Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Noam Chomsky & His Dog Predicate

This is a great comic strip based on the fact that Noam Chomsky is probably the most well-known 'dissident' US academic (he actually disagrees with the government and isn't afraid to say so) through the publication of books such as 'Manufacturing Consent' & 'Hegemony or Survival'*. There is almost no mention of linguistics in the comic (the one below being a notable exception).


The link takes you to the full list of Chomsky's adventures. Hope you enjoy them. I hope Noam enjoys them too.



*I've always thought it is no coincidence that the father of generative linguistics makes no reference at all to linguistics in his version of critical discourse analysis. I am forced to conclude that generative linguistics is unable to explain exactly the language that Chomsky identifies that is used by the media and the US government to manipulate power relations. Meanwhile, functional schools of linguistics have made great progress in identifying exactly how language works to perpetuate unequal power relations.

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