| Description |
xiv, 109 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
The Subject of the enquiry: Is the Native Speaker a Myth Propagated by Linguists? --- The inquiry opens --- "Native speaker as a legal fiction" --- What Quirk & Quine think --- The two senses of "native speaker" --- Chomsky on "grammaticalness" & "grammaticality" --- Is a native speaker born or made? --- How a linguist diagnosed Indian English --- Aristocracyʹs "squeezed and bleating sound" --- Anyone met a native dishwasher? --- How George Kurien lost his mother tongue --- Explain away native-speaker errors --- Labov, Dorian & semi-speakers --- Enter Chomsky --- Going after Chomskyʹs red herring without losing the scent --- The native speaker as a terminal case --- Hallidayʹs comment --- "I couldnʹt make love in English," said one man to Prof. Crystal --- An excursion with Eleanor Rosch --- A linguistic apartheid --- Chomskyʹs reply --- As Pilate said, "What is truth?" --- Noam Chomsky recant? --- Wanted: a Copernican revolution ---- Appendixes |
| Summary |
In Syntactic Structures (The Hague, 1957) and elsewhere, Noam Chomsky claims that the test of whether or not a sentence is well formed or grammatical is its acceptability to the native speaker. In the format of a dialogue, Paikeday's book examines and criticizes that claim. The colloquy is peopled with some well-known and impressive representatives from linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. There are even lexicographers here. Paikeday's point is that the native speaker is ̀̀an ideal, a convenient fiction, a shibboleth'' with no more reality or reference than a unicorn. Difficulties with the native speaker concept are brought out by comparing it with such related themes as mother tongue, fluency, linguistic competence, and the phenomenon of non-native linguistic proficiency. Discussion often veers into problems concerned with the metaphysical status of language; and at these times, the Chomsky character taxes his critics with raising pseudo-problems and reifying language in the manner of Platonic objects. This reviewer is still inclined to Chomsky's view of things, and to the belief that the title of the book has not been vindicated. -- from http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca (Feb. 5, 2014) |
| Analysis |
Chomsky, Noam |
|
Language and languages Philosophy |
|
Native language |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 97-99 |
| Subject |
Chomsky, Noam.
|
|
Chomsky, Noam -- Criticism and interpretation.
|
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Linguistics.
|
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Linguistics -- Philosophy.
|
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Language acquisition.
|
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Language and languages -- Philosophy.
|
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Native language.
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Author |
Chomsky, Noam.
|
| LC no. |
86106169 |
| ISBN |
0920865003 paperback |
|
0920865011 hardcover |
|
