LINGUIST List 4.94

Fri 12 Feb 1994

FYI: Chomsky film, New Journal, Howell quote

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Susan Newman, re: 4.80 Qs: V2, leaking grammars, Chomsky film, code-switching
2. Gregory K. Iverson, New Journal
3. mark, Howell

Message 1: re: 4.80 Qs: V2, leaking grammars, Chomsky film, code-switching

Re: film about Chomsky: I know of one very excellent film about
Chomsky that deals primarily with his political activism and ideas
concerning the media and its relations to corporate, military and
government power on one hand and democratic discourse on the other.
It is 3 hours long and is available from the National Film Board of
Canada for around $30-40.
Not only does it do an amazing job of capturing a very complex set of
ideas, but it conveys a powerful sense of Chomsky as a committed
intellectual hard at work to make a difference. There are wonderful
excerpts from debates with the likes of Foucault, William F. Buckley,
a high-ranking Danish official, and others. Also many telling bits of
footage from the popular media over the last 50 years and creative
ways of illustrating basic points devised by the filmmakers themselves
-- e.g., representing the cutting, rearranging and editing done on a
British news story on U.S. involvement in EAst Timor as medical
surgery, complete with surgical gowns, masks, scalpels, bright lights.
It is one of the best pieces of documentary film-making I have ever
seen, wherever you come down on the issues raised.
Susan Newman
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
SNewmanparc.xerox.com

 NEW JOURNAL
 "LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD" is an international journal on
 language typology, genetic relationship of languages,
 geographic linguistics, and related topics. It is published
 by LINCOM EUROPA based on Munnich, Germany. So far, five
 issues have appeared. Articles are being invited on any
 topic of crosslinguistic interest. For subscription or
 to sumbit articles, reviews, or news items, write to:
 Dr. Ulrich J. Lueders
 LINCOM EUROPA
 P.O. Box 1316
 D-8044 Unterschleissheim/Munchen
 Germany

Brian White has sent me the origin of the Howell quote:
 The source of the Howell quote was "A New English Grammar,
 Prescribing as certain Rules as the Language will bear, for
 Forreners to learn English" (London, 1662). (In 1993 it would
 probably have been "Speak for Success!: How YOU Can Use English
 as Your Second Language TODAY." We've come a long way since
 those old clumsy titles.)
 Mark A. Mandel
 Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA