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From Utterances to Speech Acts

By Mikhail Kissine

"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."

--François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod

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Summary Details


Query:   Chomsky quote source
Author:  Sean Dimond (S&T Onsite)
Submitter Email:  click here to access email
Linguistic LingField(s):   Philosophy of Language

Summary:   Several people have responded to my query to this list, and after a
few days of internet research and emailing with a few colleagues and
followers of NC, I have had no definitive answer as to whether or not
NC actually 'said' that a divine power gave us language in that single
inspired stroke... and while some have hinted that the NC 'could' of
said it, most everyone has agreed that NC would *never* of said this
and meant it in any literal sense.

I emailed time magazine and my response from an editor said that the
cnn.com quote was merely a characterization of a news article, Dec. 5,
1998, titled "A Changed Noam Chomsky Simplifies" (I've purchased this
article from the LA Times archives, and have included it below). The
article is about NC's Minimalist Program, and the entire hubub seems
to have arisen from this one line:

"Imagine, Mr. Chomsky says, that some divine superengineer, in a
single efficient stroke, endowed humans with the power of language
where formerly they had none."

I posted a query on the chomsky chat message board at www.zmag.org, and
the sysop there, who sends and facilitates weekly queries to NC himself,
said:

"Noam did not use the word divine... It was simply added to the
interview, willy nilly, to suit the author of the article, presumably.
He made a typical comment, a hypothetical thought experiment to
explain a point, and the listener apparently took it wrong, and then
embelished it as well. "

Still no reply from NC himself, of course.

Just fyi, I am interested in this as i've just begun a thesis looking
into post-mod constructivist ideas of cognition and lingual origin
making possible a new approach and reading of theology. Particularly
the jewish and christian doctrine of the 'imago deo'. Using maturana
and varela, heiddeger, and a little bit o' NC. I would obviously be
very interested in any thoughts or comments along these lines.

Thanks so much for the responses from this list, and here is the times
article.

Best,
-sean dimond


A Changed Noam Chomsky Simplifies
By MARGALIT FOX

[LINGUIST has deleted the article for copyright reasons. If you would
like more information, please respond to Mr. Dimond.]

LL Issue: 10.85
Date Posted: 19-Jan-1999
Original Query: Read original query


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