guyy

Where i used to work, nearly everyone was a Chomskian!

The Noamster is hegemonic among certain pockets of linguists. It sounds kind of academic, but it did make for some practical differences in the way they taught. I stress practice, but they were heavy on adherence to grammatical orthodoxy, even at the expense of practice. Their idea was that in order to let the hardwired grammar through, one had to break with the usual patterns of repetition. Mistakes were bad, especially if repeated. I had a lot of problems with these folks because i stress practice and repetition in the classroom, and for me grammar is an after-the-fact construct. Mistakes were therefore no big deal.


I think he's a hero for his opposition to Vietnam, but i think that his philosophy (= linguistics, more or less), which i tend not to like, is more connected to his politics than people usually think.

roachboy

i've been reading george lakoff's stuff of late: a particularly trenchant critic of transformational grammar---which is an interesting metaphysics, but a metaphysics nonetheless--in the bad sense. if you want to see someone wholly committed to that who tries and tries to defend it against any and all, see jackendoff's irritating work. but this by the bye.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite