Chomsky Noam: quotes

Abraham Chomsky is one of the most famous contemporary linguists. Professor in the field of linguistics, he is also a philosopher, publicist and theoretician. Noam Chomsky invented a modern classification of the world's languages, which was called the Chomsky Hierarchy. Now the scientist is almost 90 years old, and he continues his teaching activities at the Massachusetts Institute, gives interviews to journalists, writes lectures and reviews.

What is the revolutionary nature of Chomsky's views?

It is believed that all linguistics is divided into two great epochs: before Chomsky Noam appeared in it, and after. In 1957, the scientific world was shocked by the scientist's published work entitled "Syntactic structures." Earlier, linguists from all over the world engaged only in the fact that they studied individual languages and their features. No one before this has come to mind that language should be perceived, first of all, as an innate feature of a person of any race or nationality. In addition, it is the same tool of knowledge of the surrounding world, as, for example, vision.

Linguistics as the main sphere of interest of the scientist

Noam Chomsky, whose quotes are known throughout the world, is asked in his studies to be provocative and ambiguous questions. How can you understand why children in any country in the world learn their native language so quickly? How does the child find himself able to perceive speech separately from other noises of the surrounding world? How does it turn out that no language differences do not influence the child's learning of the first language? The scientist writes: "With superficial examination, the languages are strikingly different from each other. If anyone now comes into this room and begins to speak Swahili, I do not understand a word. Nevertheless, I recognize that this is a language. "

Citing in scientific circles

Among other things, Chomsky is known for his radical views on politics. Especially the scientist is known for his harsh criticism of America's foreign policy. One of the US newspapers, The New York Times Beech Review, once made the following statement. According to the newspaper's publishing house, Chomsky Noam is one of the most important contemporary representatives of the intellectual elite of the society. Beginning in 1980 and ending in 1992, he was the most quoted scientist living on earth. According to the frequency of the use of quotations in general, the researcher occupied the eighth place. His name is Slavic in origin. English-speakers say it in their own way: Chomsky.

Another sphere influenced by the scientist's research is behaviorism. Noam Chomsky, the generative grammar of which led to the decline of this trend in psychology, simultaneously became one of the founders of modern cognitive science. The main postulate of the generative grammar is this: language is part of a person's genetic program.

Chomsky Noam and Politics

The scientist says: "In the privatization of many public services ... there is a desire to privatize the feelings and reason of a person, to get him full control." The scientist argues his opinion by the fact that each taxpayer receives practically no benefits for his deductions. This concerns both education and health. The scientist himself jokingly says that there are "several Noam Chomsky". "One of them is occupied with philosophy, the second with linguistics, and the third with politics," says Avram Noam Chomsky.

Business or education

The scientist, seeing the danger in the privatization of education, writes: "A corporation is not a charitable society. The Board of Directors of the corporation has a legitimate reason to be a monster, a monster in terms of ethics. Its goal is to maximize profits of shareholders and investors. " Chomsky Noam notes that when the sphere of teaching turns into a business structure, all this leads only to an increase in the number of bureaucrats, and not to the improvement of the quality of education.

In universities, as if they are industrial enterprises, the number of managers is increasing. Thus, cheap educational work is used in educational institutions. At the same time, teachers are forced to hold onto their workplace and carry out any instructions given to them by the administration.

The money saved is directed to goals completely remote from the educational process. Chomsky emphasizes that this practice is generally accepted not only in education. Wherever business rules, the whole burden of labor is shifted to the shoulders of the people. The businessman, in fact, "rakes the heat" with someone else's hands.