Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract:
One of South Africa leading language experts Professor Rajend Mesthrie was guest speaker at UCT Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts Great Texts Big Questions lecture on 15 April He discussed lSyntactic Structures Noam Chomsky and the colourless green revolution in language studies. Noam Chomsky is considered by many to be the father of modern linguistics Mesthrie lecture has Chomsky first book Syntactic Structures published in 1957 as a starting point Syntactic Structures started a revolution in language studies says Mesthrie. This involved a Kuhnian shift from the 1940s and 1950s approach of seeing Linguistics as a descriptive science characterizing the languages of the world to explaining the cognitive generative element of language in the human mind Mesthrie lecture will consider how Chomsky influenced fields as diverse as the psychology of language child language development grammar and sign language as well as his central place in understanding the social versus the genetic in the humanities Professor Rajend. Mesthrie holds a Research Chair in Linguistics within the University of Cape Town English Department a National Research Foundation sponsored SARCHI chair in Language Migration and Social Change He is a past president of the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa and a previous head of Linguistics at UCT between 1998 and 2009 He is series editor of Key Topics in Sociolinguistics for Cambridge University Press CUP and one of the co-editors of the CUP journal English Today He is a prolific author his publications include the edited collection Language in South Africa CUP 2002 described by reviewers as compulsory reading and essential knowledge for all students and scholars of sociolinguistics in South Africa. Dr Rob Baum director of UCT Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts GIPCA said Chomsky influence on education and government which in ancient times were considered associated,if not synonymous, is inestimable. His theories on language studies are of global interest and have cultural and national relevance in South Africa today where there is much debate around language and identity. Noam Chomsky image by Fellowsisters shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license
- Subject:
- Arts, Humanities
- Grade Level:
- Post-secondary
- Collection:
- University of Cape Town