Noam Chomsky

American linguist and critic

• Born: December 7, 1928
• Place of Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

By creating and developing a new and controversial theory of how language works, Chomsky transformed the study of linguistics. He theorized an inherent and universal language capacity in humans that both drives and restricts the eventual development of a complete communication system. Also, he built a worldwide reputation as a radical critic of US foreign policy and media culture.

Early Life

Noam Chomsky was born to William “Zev” Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a Jewish household. His mother was a thinker, teacher, and activist from a secular working-class family. His father was a Hebrew scholar from an ultra-orthodox family and a teacher and then principal in a Hebrew elementary school. He had fled from Russia to the United States in 1913 to avoid being drafted into the czarist army. Young Chomsky had one brother, who became a medical doctor.

Chomsky had a unique combination of the qualities of both of his parents. They lived in a lower-class neighborhood of Philadelphia, a city known for its passivist Quaker roots. The neighborhood was primarily inhabited by Germans and Irish Catholics who were largely anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi. His early childhood memories included door-to-door peddlers selling rags or apples, women textile workers on strike in downtown Philadelphia, and police beating strikers. His relatives exposed him to many strong political opinions and differing viewpoints. Growing up in the middle of this environment, Chomsky developed a strong social conscience.

Just before his second birthday, Chomsky began his formal education in a private elementary school. He had been an avid reader from a very early age. The school, Oak Lane Country Day School, was an experimental institution based on the principles of John Dewey, the great American educator, pragmatist philosopher, and proponent of creativity. The school emphasized freedom and discovery learning, and the evaluation system was nongraded and noncompetitive. Students were encouraged to pursue their own individual interests and to compete against themselves, and they were taught to think of themselves as successful students.

Chomsky began writing for the school newspaper in fifth grade at the age of ten. His first article was “The Fall of Barcelona During the Spanish Civil War.” He recalled his elementary school years as the most influential of his life. The freedom, creativity, and emphasis on collaboration rather than competition that the school promoted provided a learning environment he did not experience during his public school years. He entered Central High School, a public high school in Philadelphia, at the age of twelve. He was distressed by the school’s emphasis on competition between students. He thought the idea of trying to do better than someone else rather than doing one’s best was a ridiculous notion. Despite his unhappiness, he was active in clubs and was well liked. He entered the University of Pennsylvania at the young age of sixteen while living at home. Studying linguistics and philosophy, he paid his own way by teaching Hebrew at a private school during the afternoons. He was dissatisfied with college as well, dismayed at the emphasis on competition rather than individual creativity.

At the age of nineteen, Chomsky began dating Carol Doris Schatz, a fellow University of Pennsylvania student who later earned a doctorate in linguistics from Harvard University and became a professor there. They married in 1949 and had two daughters and a son: Aviva (b. 1957), Diane (b. 1960), and Harry (b. 1967).

In 1949, Chomsky entered graduate school, and he received his master of arts degree in 1951. He held a fellowship at Harvard in the early 1950s. In 1953, he made an important trip to Europe, during which he was able to synthesize his ideas about language. During this same year, he and Carol lived for six weeks on a kibbutz (a communal farm or settlement) in Israel. In 1955, he received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. That same year, he left Harvard to begin research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Morris Halle, a linguist. He became an associate professor at MIT at the young age of twenty-nine and at age thirty-two, a full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (later Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). He occupied the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics from 1966 until 1976, when he was named Institute Professor. He also held several prestigious temporary positions and fellowships, such as his residency at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study from 1958 to 1959, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971. In 1969, he delivered the annual John Locke Lecture at Oxford University.

Life’s Work

Most of Chomsky’s primary language work was accomplished during the early to mid-1960s. This is referred to as his “classic period,” during which he wrote his most widely known works: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Language and Mind (1968), and, with Morris Halle, The Sound Pattern of English (1968). Through these works, he became the spokesperson for American linguistics.

The essence of Chomsky’s thought is that a universal language capacity lies within each human being. This might be described as a striving that both drives and restricts the eventual development of a complete and full communication system. He suggested that this capacity is already present in every human mind. He noted that children, even those who encounter very difficult life circumstances, learn to speak within a fairly narrow time period in the same way that children develop other important human capacities, such as crawling and walking. This idea was completely new. Before this time it was believed that learning a first language was a training process: something done to an individual rather than something present within each individual. Chomsky’s work broke sharply from so-called structural linguistics, the accepted standard of that time.

The field of psychology received Chomsky’s scrutiny. In 1959, he published a review of Verbal Behavior, by influential structural psychologist B. F. Skinner. Chomsky criticized Skinner’s attempt to explain language acquisition as purely functional, learned behavior as too restrictive and superficial to explain the richness of language or the ability of speakers, from the earliest age, to generate novel sentences. Although controversial, Chomsky’s critique is credited with helping shift psychology from behavioral- to cognitive-based methods. In 1975, he participated in the Royamount debate with Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist who revolutionized early childhood education.

In the late 1970s, Chomsky became fascinated with animals and language acquisition. He came to believe that human beings are separated from animals precisely by the innate language ability that he had described—an ability that he showed is “like breathing” for humans. He reiterated the idea that language is acquired by exposure rather than training. He also believed that humans can construct language in a creative way. Rather than thinking of language as a series of memorized phrases, Chomsky wrote that a human can create many new combinations of words that have never before been heard. He suggested that this was true because humans have a unique and abstract internal system of “rules” in their minds that can produce various unique combinations of words that emerge during speech.

Chomsky’s father died in 1977. In 1979, Chomsky took a sabbatical in the Italian town of Pisa. This period of rest, travel, and research away from home became a critical time during which he solidified many of the ideas for which he is now famous. In 1995, he published Minimalist Program, which, while preserving the core of his theories, emphasized the economy inherent in the universal human capacity for language generation.

Chomsky received many awards for his work in linguistics, including many honorary degrees from leading institutions, including the University of Chicago, University of London, Amherst College, Columbia University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, Delhi University in India, and Uppsala University in Sweden. In 1988, he was the recipient of the Kyoto Prize for Basic Science for his contribution to science in general. He also received the Helmholtz Medal, Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, Orwell Award (twice), Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, and the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. His works remain some of the most frequently cited in academic publications of any modern American scholar.

In addition to linguistics, Chomsky’s theories also have influenced computer science (especially his hierarchical classifications of grammar), evolutionary psychology, and immunology. Moreover, he is widely considered to have been among the leading leftist intellectuals in political and social ideas. He long distrusted authority and disparaged nationalism and the lack of accountability by politicians to citizens. He championed the causes of ordinary people. He believed that schools were a means of enforcing conformity in society and that they lacked the emphasis on freedom and creativity that he insisted played such an important role in stimulating his early learning. He described his basic political orientation as, variously, similar to that of a traditional anarchist and as libertarian socialist.

Chomsky also believed there was collusion between those who control the media and the powerful elite of society. The mainstream press had ignored his anti-Vietnam War book Counter-Revolutionary Violence (1973). During the 1960s and 1970s, he articulated political views in many published articles that opposed the Vietnam War and US foreign policy. He even spent a week in communist North Vietnam, observing the situation and talking with those who, at that time, were considered the enemies of the United States. When he returned, he was even more outspoken about his opposition to the war. He wrote numerous letters to newspapers, many of which were not published unless cosigned. Considered a renegade by many politicians and as a self-described dissident, he spent a long night in police custody after a protest against the war, and was threatened with a jail term. Later, his name was included on President Richard M. Nixon’s “enemy” list, and on the death list kept by the so-called Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski. Chomsky’s books, articles, and speeches, along with his political activities, played a major role in the resistance against the US policy in Vietnam.

Chomsky furthermore identified an undercurrent of hypocrisy in America’s standards when dealing with other countries, which sometimes led to human rights violations as, for example, the US support of dictators abroad while touting the universal benefit of democracy. Opposed to military and police action in general, he criticized the so-called War on Drugs and became an outspoken opponent of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. While a critic of capitalism and transnational corporations, Chomsky still considered the United States the greatest nation in the world.

However, in 2006, Chomsky expressed fears that the United States was becoming a failed state because he believed that the government acted above the law, circumvented democracy, and endangered its citizens by increasing the chances of nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. Such views incensed conservatives and moderates, even many liberals. In fact, he so frequently received death threats that MIT afforded him police protection at times.

In 2010, Chomsky was awarded the Erich Fromm Prize by the International Erich Fromm Society, in Stuttgart, Germany. Chomsky advised the late social psychologist and philosopher on linguistic matters during the writing of his book To Have or to Be? (1976). Chomsky's contributions to computer science were recognized by IEEE Intelligent Systems in 2011, when he was inducted into the academic journal's hall of fame. Chomsky continued to publish op-ed columns, conduct interviews, and give lectures on a variety of political, linguistic, and social subjects throughout the 2000s and 2010s—many of which have been collected and published in book form.

Chomsky appeared in a documentary about his life, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (directed by Michel Gondry), in 2013, and in 2014 was featured in Amir Amirani's We Are Many, a documentary on anti-Iraq War protesters, and Boris Malagurski's The Weight of Chains 2, about the economic situation in the former Yugoslav countries.

Having retired from regular teaching at MIT in 2002, he served as an emeritus professor of the institution until 2017, when he transitioned to living in Arizona. While he remained connected to the MIT community, he became a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics as well as the Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. Meanwhile, he continued to appear in several documentaries, including Requiem for the American Dream (2015), The World Awaits (2016), Freedom Besieged (2017), In the Name of My People (2018), Internationalism or Extinction (2019), The Invisible Class (2020), and Better Left Unsaid (2021). Amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and increased political discussions around climate change and artificial intelligence, he also continued to contribute to the discourse and publish books, including Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal (2020), with Robert Pollin, and Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance (2021), with Marv Waterstone.

Significance

Chomsky, with a dry sense of humor, spoke eloquently for both his ideas about language and his political views. His theories of language changed how people think about language acquisition. His theory of generative grammar remains among the most significant achievements in linguistics during the twentieth century. Generative grammar and his concept of deep structure were foundational to the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

While many students and scholars have found Chomsky and his work to be truly inspirational, he was known, when faced with a controversial situation, to be unwilling to make even small or simple compromises to resolve issues with those who have disagreed with him. At the same time, this particular quality was admired by many people because Chomsky never compromised his views to please others or to gain material rewards or personal recognition. He always believed in the need for personal sacrifice and local action for global change, as well as the importance of having and acting on a social conscience.

Bibliography

Barsky, Robert F. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge: MIT P, 1997. Print.

Chomsky, Noam. Hopes and Prospects. Chicago: Haymarket, 2010. Print.

Chomsky, Noam. Interventions. San Francisco: City Lights, 2007. Print.

Chomsky, Noam. "On the Freedom of Speech and Expression: Interview with Noam Chomsky." Europe's Journal of Psychology 9.2 (2013): 214–19. Print.

Chomsky, Noam. "Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Noam Chomsky." Interview by Ezra Klein. The New York Times, 23 Apr. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-noam-chomsky-transcript.html. Accessed 21 Jan. 2022.

Chomsky, Noam. "The Universal Man." New Scientist 17 Mar. 2012: 28–29. Print.

Chomsky, Noam, Ian Roberts, and Jeffrey Watumull. "Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT." The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chomsky-chatgpt-ai.html. Accessed 6 June 2024.

Chomsky, Noam, and Jean Drèze. Democracy and Power: The Delhi Lectures. Cambridge: Open Book, 2014. Print.

Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz, eds. The Anti-Chomsky Reader. San Francisco: Encounter, 2004. Print.

Haley, Michael C., and Ronald F. Lunsford. Noam Chomsky. New York: Twayne, 1994. Print.

Kenneally, Christine. The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York: Viking, 2007. Print.

Leiber, Justin. Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview. New York: Twayne, 1975. Print.

Masciotra, David. "Noam Chomsky—Infuriating and Necessary." Daily Beast. Daily Beast, 28 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.

McGilvray, James, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print.

Orelus, Pierre W., and Noam Chomsky. On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice: Noam Chomsky's Critical Intervention. New York: Lang, 2014. Print.

Shackell, Cameron. "Noam Chomsky Turns 95: The Social Justice Advocate Paved the Way for AI. Does It Keep Him Up at Night?" The Conversation, 6 Dec. 2023, theconversation.com/noam-chomsky-turns-95-the-social-justice-advocate-paved-the-way-for-ai-does-it-keep-him-up-at-night-218034. Accessed 6 June 2024.

Smith, Neil. Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.

Winston, Morton. On Chomsky. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002. Print.