterile speculations about phantom pronouns.

This is bullshit as an attack on underlying structure. Of course only an idiot would hold that the meaning of language can be stripped of context. I don't think that Chomsky tried to answer the question "what does language mean?" This would fall into the what is the meaining of "is?" trap. Again, he "merely" asks the difficult enough, but much more workable question about whether there are deeper structures in common among languages. The existance of such common structures can be demonstrated empirically - i.e. by demonstrating common structures in known languages - which is all that any empirical science can do - physics included.

The author may find this dull, boring, uninteresting stuff. He is entitled to that opinion. But that does not mean that Chomsky is wrong, or that he is immoral because he has followers called Chomskians.