Noam Chomsky | Issues in Modern Linguistics

理论语言学五道口站 2022-06-09

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《理论语言学五道口站》（2021年第68期，总第202期）转载分享一则乔姆斯基教授的最新访谈：2021年12月15日，乔姆斯基教授应邀接受Nabil Belmekki教授采访。此次访谈涉及多个语言学重要议题，包括语言学研究的科学性，“最简方案（The Minimalist Program）”的背景与发展，“普遍语法（Universal Grammar，简称UG）”的背景与应用等。

01 Issues in Modern Linguistics

02 人物简介

Interviewer：Nabil Belmekki

Nabil Belmekki，摩洛哥研究员、作家、摩洛哥西迪·穆罕默德·本·阿卜杜拉大学博士，目前担任穆莱伊斯梅尔大学高等技术学院英语系的助理教授，是众多国际期刊的审稿人，比如the International Journal of Language and Literary Studies, the International Journal of Education, Culture and Society, the International Ecolinguistics Association and the Public Journal of Semiotics 等。

Nabil Belmekki is a Moroccan researcher and writer. He obtained his PhD from Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah University of Fes, Morocco. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at the Higher School of Technology, Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco. He serves as a reviewer for international journals such as the International Journal of Language and Literary Studies, the International Journal of Education, Culture and Society, the International Ecolinguistics Association and the Public Journal of Semiotics.

Interviewee：Noam Chomsky

乔姆斯基（Noam Chomsky）教授全名Avram Noam Chomsky，是享誉世界的美国语言学家、哲学家、认知科学家、政治批评家和历史学家。1928年12月7日出生于美国宾夕法尼亚州费城的一个中产阶级犹太家庭。他小学就读于一所实验小学，在那里，老师鼓励他通过自主学习来发展自己的兴趣和天赋。1945年，16岁的Chomsky进入宾夕法尼亚大学学习哲学、逻辑学与语言，后来在Harris的指导下学习研究生课程，并在Harris的推荐下，向Nelson Goodman和Nathan Salmon学习哲学，向Nathan Fine学习数学。1951年，他完成硕士论文《现代希伯来语语素音位学》，1951年至1955年，他在哈佛大学以学术协会会员的身份从事语言学研究工作，并在此期间以《语言理论的逻辑结构》中的部分章节作为其博士论文，取得博士学位。乔姆斯基在该论文中采用了Harris的语言研究方法以及Nelson Goodman对形式系统和科学哲学的观点。但在研究过程中发现了结构主义语言学的局限性，转而探索新的方法，逐步建立起“转换生成语法”。1957年，他在其博士论文的基础上做出了新的发展，完成了《句法结构》，成为“乔姆斯基革命”开始的标志。1961年Chomsky获聘MIT语言学系教授，1976年被聘为MIT“校聘教授”，2002年作为“荣休教授”从MIT退休，但是他并没有因为退休而停止研究的脚步。2017年秋，他又加入亚利桑那大学，受聘为社会和行为科学学院语言学系“桂冠教授”。

在他的职业生涯中，Chomsky提出了转换生成语法，这一理论冲击了传统的美国结构主义。根据他的理论，孩子们生来就有普遍语法，普遍语法由原则和参数组成。这一观点解释了为什么儿童可以很容易地习得母语。McGilvray认为乔姆斯基开创了语言学的“认知革命”，他在很大程度上将语言学建立成一门正式的自然科学。Micheal Egnor认为Noam Chomsky是过去半个世纪中最伟大的科学家。因此，有人称Chomsky为“现代语言学之父”。语言学家John Lyons进一步指出，在几十年的出版中，乔姆斯基语言学已经成为该领域“最具活力和影响力的”学派。

Noam Chomsky, in full Avram Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist and historian, was born into a middle-class Jewish family, on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. He attended an experimental elementary school in which he was encouraged to develop his own interests and talents through self-directed learning. In 1945, at the age of 16, Chomsky entered the University of Pennsylvania to study philosophy, logic and language. He took graduate courses with Harris and, at Harris’s recommendation, studied philosophy with Nelson Goodman and Nathan Salmon and mathematics with Nathan Fine. In his 1951 master’s thesis, The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew, and especially in The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, written while he was a member of Academic Association at Harvard (1951–55), Chomsky adopted aspects of Harris’s approach to the study of language and of Goodman’s views on formal systems and the philosophy of science. However, during the research, he found the limitations of structural linguistics. In this way, he explored something novel and gradually established "Transformational-Generative Grammar". In 1957, he made a new development on the basis of his doctoral thesis and completed Syntactic Structures, which marked the beginning of "Chomskyan Revolution". He was appointed full professor at MIT in 1961, Institute Professor in 1976 and retired as professor emeritus in 2002, but his researches are still continuing. He joined the UA faculty in fall 2017, is a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

During his career, Chomsky introduced transformational generative grammar to the linguistics field, which shakes the traditional American Structuralism. According to his theory, children are born with Universal Grammar, which consists of principles and parameters and explains why children could acquire their native languages easily. McGilvray observes that Chomsky inaugurated the "cognitive revolution" in linguistics, and that he is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science. Micheal Egnor believes that Noam Chomsky is the best scientist of the past half-century. As such, some have called Chomsky "the father of modern linguistics". Linguist John Lyons further remarked that within a few decades of publication, Chomskyan linguistics had become "the most dynamic and influential" school of thought in the field.