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Receiving his Ph.D. and his Doctoral Research
Chomsky received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He then went on to extrapolate on his principles which he developed in his 1957 book "Syntactic Structures", which would be one of his most famous works to date. The introduction of these ideas would have a major contribution in the "Cognitive Revolution" and ultimately lead to a new branch of science, cognitive science. -
Critique of B.F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior"
In 1959, Chomsky critiqued "Verbal Behavior", which attempted to explain languages as a learned behavior. Chomsky used his studies on children as a prime example. Since the children were able to pick up languages much faster than their adult counterparts, this supported they were more susceptible to the subconscious ability to interpret languages. -
Principles and Parameters Approach
While lecturing in Pisa, Noam Chomsky published "Lectures on Government and Binding." In this publication, Chomsky made very strong arguments supporting universal grammar. This study showed that children are like sponges when it comes to learning multiple languages. Because children have only been speaking for a few years, they are not "stuck" on one language and more pliable when it comes to learning additional languages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLk47AMBdTA -
Minimalist Program
In one of Chomsky's more recent works, he dives deeper towards a general approach of different languages. He states that our brain has a deep and instinctual understanding of languages. Even though languages are vastly different on the surface, their basic structure is very similar.