Well he calls that whole field “not real linguistics” basically, so I think it makes sense that they wouldn’t accept his theories! Whatever you call the two things, I feel like
1. “what are the neural structures and programs that produce language” and
2. “what languages have humans used to communicate in specific historical contexts, and how do these practices relate to each other?”
…are both worthwhile questions, and they obviously inform each other. But don’t you see where he’s coming from by calling the former “the biological study of language production” and the latter “the anthropological study of language usage”?
I’m interested to see you usually loose points! That brings me joy as a (non-academic, self-employed) chomskian, even tho it’s obviously infuriating people are still downvoting based on differences of opinion in 2024. My view is the opposite of yours: almost every corner of the internet has dismissed Chomsky as unempirical and also disproven by recent cross-cultural studies (??) and LLMs, from Hinton to the Stanford Phil page on linguistics to the Wiki and Britannica articles. I frequently see anti-Chomsky papers on HN and in my lit reviews from the connectionist/positivist camp in general, but that’s obviously a terribly biased survey. Perhaps we all have confirmation bias to see our “team” as the underdogs…
In terms of debating specifics (no pressure to respond, your outlook is very valid):
He’s still being cited a lot (160K in 2023 compared to recent peak of 210K in 2017), but of course that could all be refutations and/or non-linguists. Ultimately I absolutely agree that applied linguistics has far more practitioners in the US (the “west”?) today, but I don’t think that’s necessarily any kind of refutation of the merits of theoretical work.
I’m currently engaged in implementing general ideas of Chomsky’s into a cognitive model for AI, and I definitely think it’s a more productive theory than you’re giving it credit for. For one, the two basic observations “basically all linguistic inference is done by procedurally merging symbols and signs” and “what separates humans from animals is the ability to introspectively index and merge symbols and signs effectively” are essential pillars of my whole paradigm — without them I wouldn’t event know where to start! I think it’s much better than some competing “grand narratives” for human sciences like Behaviorism or Postmodern Relativism, but of course it’s far from perfect and surely has discouraged some valuable work over the years. I agree that it isn’t empirical, but only because it’s a guiding idea/standpoint/perspective and not what Chomsky would call a “scientifically defined term”. UG/nativism/minimalism gradually loose or gain parsimony in relation to our body of evidence over time, but they’re not consistent or specific enough to be fundamentally proven or disproven anytime soon IMO
1. “what are the neural structures and programs that produce language” and
2. “what languages have humans used to communicate in specific historical contexts, and how do these practices relate to each other?”
…are both worthwhile questions, and they obviously inform each other. But don’t you see where he’s coming from by calling the former “the biological study of language production” and the latter “the anthropological study of language usage”?
I’m interested to see you usually loose points! That brings me joy as a (non-academic, self-employed) chomskian, even tho it’s obviously infuriating people are still downvoting based on differences of opinion in 2024. My view is the opposite of yours: almost every corner of the internet has dismissed Chomsky as unempirical and also disproven by recent cross-cultural studies (??) and LLMs, from Hinton to the Stanford Phil page on linguistics to the Wiki and Britannica articles. I frequently see anti-Chomsky papers on HN and in my lit reviews from the connectionist/positivist camp in general, but that’s obviously a terribly biased survey. Perhaps we all have confirmation bias to see our “team” as the underdogs…
In terms of debating specifics (no pressure to respond, your outlook is very valid):
He’s still being cited a lot (160K in 2023 compared to recent peak of 210K in 2017), but of course that could all be refutations and/or non-linguists. Ultimately I absolutely agree that applied linguistics has far more practitioners in the US (the “west”?) today, but I don’t think that’s necessarily any kind of refutation of the merits of theoretical work.
I’m currently engaged in implementing general ideas of Chomsky’s into a cognitive model for AI, and I definitely think it’s a more productive theory than you’re giving it credit for. For one, the two basic observations “basically all linguistic inference is done by procedurally merging symbols and signs” and “what separates humans from animals is the ability to introspectively index and merge symbols and signs effectively” are essential pillars of my whole paradigm — without them I wouldn’t event know where to start! I think it’s much better than some competing “grand narratives” for human sciences like Behaviorism or Postmodern Relativism, but of course it’s far from perfect and surely has discouraged some valuable work over the years. I agree that it isn’t empirical, but only because it’s a guiding idea/standpoint/perspective and not what Chomsky would call a “scientifically defined term”. UG/nativism/minimalism gradually loose or gain parsimony in relation to our body of evidence over time, but they’re not consistent or specific enough to be fundamentally proven or disproven anytime soon IMO