Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science? Chris Knight OAM CHOMSKY ranks among the leading of Scientific Research, Air Research and N intellectual figures of modern times. He has Development Command), and the Navy (Office of changed the way we think about what it means Naval Research); and in part by the National to be human, gaining a position in the history of Science Foundation and the Eastman Kodak ideas – at least according to his supporters – Corporation.” comparable with that of Darwin or Descartes. Two large defence grants subsequently went Since launching his intellectual assault against directly to generativist – that is, Chomskyan – the academic orthodoxies of the 1950s, he has research in university linguistics departments – succeeded – almost single-handedly – in one to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revolutionizing linguistics and establishing it as in the mid-1960s and the other, a few years later, a modern science. to the University of California Los Angeles. Aspects Such victories, however, have come at a cost. of the Theory of Syntax (Chomsky 1965) contains The “Linguistics Wars” (Harris 1993) began when, this acknowledgment: as a young anarchist, Chomsky published his “The research reported in this document was first book. He might as well have thrown a bomb. made possible in part by support extended the “The extraordinary and traumatic impact of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research publication of Syntactic Structures by Noam Laboratory of Electronics, by the Joint Services Chomsky in 1957”, recalls one witness (Maclay Electronics Programs (U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and 1971: 163), “can hardly be appreciated by one who U.S. Air Force) under Contract No. DA36-039- did not live through this upheaval.” From that AMC-03200(E); additional support was received moment, the battles have continued to rage. from the U.S. Air Force (Electronic Systems Division under Contract AF19(628)-2487), the “Command and Control” National Science Foundation (Grant GP-2495), the How could a technical book on syntax have National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-04737- produced such dramatic effects? By his own 04), and the National Aeronautics and Space admission, the author knew little about the Administration (Grant NsG-496).” world’s different languages. Indeed, he outraged Several questions arise. Why did Chomsky – traditionalists by claiming he didn’t need to know. an outspoken anarchist and antimilitarist – take Chomsky was not interested in documenting the money? Secondly, what did the military think linguistic diversity. Neither did he care about the they were buying? Both questions are sharpened relationship between language and human by the fact that MIT at this time had no tradition thought or social life. As far as his opponents could in linguistics. This confronts us with a third see, he was not really interested in linguistics at puzzle: why didn’t the investment of military all. He seemed to be more interested in computers. funds go to an institution with a proven record By 1957, Chomsky’s “Research Laboratory of in linguistic research? Electronics” at the Massachusetts Institute of Explaining his decision to choose MIT, Technology had begun attracting the attention of Chomsky recalls that he felt in no mood to serve the US military. It was not that they were an established department of linguistics. He disturbed about Chomsky’s anarchist politics. needed somewhere where original thinking could Aware of his other activities, they were anxious be freely explored: to benefit from his ideas. Moreoever, they were in “I had no prospects in a university that had a position to pay. The preface to Syntactic Structures a tradition in any field related to linguistics, (1957: 1) concludes: whether it was anthropology, or whatever, “This work was supported in part by the because the work that I was doing was simply U.S.A. Army (Signal Corps), the Air Force (Office not recognized as related to that field – maybe 17 rightly. Furthermore, I didn’t have real professional new generation of linguists because it chimed in credentials in the field. I’m the first to admit that. with the spirit of the times. Younger scholars were And therefore I ended up in an electronics becoming impatient with linguistics conceived as laboratory. I don’t know how to handle anything the accumulation of empirical facts about locally more complicated than a tape recorder, and not variable linguistic forms and traditions. Chomsky even that, but I’ve been in an electronics promised simplification by reducing language to laboratory for the last thirty years, largely because a mechanical “device” whose design could be there were no vested interests there and the precisely specified. Linguistics was no longer to director, Jerome Wiesner, was willing to take a be tarnished by association with “unscientific” chance on some odd ideas that looked as if they disciplines such as anthropology or sociology. might be intriguing. It was several years, in fact, Avoiding the obscurities of sociocultural or before there was any public, any professional psychosocial studies, linguistics would be community with which I could have an inter- redefined as the study of a “natural object” – the change of ideas in what I thought of as my own specialised module of the brain which (according field, apart from a few friends. The talks that I gave to Chomsky) was responsible for speech. in the 1950s were usually at computer centers, Excluding social factors and thereby transcending psychology seminars, and other groups outside mere politics and ideology, the reconstructed of what was supposed to be my field” (Chomsky discipline would at last qualify as a natural science 1988a: 15-16). akin to mathematics and physics. As for the military, they saw a practical value If a theory is sufficiently powerful and simple, in Chomsky’s theoretical agenda. In a 1971 inter- said Chomsky, it should radically reduce the amount view (Newmeyer 1986: 85-6), Colonel Edmund P. of knowledge needed to understand the relevant Gaines explained: data. As he explains (Chomsky 1988a: 17): “In fact, “The Air Force has an increasingly large the amount that you have to know in a field is investment in so called ‘command and control’ not at all correlated with the success of the field. computer systems. Such systems contain Maybe it’s even inversely related because the more information about the status of our forces and are success there is, in a sense, the less you have to used in planning and executing military know. You just have to understand; you have to operations. For example, defense of the continental understand more, but maybe know less.” United States against air and missile attack is Syntactic Structures infuriated established possible in part because of the use of such computer linguists – and delighted as many iconoclasts – systems. And of course, such systems support our because its message was that much of the forces in Vietnam. profession’s work had been a waste of time. Why “The data in such systems is processed in laboriously collect concrete, detailed observations response to questions and requests by comm- as to how the world’s variegated languages are anders. Since the computer cannot ‘understand’ spoken, if a simplifying short-cut is available? English, the commanders’ queries must be In an ice-cool, starkly logical argument that translated into a language that the computer can magisterially brushed aside most current linguistic deal with; such languages resemble English very theory, Syntactic Structures evaluated some little, either in their form or in the ease with which conceivable ways of constructing the ultimate they are learned and used. Command and control “language machine”: systems would be easier to use, and it would be “Suppose we have a machine that can be in easier to train people to use them, if this translation any one of a finite number of different internal were not necessary. We sponsored linguistic states .... the machine begins in the initial state, research in order to learn how to build command runs through a sequence of states (producing a and control systems that could understand English word with each transition), and ends in the final queries directly.” state. Then we call the sequence of words that has Chomsky’s followers were by then engaged in been produced a ‘sentence’. Each such machine just such a project at the University of California thus defines a certain language; namely the set of Los Angeles, prompting Colonel Gaines to sentences that can be produced in this way” comment: “Of course, studies like the UCLA study (Chomsky 1957: 18). are but the first step toward achieving this goal. As his argument unfolds, Chomsky rules out It does seem clear, however, that the successful this first, crude design for his envisaged machine operation of such systems will depend on insights – it clearly wouldn’t work. By a process of gained from linguistic research....” The colonel elimination, he then progressively narrows the went on to express the Air Force’s “satisfaction” range of designs which – on purely theoretical with UCLA’s work. grounds – ought to work. Thrillingly, Chomsky opens up the prospect of discovering in effect “the Versions of the Machine philosopher’s stone”: the design specifications of On the eve of the computer age, Chomsky’s a “device” capable of generating grammatical Syntactic Structures (1957) excited and inspired a sentences (and only grammatical ones) not only 18 in English but in any language spoken (or capable Linguistics as Physics of being spoken) on earth. To his academic colleagues in the humanities and Syntactic Structures itself, as it happened, proved social sciences, Chomsky’s programme has caused unequal to the extraordinary task. Aware of this, predictable astonishment, exasperation and even Chomsky in his next book (1965) proposed a outrage.