Noam Avram Chomsky was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 1928. He received his early education
at Oak Lane Country Day School and Central High School, Philadelphia. He
continued his education at the University of
Pennsylvania where he studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. In
1955, he received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania, however, most
of the research leading to this degree was done at
Harvard University between 1951 and 1955.
Since receiving his Ph. D., Chomsky has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he
now holds the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Language and Linguistics. Noam
was married to Carol Schatz on December 24, 1949 and has two children.
Between 1945 and 1950 Chomsky was a student at the University of
Pennsylvania and began his study of linguistics. During this time, he proofread Zellig Harris’s
Methods in Structural Linguistics and developed a
sympathy for Harris’s ideas on politics. He was also a student of Nelson
Goodman, the radical-empiricist philosopher. In 1951, he accepted nomination by
Goodman as a Junior Fellow to Harvard University. In 1953, Chomsky traveled to
Europe. En route, he resolved that his attempt to formalize structural
linguistics would not work because language was a highly abstract generative
phenomenon. Determined that his further work should concern models of this
phenomenon.
Chomsky has made his reputation in linguistics. He learned some of the
historical principles of linguistics from his father, William, who was a Hebrew
scholar. In fact, some of his early research, which he did for his Masters, was
on the modern spoken Hebrew language. Among his many accomplishments, he is
most famous for his work on generative grammar, which developed from his
interest in modern logic and mathematical foundations. As a result, he applied
it to the description of natural languages. As a student, Noam was heavily
influenced by Zellig Harris, who was Professor of Linguistics at the University
of Pennsylvania. It was Chomsky’s sympathy to Harris’s political
views that steered him toward work as a graduate student in linguistics.
Noam has always been interested in politics, and it is said that
politics has brought him into the linguistics field. His political tendencies
toward socialism and anarchism are a result of what he calls "the radical
Jewish community in New York." Since 1965 he has become one of the leading
critics of U.S. foreign policy. He published a book of essays called
American Power and the New Mandarins which is considered to be one of
the most substantial arguments ever against American involvement in Vietnam.
Chomsky is very respected and has been honored numerous times in the
academic arena. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of
London and the University of Chicago, as well as having been invited to lecture
all over the world. In 1967, he delivered the Beckman Lectures at the
University of California at Berkeley. In
1969, he presented the John Locke Lectures at the
University of Oxford and Sherman Memorial
Lectures at the University of
London.
References:
Lyons, John. Modern Masters: Noam Chomsky. New York: The Viking
Press, 1970.
Noam Avram Chomsky was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 1928. He received his early education
at Oak Lane Country Day School and Central High School, Philadelphia. He
continued his education at the University of
Pennsylvania where he studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. In
1955, he received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania, however, most
of the research leading to this degree was done at
Harvard University between 1951 and 1955.
Since receiving his Ph. D., Chomsky has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he
now holds the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Language and Linguistics. Noam
was married to Carol Schatz on December 24, 1949 and has two children.