1

Childhood: 192845
Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[34] His father was the Ukrainian-born William "Zev" Chomsky, an
Ashkenazi Jew who had fled to the United States in 1913. Having studied at Johns Hopkins
University, he went on to become school principal of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious school,
and in 1924 was appointed to the faculty at Gratz Collegein Philadelphia. Independently, William
researched Medieval Hebrew, and would publish a series of books on the subject. William's wife was
theBelarus-born Elsie Simonofsky, whom he had met working at Mikveh Israel. [35] Described as a
"very warm, gentle, and engaging" individual, William placed a great emphasis on educating people
so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, and eager to participate
in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all", a view subsequently adopted by his son. [36]
"What motivated his [political] interests? A powerful curiosity, exposure to divergent opinions, and an unorthodox
education have all been given as answers to this question. He was clearly struck by the obvious contradictions between
his own readings and mainstream press reports. The measurement of the distance between the realities presented by
these two sources, and the evaluation of why such a gap exists, remained a passion for Chomsky."
Biographer Robert F. Barsky, 1997.[37]

Noam was the Chomsky family's first child. His younger brother, David Eli Chomsky, was born five
years later. The brothers remained close, although David was more easy-going while Noam could be
very competitive.[38] Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish, but Chomsky said it was "taboo"
in his family to speak it. Unlike her husband, Elsie spoke "ordinary New York English".[39] The brothers
were raised in this Jewish environment, being taught Hebrew and regularly discussing the political
theories of Zionism; the family were particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am.
[38]
Being Jewish, Noam Chomsky faced anti-semitism as a child, particularly from the Irish and
German communities living in Philadelphia; he recalls German "beer parties" celebrating the fall of
Paris to the Nazis.[40][41]
Noam described his parents as "normal Roosevelt Democrats", having a centre-left position on the
political spectrum, but he was exposed to far left politics through other members of the family, a
number of whom were socialists involved in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.[42] He
was influenced largely by his uncle who owned a newspaper stand in New York City where Jewish
leftists came to debate the issues of the day.[41][43] Whenever visiting his family in the city, Chomsky
frequented left-wing and anarchist bookstores, voraciously reading political literature. [41][43] He later
described his discovery of anarchism as a "lucky accident", allowing him to become critical of other
radical left-wing ideologies, namely Marxism-Leninism.[44] Chomsky's primary education was at Oak
Lane Country Day School, an independent institution that focused on allowing its pupils to pursue
their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere. It was here that he wrote his first article, aged
10, on the spread of fascism, following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War. From the age of
12 or 13, he identified more fully with anarchist politics. [45][46] Aged 12, he moved on to secondary
education at Central High School, where he joined various clubs and societies but was troubled by the
hierarchical and regimented method of teaching that they employed. [47]

University: 194555

Anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker (left) and English democratic socialist George Orwell (right) were both strong
influences on the young Chomsky. Their work convinced him that an anarcho-syndicalist society was both possible and
desirable.

Aged 16, in 1945 Chomsky embarked on a general program of study at the University of
Pennsylvania, where his primary interest was in learning Arabic. Living at home, he funded his
undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew.[48] Although dissatisfied with the university's strict
structure, he was encouraged to continue by the Russian-born linguist Zellig Harris, who convinced
Chomsky to major in the subject.[49] Chomsky's BA honor's thesis was titled "Morphophonemics of
Modern Hebrew", and he proceeded to revise it for hisMA thesis, which he attained at Penn in 1951; it
would subsequently be published as a book.[50][51] From 1951 to 1955 he was named to the Society of
Fellows at Harvard University while undertaking his doctoral research.[52] Being highly critical of the
established behaviourist currents in linguistics, in 1954 he presented his ideas at lectures given at
the University of Chicago and Yale University.[53]In 1955 he was awarded his PhD from the University
of Pennsylvania for a thesis setting out his ideas on transformational grammar; it would be published
in 1975 as The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory.[54]
In 1947, Chomsky entered into a romantic relationship with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known
since they were toddlers. They were married in 1949,[55] and remained together until her death in
2008.[56] They considered moving to Israel, and in 1953 spent six weeks at the HaZore'a kibbutz;
although enjoying himself, Chomsky was appalled by the Jewish nationalism and anti-Arab racism he
encountered in the country, and the pro-Stalinist trend that he thought pervaded the kibbutz's leftist
community.[57]
On visits to New York City, Chomsky frequented the office of Yiddish anarchist journal Freie Arbeiter
Stimme, becoming enamored with the work of contributor Rudolf Rocker, whose work introduced him
to the link between anarchism and classical liberalism.[58] Other political thinkers whose work

3
Chomsky read included the anarchist Diego Abad de Santilln, democratic socialists George
Orwell,Bertrand Russell, and Dwight Macdonald, and works by Marxists Karl Liebknecht, Karl Korsch,
and Rosa Luxemburg.[59] His readings convinced him of the desirability of an anarcho-syndicalist
society, and he became fascinated by the anarcho-syndicalist communes set up during the Spanish
Civil War documented in Orwell's Homage to Catalonia (1938).[60] He avidly read leftist journalPolitics,
remarking that it "answered to and developed" his interest in anarchism, [61] as well as the
periodical Living Marxism, published by council communist Paul Mattick. Although rejecting its Marxist
basis, Chomsky was heavily influenced by council communism, voraciously reading articles in Living
Marxism written by Antonie Pannekoek.[62] He was greatly interested in the Marlenite ideas of
the Leninist League, an anti-Stalinist Marxist-Leninist group, sharing their views that the Second
World War was orchestrated by Western capitalists and the Soviet Union's "state capitalists" to crush
Europe's proletariat.[63]

Early career: 19551966

In 1955, Chomsky obtained a job as an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), spending half his time on a mechanical translation project and the other half
teaching linguistics and philosophy.[64] He later described MIT as "a pretty free and open place, open
to experimentation and without rigid requirements. It was just perfect for someone of my idiosyncratic
interests and work."[65] In 1957 MIT promoted him to the position of assistant professor, while from
195758 he was also employed by New York City's Columbia University as a visiting professor.
[66]
That same year, the Chomsky's first child was born,[67] and he published his first work on
linguistics, Syntactic Structures, a book that radically opposed the dominant Harris-Bloomfield trend in
the field. The response to Chomsky's ideas ranged from indifference to hostility, and his work proved
divisive and caused "significant upheaval" in the discipline. [68]Linguist John Lyons later asserted that it
"revolutionized the scientific study of language." [69] From 195859 Chomsky was a National Science
Foundation fellow at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study.[70]
In 1959 he attracted further attention for his review of B.F. Skinner's 1957 book Verbal Behavior in the
journal Language,[71] in which he argued that Skinner ignored the role of human creativity in linguistics.
[72]
Becoming an "established intellectual",[73] with his colleague Morris Halle, he founded the MIT's
Graduate Program in linguistics, and in 1961 he was made professor of foreign language and
linguistics, thereby gaining academic tenure.[74] He was appointed plenary speaker at the
Ninth International Congress of Linguists, held in 1962 at Cambridge, Massachusetts; the event
established him as the de facto spokesperson of American linguistics.[75] He continued to publish his
linguistic ideas throughout the decade, as Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1966),Topics in the
Theory of Generative Grammar (1966), and Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of
Linguistic Thought (1966).[76] Along with Halle, he also edited the Studies in Language Series of books
for Harper and Row.[77] He continued to receive academic recognition and honors for his work, in 1966
visiting a variety of Californian institutions, first as the Linguistics Society of America Professor at
the University of California, and then as the Beckman Professor at the University of California,
Berkeley.[78] His Beckman lectures would be assembled and published asLanguage and Mind in 1968.
[79]

Rise to prominence
Anti-Vietnam War activism: 19671975
"[I]t does not require very far-reaching, specialized knowledge to perceive that the United States was invading South
Vietnam. And, in fact, to take apart the system of illusions and deception which functions to prevent understanding of

contemporary reality [is] not a task that requires extraordinary skill or understanding. It requires the kind of normal
scepticism and willingness to apply one's analytical skills that almost all people have and that they can exercise."
Chomsky on the Vietnam War.[80]

1967 marked Chomsky's entry into the public debate on the United States' foreign policy.[81] In
February he published an influential essay in The New York Review of Books titled The Responsibility
of Intellectuals, in which he criticized the country's involvement in the Vietnam War.[79][82] He expanded
on his argument to produce his first political book, American Power and the New Mandarins, which
was published in 1969 and soon established him at the forefront of American dissent. [83] In 1971 he
gave the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lectures in Cambridge, which were published as Problems of
Knowledge and Freedom later that year, while other political books at the time included At War with
Asia (1970) and For Reasons of State (1973).[84] Coming to be associated with the American New
Left movement,[85] he nevertheless thought little of prominent New Left intellectuals Herbert
Marcuse and Erich Fromm, and preferred the company of activists to intellectuals. [86] Although he had
initially arisen to attention for his political views in The New York Review of Books, throughout the late
1960s and early 1970s, he was virtually ignored by the mainstream press. [87]
Along with his writings, Chomsky also became actively involved in left-wing activism. Refusing to pay
half his taxes, in 1967 he publicly supported students who refused the draft, and was arrested for
being part of an anti-war teach-in outside the Pentagon.[88] Supporting the student protest movement,
he gave many lectures to student activist groups, though questioned the objectives of the 1968
student protests.[89] Along with colleague Louis Kampf, he also began running undergraduate courses
on politics at MIT, independent of the conservative-dominated political science department.[90] His
public talks often generated considerable controversy, particularly when he criticized actions of the
Israeli government and military.[91] His political views came under attack from right-wing and centrist
figures, the most prominent of whom was Alan Dershowitz; Chomsky considered Dershowitz "a
complete liar" for actively misrepresenting his position on issues. [92] As a result of his anti-war
activism, Chomsky was arrested on multiple occasions, and U.S. President Richard Nixon included
him on his Enemies' List.[93] He was aware of the potential repercussions of his activism, and so his
wife began training to become an academic in order to support the family in the event of Chomsky's
unemployment or imprisonment.[94]
Although under some pressure to do so, MIT refused to fire him due to his influential standing in the
field of linguistics.[95] His work in this area continued to gain international recognition: in 1967
the University of London awarded him an honorary D. Litt while the University of Chicago gave him an
honorary D.H.L.[96] In 1970, Loyola University and Swarthmore College also awarded him honorary
D.H.L.'s, as did Bard College in 1971, Delhi University in 1972, and the University of Massachusetts in
1973.[97] In 1974 he became a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.[98]Chomsky continued to
write on the subject, publishing Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972).[95] In 1971 he
carried out a televised interview with French philosopher Michel Foucault on Dutch television; he
largely agreed with Foucault's ideas, but was critical of post-modernism and French philosophy
generally, lambasting France as having "a highly parochial and remarkably illiterate culture." [99]

Work on the media: 19761989

This section
requires expansion with:
information on Manufacturing
Consentand other significant

publications from this

period. (September 2013)

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's publications expanded and clarified his earlier
work, addressing his critics and updating his grammatical theory.[100]
In 1979, Chomsky and Herman published the two-volume The Political Economy of Human Rights,
comparing U.S. media reactions to the Cambodian genocide and the Indonesian genocide in East
Timor. They argued that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorian
situation while focusing on that in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy.[101] The following year,Steven Lukas wrote
an article for the Times Higher Education Supplement accusing Chomsky of betraying his anarchist
ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian leader Pol Pot. AlthoughLaura J.
Summers and Robin Woodsworth Carlsen replied to the article, asserting that Lukas completely
misunderstood Chomsky and Herman's work, Chomsky himself did not. The controversy damaged his
reputation.[102] Chomsky maintained that his critics printed lies about him to discredit his reputation. [103]
Although Chomsky had long publicly criticised Nazism and totalitarianism more generally, his
commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian Robert Faurissonto
advocate a position widely characterised as Holocaust denial. Chomsky's plea for the historian's
freedom of speech would be published as the preface to Faurisson's 1980 book Mmoire en dfense
contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire.[104] Chomsky was widely condemned for defending
Faurisson.[105] France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, and
refused to publish his rebuttals to their accusations. [106] The Faurrison Affair had a lasting, damaging
effect on Chomsky's career.[105] Werner Cohn proceeded to publish a book titled Partners in Hate:
Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, although it contained a variety of falsified claims. [107]

Increased political activism: 1990present

This section
requires expansion with:
information on Hegemony or
Survivaland other important
publications of this period, as well
as his support for the anti-Iraq War
and Occupy movements, and his
retirement from full time
teaching. (September 2013)

In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism to a greater degree than before. [108]

Chomsky at the World Social Forum(Porto Alegre) in 2003

His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised
controversy.[109][110] Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S. foreign
policy.[111] He has often received undercover police protection at MIT and when speaking on the Middle
East, although he has refused uniformed police protection. [112] The Electronic Intifada website claims
that the Anti-Defamation League "spied on" Chomsky's appearances, and quotes Chomsky as being
unsurprised at that discovery or the use of what Chomsky claims is "fantasy material" provided to Alan
Dershowitz for debating him. Amused, Chomsky compares the ADL's reports to FBI files. [113]
Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts, and travels often, giving lectures on politics and
linguistics.

Linguistic theory
The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is that the principles underlying the structure of language are
biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically transmitted. [114] He therefore argues
that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of socio-cultural difference.
[115]
In this he opposes the radical behaviourist psychology of B.F. Skinner, instead arguing that human
language is unlike modes of communication used by any other animal species. [116]
Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his Syntactic Structures, a distillation of his Logical Structure of
Linguistic Theory (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introducestransformational
grammar.[117] This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by
a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.
Perhaps his most influential and time-tested contribution to the field is the claim that modeling
knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" or "creativity" of
language. In other words, a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker
to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, including novel ones, with a limited set of
grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. He has always acknowledged his debt to Pnini for his
modern notion of an explicit generative grammar, although it is also related to rationalistideas of a
priori knowledge.
A popular misconception is that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate, and that he
discovered a "universal grammar" (UG). Chomsky simply observed that while a human baby and a
kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data,
the human will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will
never acquire either ability. Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity the human has that the
cat lacks as the language acquisition device (LAD), and he suggested that one of the tasks for
linguistics should be to determine what the LAD is and what constraints it imposes on the range of
possible human languages. The universal features that would result from these constraints are often
termed "universal grammar" or UG.[118] Though Chomsky generated the universal grammar theory with

7
the belief that language is uniquely human, a series of studies from various laboratories have shown
the existence of acquired language in several great ape species, including common chimpanzees,[119]
[120][121][122][123][124][125]
bonobos,[125][126] gorillas,[127] andorangutans.[128] Thus, great apes at least partially
possess whatever mental functions might underlie the LAD, and are therefore important species of
study for exploring the neural basis of language.
Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of language acquisition in children,
though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates[129] and Michael Tomasello[130]argue
very strongly against Chomsky's theories, and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist theories,
explaining language with a number of general processing mechanisms in the brain that interact with
the extensive and complex social environment in which language is used and learned.

Generative grammar
Main article: Generative grammar
The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a
body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that
much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of
their native languages.[131] The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termeduniversal grammar.
From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is
simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. Furthermore,
he argues that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed
and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument). The knowledge
of Universal Grammar would serve to bridge that gap.
Chomsky's theories have been immensely influential within linguistics, but they have also received
criticism. One recurring criticism of the Chomskyan variety of generative grammar is that it is
Anglocentric and Eurocentric, and that often linguists working in this tradition have a tendency to base
claims about Universal Grammar on a very small sample of languages, sometimes just one. Initially,
the Eurocentrism was exhibited in an overemphasis on the study of English. However, hundreds of
different languages have now received at least some attention within Chomskyan linguistic analyses.
[132][133][134][135][136]
In spite of the diversity of languages that have been characterized by UG derivations,
critics continue to argue that the formalisms within Chomskyan linguistics are Anglocentric and
misrepresent the properties of languages that are different from English. [137][138][139] Thus, Chomsky's
approach has been criticized as a form of linguistic imperialism. [140] In addition, Chomskyan linguists
rely heavily on the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are wellformed. This practice has been criticized on general methodological grounds.
Some psychologists and psycholinguists,[who?] though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have
argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language
processing, with the consequence that their theories are not psychologically plausible. Other critics
(see language learning) have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar to
explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.
Today there are many different branches of generative grammar. One can view grammatical
frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar,
andcombinatory categorial grammar as broadly Chomskyan and generative in orientation, but with
significant differences in execution.

Chomsky hierarchy
Main article: Chomsky hierarchy

8
Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might
be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitionsformal
grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can
generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that
modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured
by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while aregular language is powerful
enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to
being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer
science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory).[141] Indeed, there is an equivalence
between the Chomsky language hierarchy and the different kinds of automata. Thus theorems about
languages are often dealt with as either languages (grammars) or automata.

Political views
Main article: Noam Chomsky's political views

Chomsky on a visit to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2004.

Chomsky's political views changed little since his childhood. [142] His ideological position revolves
around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being", [142] and he has
described his beliefs as "fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in
the Enlightenment and classical liberalism."[143] He has praised libertarian socialism,[144] and has
described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist.[145] He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and
Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union.[146] Chomsky is also a member
of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society,
which he describes as having the potential to "...carry us a long way towards unifying the many
initiatives here and around the world and molding them into a powerful and effective force." [147][148]
He advocates popular struggle for greater democracy.[149] He has stated his opposition to ruling elites,
among them institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT.[150]
Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden of proof
is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled.
Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. An example given by Chomsky of a legitimate

9
authority is that exerted by an adult to prevent a young child from wandering into traffic. [151] He
contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner
or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual
freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace. [152]
Chomsky is critical of both the American state capitalist system[153] and the authoritarian branches of
socialism. He argues that libertarian socialistvalues are the proper extension of classical liberalism to
an advanced industrial context,[154] and that society should be highly organized and based on
democratic control of communities and work places. He views the radical humanist ideas of his two
major influences, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, as "rooted in the Enlightenment and classical
liberalism, while retaining their revolutionary character." [155]
Chomsky has strongly criticized the foreign policy of the United States. He claims double standards in
a foreign policy preaching democracy and freedom for all while allying itself with non-democratic and
repressive organizations and states such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet and argues that this
results in massive human rightsviolations. He often argues that America's intervention in foreign
nations including secret aid the U.S. gave to the Contras in Nicaragua, an event he has been
critical of fits any standard description of terrorism,[156] including "official definitions in the US Code
and Army Manuals in the early 1980s."[157][158] Before its collapse, Chomsky also
condemned Soviet imperialism; for example in 1986 during a question/answer following a lecture he
gave at Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, when challenged about how he could "talk about
North American imperialism and Russian imperialism in the same breath," Chomsky responded: "One
of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to
have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's
necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to
illusions about these matters."[159] Martha Nussbaum criticizes Chomsky for failing to condemn
atrocities by leftist insurgents because "for some leftists one should not criticize one's friends, that
solidarity is more important than ethical correctness." [160]
Chomsky has a broad view of free-speech rights, especially in the mass media, and
opposes censorship. He has stated that "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two
positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist
standards".[161] With reference to the United States diplomatic cables leak, Chomsky suggested that
"perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the
U.S. Government Hillary Clinton, others and also by the diplomatic service."[162]Chomsky refuses
to take legal action against those who may have libeled him and prefers to counter libels through open
letters in newspapers. One example of this approach is his response to an article by Emma
Brockes in The Guardian at the end of October 2005, which alleged that he had denied
the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.[163][164][165] At issue was Chomsky's attitude to the writings of
journalist Diana Johnstone on the subject.[166] His complaint prompted The Guardian to publish an
apologetic correction and to withdraw the article from the paper's website, [167] which remains available
on his own website.[168] Nick Cohen has criticised Chomsky for frequently making overly critical
statements about Western governments, especially the US, and for allegedly refusing to retract his
speculations when facts become available that disprove them. [169]

Debates
Chomsky has been known to defend vigorously and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy,
linguistics (Linguistics Wars), and politics.[20] He has had notable debates with Jean Piaget,[170]Michel
Foucault,[171] William F. Buckley, Jr.,[172] Christopher Hitchens,[173][174][175][176][177] George Lakoff,[178] Richard

10
Perle,[179] Hilary Putnam,[180] Willard Quine,[181][182] John Maynard Smith,[183] and Alan Dershowitz,[184] to
name a few. The Guardian said of Chomsky's debating ability, "His boldness and clarity infuriates
opponentsacademe is crowded with critics who have made twerps of themselves taking him on." [185]
[186]
In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring, Chomsky said, "I'm a boring speaker
and I like it that way. ... I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is. ... People are
interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important." [187] "We don't
want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on." [188]

Personal life
Chomsky endeavors to keep his family life strictly separate from his political activism and career,
[189]
and considers himself "scrupulous at keeping my politics out of the classroom." [190] He is
uninterested in appearances and the fame that his work has brought him. [191] He also has little interest
in art and music, though does enjoy reading non-fiction literature. [192]
Chomsky is known for his "dry, laconic wit", although he has attracted controversy for labeling
established political and academic figures with terms like "corrupt", "fascist", and "fraudulent". [193]When
asked if he is an atheist, Chomsky replied "What is it that I'm supposed to not believe in? Until you
can answer that question I can't tell you whether I'm an atheist." [194]
In 1949 Chomsky married Carol Doris Schatz (Chomsky). They were married until her death in 2008.
[195]

Influence
Chomsky's legacy is as both a "leader in the field" of linguistics and "a figure of enlightenment and
inspiration" for political dissenters.[196] Linguist John Lyons remarked that within a few decades of
publication, Chomskyan linguistics had become "the most dynamic and influential" school of thought
in the field.[197] Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in various fields of study.
The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science courses as it confers insight
into the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical
terms[198] and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. Some
arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.[199]
Chomsky's work in linguistics has had implications for modern psychology.[32] Nim Chimpsky, a
chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University,
was named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely human
ability.[citation needed] The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels Kaj Jerne, used
Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a
generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm
Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System". [200] Computer scientist Donald
Knuth read Syntactic Structures during his honeymoon and was influenced by it. "I must admit to
taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon in 1961 ...
Here was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could use a computer
programmer's intuition!"[201]

Academic achievements, awards, and honors

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970,
the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial
Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at
the University of Toronto, titled "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"; in

11
1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town,[202] in 2011, the Rickman
Godlee Lecture at University College, London [203] many others.[204]
Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including from the
following:

University of London

University of Chicago

Loyola University Chicago

Swarthmore College

University of Delhi

Bard College

University of Massachusetts Amherst

University of Pennsylvania

University of St. Andrews

Georgetown University

Amherst College

University of Cambridge

University of Colorado[205]

University of Buenos Aires

McGill University

Rovira i Virgili University

Columbia University

Villanova University

University of Connecticut

12

University of Maine

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

University of Western Ontario

University of Toronto

Harvard University

University of Chile

University of Bologna

University of La Frontera

University of Calcutta

National University of Colombia

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Santo Domingo Institute of Technology

Uppsala University

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

University of Cyprus

Central Connecticut State University

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Peking University[206]

National Tsing Hua University[207]

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences,
and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned
societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific
Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the
Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in
Computer and Cognitive Science, and others.[208] He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by

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The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in
Public Language" (in 1987 and 1989).[209]
He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.[210]
In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society.[211] In
2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in
commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus.[212] In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from
the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway.[213] Since 2009 he is
an honorary member of IAPTI.[214]
In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany.[215] In April 2010, Chomsky
became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for
Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.[216]

The Megachile chomskyi holotype.

Chomsky has an Erds number of four.[217]

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals
Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to
polls".[218] In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list
of "Heroes of our time".[219]
Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album,
called Pandemoniumfromamerica, to Chomsky.[220]
On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT.
[221][222]
The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music
composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky's colleagues, including David
Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.
In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his "...unfailing courage,
critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights." [223]
In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant
contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems". [224][225]
In 2013, a newly described species of bee was named after him: Megachile chomskyi.[226]

Bibliography
Main article: Noam Chomsky bibliography

Filmography

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Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Director: Mark Achbar and Peter
Wintonick (1992)

Last Party 2000, Director: Rebecca Chaiklin and Donovan Leitch (2001)

Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, Director: John Junkerman (2002)

Distorted Morality America's War On Terror?, Director: John Junkerman (2003)

Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause (TV), Director: Will Pascoe (2003)

The Corporation, Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott; Writer: Joel Bakan (2003)

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land, Directors: Sut Jhally and Bathsheba
Ratzkoff(2004)

On Power, Dissent and Racism: A discussion with Noam Chomsky, Journalist: Nicolas
Rossier; Producers: Eli Choukri, Baraka Productions (2004)

Lake of Fire, Director: Tony Kaye (2006)

American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals, Director: Richard Hall (2008)

Chomsky & Cie, Director: Olivier Azam (out in 2008)

An Inconvenient Tax, Director: Christopher P. Marshall (out in 2009)

The Money Fix, Director: Alan Rosenblith (2009)

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space, Director: Denis Delestrac (2010)

Article 12: Waking up in a surveillance society, Director: Juan Manuel Biai (2010)

In 2012, Chomsky performed a deadpan cameo role in "MIT Gangnam Style", a parody of the
"Gangnam Style" music video.[227] Also known informally as "Chomsky Style";[228] the video was
described as the "Best Gangnam Style Parody Yet" by The Huffington Post[228]and it became a
multi-million viewed "most popular" video on YouTube in its own right. (video link[229])

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, Director: Michel Gondry (2013)

See also