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Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928 in the city of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He was born into a middle-class Jewish family. His father's name was William and his mother's name was Elsie. They were Russian immigrant, his father was a respected professor of Hebrew at Gratz College, an institution for teacher’s training.
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At the age of ten, Chomsky wrote an editorial for his school newspaper on the rise of fascism in Europe after the Spanish Civil War. The basis of which he used for a later essay he presented while at New York University.
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At the end of World War II, at the age of 16, Chomsky began his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. It was there that he met Zellig S. Harris, an American scholar that founded the study of structural linguistics, the breaking down of language into distinct parts or levels.
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He completed his bachelor's degree in linguistics in 1949
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In 1949, Chomsky married an educational specialist by the name of Carol Schatz.They had known each other since early childhood. This relationship lasted for 59 years, until 2008 when she died from cancer. They had three children together.
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He completed his master’s degree in 1951. His master’s thesis was titled "The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew."
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He completed his doctorate’s degree in linguistics in 1955 after submitting one chapter of his research paper titled "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory" (LSLT) as a doctoral dissertation on Transformational Analysis.
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In 1955 after receiving his doctorate's degree, he was offered a professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Working in the school's Department of Linguistics & Philosophy he taught for fifty years before retiring from active teaching in 2005.
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In 1965 Chomsky established his theory of linguistics with his published works entitled the “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax." This was his attempt to answer "Plato's Problem," providing an explanation for how a child acquires language without receiving instructions.
For more on his theory please watch the link posted below:
https://youtu.be/7Cgpfw4z8cw -
In his first political essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” he presented situations in which intellectuals, in position of power failed to disclose the truth or deliberately lied to the American people in order to conceal the agenda and consequences of involvement in the Vietnam War.
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In 1975 Chomsky published his work entitled “The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory." This was an "extended standard theory,” that purposed that the mind of a child was “formatted” for grammar based on the linguistics they were exposed to.
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Chomsky is considered to be the founder of modern linguistics. Having authored over a 100 books on a range of topics including, linguistics, war, politics, and mass media. The Chomsky Hierarchy, is considered to be his most valuable contribution to the field of linguistics. This divided grammar into groups, moving up or down in their expressive abilities. His theories effected research in fields such as psychology and philosophy. He is considered to be the most cited man alive.
