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Born in Philadelphia Dec 7th, 1928 to William Chompsky (father) and Elsie Simonofsky (mother). -
At the age of only 16 Noam was on his way to start his studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied Philosophy, logic, and Arabic. He funded his time in the university by teaching Hebrew
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In 1955 he submitted a thesis setting out his ideas on transformational grammar; he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for it.
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Naom had met Carol when she was only five years old. The two ended up getting married in 1949. -
Chomsky befriended two linguists Mossis Halle and Roman Jakobson who helped him secure a job as an assistant professor position at MIT. He still hold a professorship at MIT to this day. -
Chomsky published a review of B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior in the academic journal Language, in which he argued against Skinner's view of language as learned behavior. The review argued that Skinner ignored the role of human creativity in linguistics and helped to establish Chomsky as an intellectual.
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He was awarded tenure at MIT and became a full professor in the Dept of Modern Languages and Linguistics.
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He published American Power and the New Mandarins, the first of many books harshly criticizing US foreign policy as neo-imperialist and terrorist. Chomsky has described his political views as libertarian socialist and/or anarcho-syndicalist; he regards all forms of power as corrupting and suspect. -
In 1988, he published Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of the mass media (with Edward Herman), which argues that the US mass media are essentially propaganda organs for government and big business. -
The Arts and Humanities Citation Index reported that Chomsky was the world's most highly cited living scholar. Only Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud had been cited more. -
She may have been known as the wife of Noam Chomsky but during Carol's life, she earned her doctoral degree from Harvard in 1968 in Linguistics. She was a mother, wife, social activist, and author of at least 6 books. Carol died of cancer. -
Chomsky published The Science of Language, a series of in-depth dialogues with philosopher James McGilvray of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on language, human nature, and politics. -
Chomsky is currently a part-time professor at the University of Arizona in the linguistics dept. His duties include teaching and public seminars. He is still doing interviews and talks to this day.