Raphael Salkie

Simply Chomsky - Great Lives Raphael Salkie

Loved by many, hated by some, Noam Chomsky is an outspoken, world-renowned activist for social change. He is also a very distinguished scholar whose work is admired by some, but denounced, ignored and misunderstood by many.

This book concentrates on Chomsky's concerns in the last decade, some of which look different from his earlier work. In a 2010 article, Chomsky wrote that his current research program about language "bars almost everything that has been proposed in the course of work on generative grammar." He is still asking the same questions, but he now thinks that his previous answers to these questions can be abandoned, improved, or clarified-and he often moves into new areas, and raises new research questions.

His work-about language, and about social change-often challenges assumptions which are so widespread that they go unnoticed. What he says sometimes flies in the face of common sense, though for Chomsky that is not a problem if it is true, or at least supported by evidence. Chomsky comments that his words often sound like they come from the moon, so outlandish are they. It takes remarkable single-mindedness and strength of character to say things far outside the mainstream, and to do that for seven decades is extraordinary.