What do you think?
Rate this book
The Linguistics Wars
When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there
was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There
was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades.
Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major
breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out.
In The Linguistic Wars , Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of
language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties.
The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan
position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And
fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself.
The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits
of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.
was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There
was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades.
Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major
breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out.
In The Linguistic Wars , Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of
language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties.
The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan
position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And
fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself.
The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits
of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 22, 1993
62 people are currently reading
1004 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 9, 2007
A great history of war in academia, with emotional betrayals, highly abstract argumentation and many nasty words. And as a truly great academic clash, most people have never heard about it, and it probably affected them very little. As a non-linguist, this book also served as a serviceable introduction to some of the field's basic ideas, and it was interesting to read about Chomsky in his original role. I was only familiar with him through philosophy and politics. Seeing how he fought in this intellectual skirmish, I understand why one of my friend's email is "chomskyisntnice".
November 6, 2020
I read this book as an undergrad who studied linguistics. The book is certainly not suitable for people outside the field because it involves too much linguistic theory, so in a sense the book fails to do what it wants to do. But I'd disagree with people who claim that it's good only for students trying to finish their essay--it's not. In fact, it's useless to those students, because assignments in linguistics aren't like that. It's a book on history of linguistics, not on linguistic theories per se.
If you're a linguist in training (or even a full-fledged one), you'd do well to pick up this book. Much of linguistics today is taught in a vacuum, without historical context of how certain conceptions came to be influential or how some questions became important. Historicizing linguistics could go a long way in improving one's understanding of it, and the period discussed in this book has long-lasting effects in the Anglo-American linguistics academia that you should not dismiss.
If you're a linguist in training (or even a full-fledged one), you'd do well to pick up this book. Much of linguistics today is taught in a vacuum, without historical context of how certain conceptions came to be influential or how some questions became important. Historicizing linguistics could go a long way in improving one's understanding of it, and the period discussed in this book has long-lasting effects in the Anglo-American linguistics academia that you should not dismiss.
May 6, 2012
I wonder who this book was targeted at. It is not a fun pop-science book, if names like Lakoff, Ross or Chomsky-the-linguist do not ring a bell then you'll probably read less than twenty pages (out of 400), it is too boring. However, if you know what these people are famous for, you probably also know something about linguistics and would like to see more technical substance which the book is short of. So who would appreciate it other than a student in linguistics writing a semester essay about how wrong linguists were just 50 years ago (and still are)?
April 6, 2007
This is a very readable intellectual history of 20th century linguistics. The most enjoyable part of the book is the account of the revolt against Chomsky in the late 60s and early 1970s by the Generative Semanticists.
The Generative Semanticists thought Chomsky's use of examples was too stodgy. Chomsky's famous examples involve John:
'John is eager to please'
'John is easy to please'
Whereas the Generative Semanticists introduce a whole bunch of crazy countercultural names, like "Norbert the Nark" and "Figmeister", and "Quang Phuc Dong", the pseudonym for J.D. McCawley, who was at the University of Chicago. And their examples can be pretty entertaining:
"Amerika's claim that it was difficult to control Vietnamese aggression in Vietnam surprised no one" (Grinder, 1970)
*"The shit that John took weighed 600 grams" (Quang, 1988)
*"I don't want to kiss no gorillas" (Postal, 1974)
Eventually the generative semantic program fell apart, but its practitioners went on to develop other areas of linguistics that are still in operation.
One of the semantics instructors at the U of C now said that the generative semanticists were doing interesting work but didn't have the technology to properly apply all of their interesting data.
The Generative Semanticists thought Chomsky's use of examples was too stodgy. Chomsky's famous examples involve John:
'John is eager to please'
'John is easy to please'
Whereas the Generative Semanticists introduce a whole bunch of crazy countercultural names, like "Norbert the Nark" and "Figmeister", and "Quang Phuc Dong", the pseudonym for J.D. McCawley, who was at the University of Chicago. And their examples can be pretty entertaining:
"Amerika's claim that it was difficult to control Vietnamese aggression in Vietnam surprised no one" (Grinder, 1970)
*"The shit that John took weighed 600 grams" (Quang, 1988)
*"I don't want to kiss no gorillas" (Postal, 1974)
Eventually the generative semantic program fell apart, but its practitioners went on to develop other areas of linguistics that are still in operation.
One of the semantics instructors at the U of C now said that the generative semanticists were doing interesting work but didn't have the technology to properly apply all of their interesting data.
March 2, 2016
What can I say about this book. It's approximately 300 pages long and it took me 2 years to read it. I'm not even sure whether I finished it. I just stopped reading and didn't care enough about the ending to continue.
It's not exactly bad. The scholarship is good and it's funny, at times. Maybe it's just not engaging, too theoretical. It seems unfair to call it too theoretical, it's a book about theory, but the author does seem to recognise this at times, diverting his digressions to the notes in the back.
I'm giving it 2 stars because I think it does what it sets out to do really well. For me that just wasn't enough.
It's not exactly bad. The scholarship is good and it's funny, at times. Maybe it's just not engaging, too theoretical. It seems unfair to call it too theoretical, it's a book about theory, but the author does seem to recognise this at times, diverting his digressions to the notes in the back.
I'm giving it 2 stars because I think it does what it sets out to do really well. For me that just wasn't enough.
September 1, 2017
This book chronicles both sides of the Generative Semantics vs. Interpretative Semantics debate and its aftermath. Highly recommended if you're into some semi-recent history lessons of the field of linguistics. It's also written in a pleasing and comprehensive style.
January 7, 2017
Excellent Backgrounder to the Field
Eminently suitable reading if you are embarking on a modern study of the field of linguistics or are writing an essay on the people and personalities involved or just like reading about the history and evolution of a science. Reads like a good novel. There are a few spots where the uninitiated might be intimidated by the technical treatments but they can be skimmed over. One gets a good sense of how, because of Chomsky, a Kuhnian style paradigm shift occured. What's missing perhaps is some insight that transformational grammar found a fertile ground because Chomsky was at MIT which did not have a deeply established linguistics department but did have a bias towards mathematical and notational models.
The author warns you that the personalities, esp. Chomsky, come off a little abrassively. I got a sense of Chomsky as exceptionally brilliant, revolutionary but a man seduced into creating his own orthodoxy - and quite mean about it too. One wonders what might have happened had Chomsky not been dismissive of the study of semantics.
I enjoyed it a lot. Prof. Harris writes extremely well. ;-)
Eminently suitable reading if you are embarking on a modern study of the field of linguistics or are writing an essay on the people and personalities involved or just like reading about the history and evolution of a science. Reads like a good novel. There are a few spots where the uninitiated might be intimidated by the technical treatments but they can be skimmed over. One gets a good sense of how, because of Chomsky, a Kuhnian style paradigm shift occured. What's missing perhaps is some insight that transformational grammar found a fertile ground because Chomsky was at MIT which did not have a deeply established linguistics department but did have a bias towards mathematical and notational models.
The author warns you that the personalities, esp. Chomsky, come off a little abrassively. I got a sense of Chomsky as exceptionally brilliant, revolutionary but a man seduced into creating his own orthodoxy - and quite mean about it too. One wonders what might have happened had Chomsky not been dismissive of the study of semantics.
I enjoyed it a lot. Prof. Harris writes extremely well. ;-)
March 16, 2022
not just for linguists
Anyone who is serious about the human sciences should read this. The technical issues may fade in the coming decades but what will remain is the story of how Noam Chomsky’s working style and rhetoric shaped the careers and interests of both his supporters and his detractors. Often the detractors and the awed supporters are the same people. This is not a normal academic book: it has too much emphasis on personalities for that. But it is good as an account of what the issues were, and accurate as far as I can tell.
Anyone who is serious about the human sciences should read this. The technical issues may fade in the coming decades but what will remain is the story of how Noam Chomsky’s working style and rhetoric shaped the careers and interests of both his supporters and his detractors. Often the detractors and the awed supporters are the same people. This is not a normal academic book: it has too much emphasis on personalities for that. But it is good as an account of what the issues were, and accurate as far as I can tell.
February 14, 2016
This tale of the generative/interpretive semantics debate manages to illuminate a very abstract, dry topic through thrilling narrative. I love Harris's wit and even handedness (the latter despite his clear affinity for Chomsky-pedestaling).
Despite reading Aspects twice, I've only got only a very superficial picture of what it's arguing and why. Armed with the context presented so vividly and thoroughly in The Linguistics Wars, I think I can make my next reading stick on a much deeper level.
Despite reading Aspects twice, I've only got only a very superficial picture of what it's arguing and why. Armed with the context presented so vividly and thoroughly in The Linguistics Wars, I think I can make my next reading stick on a much deeper level.
December 15, 2019
very informative.
As the title indicates, Harris gives the readers a well-rounded view of the heated debates that have taken place during the early days of generative grammar. I don't normally read books more than once unless they are worth the time, and this is one of the very few that I have read twice from cover to cover. I am sure I will come back to it in the future to read it again. it is a worthwhile read.
As the title indicates, Harris gives the readers a well-rounded view of the heated debates that have taken place during the early days of generative grammar. I don't normally read books more than once unless they are worth the time, and this is one of the very few that I have read twice from cover to cover. I am sure I will come back to it in the future to read it again. it is a worthwhile read.
June 2, 2015
A wonderful history of the development of generative grammar and the intellectual developments which led to the rise and fall of generative semantics. It's both engaging and, in my opinion, fair-minded; it presents a very nice overall view of the debate.
It also, of course, brings up the question of the primacy of meaning in grammar---excellent food for thought on that level.
It also, of course, brings up the question of the primacy of meaning in grammar---excellent food for thought on that level.
August 23, 2010
This book manages to describe academic battles without making it very clear what the substance is.
Admittedly, some of the work in this field is rather dense, but the book could have been a lot clearer and more sprightly. I did not care enough to get more than halfway thorugh.
Admittedly, some of the work in this field is rather dense, but the book could have been a lot clearer and more sprightly. I did not care enough to get more than halfway thorugh.
September 11, 2014
This is a really fascinating book on the sociology of science. It is also a really good background read on contemporary linguistics.
March 12, 2018
I just really enjoyed this in the page-turner way. Recommend to linguists and philosophers of language for a good time.
May 29, 2023
My review is for the 2nd edition, published in 2021.
This is a grounding, context-providing book for anyone who is in training to become a linguist. It oscillates very well between history and theory, although it can be a little verbose in some chapters.
The historical dispute outlined in the book is currently realized in the co-presence of differing, sometimes opposing, research orientations in university linguistics departments, in research publications, in classroom textbooks, and in the rise of pragmatics, sub-fields of sociolinguistics, and many functional approaches to language study.
What I found particularly revealing (although, having gone through one year of graduate school and a number of eye-opening encounters with accomplished professors, not completely surprising) is the length to which celebrated figures in the field are willing to prioritize personal allegiances, emotions and reputation over a simple "I think you are right" directed towards a "rival" researcher. Many linguistic analyses were essentially maintained out of spite, later quietly abandoned when confrontation subsided. I was slightly confused when the book introduced thematic roles as an innovation of the Generative Semanticists, the arch-nemesis of Chomsky's camp back in the day, because I learned about them in a Chomskyan syntax textbook written by one of his students. A few chapters later, my confusion turned to amazement upon learning that their inclusion into the Chomskyan generative tradition was a quiet, uncredited appropriation.
Chomsky's premeditated publication of a misconstrued argument written by McCawley was eye-opening, more so was his and his colleagues' disrespectful personal attack against Everett for the mere presentation of data they didn't like, even more so was the book's last chapter, which delved into numerous documented instances were Chomsky has been shown to be an unreliable source of the truth and a stubborn one at that, but most of all was Harris' argument that Chomsky has no malice in his heart when he does such things. Personally, Chomsky has always struck me as a man that exhibits a hint of autism, which would explain his genius.
That is not to say that the book doesn't give Chomsky his due or that the Generative Semanticists were without their own character quirks. To get the full picture, one has to read the book.
This is a grounding, context-providing book for anyone who is in training to become a linguist. It oscillates very well between history and theory, although it can be a little verbose in some chapters.
The historical dispute outlined in the book is currently realized in the co-presence of differing, sometimes opposing, research orientations in university linguistics departments, in research publications, in classroom textbooks, and in the rise of pragmatics, sub-fields of sociolinguistics, and many functional approaches to language study.
What I found particularly revealing (although, having gone through one year of graduate school and a number of eye-opening encounters with accomplished professors, not completely surprising) is the length to which celebrated figures in the field are willing to prioritize personal allegiances, emotions and reputation over a simple "I think you are right" directed towards a "rival" researcher. Many linguistic analyses were essentially maintained out of spite, later quietly abandoned when confrontation subsided. I was slightly confused when the book introduced thematic roles as an innovation of the Generative Semanticists, the arch-nemesis of Chomsky's camp back in the day, because I learned about them in a Chomskyan syntax textbook written by one of his students. A few chapters later, my confusion turned to amazement upon learning that their inclusion into the Chomskyan generative tradition was a quiet, uncredited appropriation.
Chomsky's premeditated publication of a misconstrued argument written by McCawley was eye-opening, more so was his and his colleagues' disrespectful personal attack against Everett for the mere presentation of data they didn't like, even more so was the book's last chapter, which delved into numerous documented instances were Chomsky has been shown to be an unreliable source of the truth and a stubborn one at that, but most of all was Harris' argument that Chomsky has no malice in his heart when he does such things. Personally, Chomsky has always struck me as a man that exhibits a hint of autism, which would explain his genius.
That is not to say that the book doesn't give Chomsky his due or that the Generative Semanticists were without their own character quirks. To get the full picture, one has to read the book.
November 6, 2022
Okay, this book was at times a monster to read--if you don't know much about linguistics, and you're looking to read it, expect to be learning quite a bit of theory--but Lord did I enjoy it. Randy Allen Harris took a subject that was always, by the nature of things, going to include a lot of theory (that's what the linguistics wars were fought over, more or less), and made it entertaining and thought provoking. I've come out of this book with a *slightly* better understanding of the theory disputes early on in lingusitics-as-i-know-it, a *much* better understanding of the history of linguistics-as-i-know-it, and a lot of thoughts on scientific debate/disputes. Also a deep fascination with Chomsky! I know we all contain multitudes but boy oh boy does that guy contain some multitudes!
I've written down approximately a thousand quotes from this book, I lowkey want to reread it again in the future with a copy i can actually notate on, and i really want to read more about linguistic history.
I do think it would be difficult to get through as a non linguist (not exactly a pop science book, as I think it aimed to be), but I'm not saying it was impossible--and I understood it as someone whose focus was in sociolinguistics, not syntax or semantics. I feel almost homesick for linguistics, even though I don't want to go into academia, so I'm glad to have books like this for a taste of home (and for all the family drama 👀)
I've written down approximately a thousand quotes from this book, I lowkey want to reread it again in the future with a copy i can actually notate on, and i really want to read more about linguistic history.
I do think it would be difficult to get through as a non linguist (not exactly a pop science book, as I think it aimed to be), but I'm not saying it was impossible--and I understood it as someone whose focus was in sociolinguistics, not syntax or semantics. I feel almost homesick for linguistics, even though I don't want to go into academia, so I'm glad to have books like this for a taste of home (and for all the family drama 👀)
January 7, 2026
A dense but thoroughly enjoyable narrative. The presentation of theoretical debates is a little technical at times, but a non-linguist reader shouldn’t have too much trouble following the basic outlines (I’m a grad student in linguistics but only took one undergrad class in the syntactic tradition this dispute occurred in, and I didn’t have too much trouble following the controversy here). If anything I felt at times that some more depth was needed, not less.
Despite the clarity of discussion on the esoteric content of the debates, it would be really dry if it weren’t for the prose, which is really what kept me coming back for more. Lots of fun metaphors and well-placed editorializing.
It’s especially impressive given the fact that for most normal people the basic assumptions of all of the participants are kind of absurd, and the “facts” of the debate stretch the applicability of the term. It reminded me of learning about theological disputes in a religion you don’t believe in; lots of interesting perspectives and interpretations, but ultimately the things they’re discussing don’t have much bearing on reality. The author is more credulous than he probably should be about the pretensions to scientific validity that Chomsky, his followers and his detractors have, but it doesn’t detract from the narrative or analysis of the debate.
Despite the clarity of discussion on the esoteric content of the debates, it would be really dry if it weren’t for the prose, which is really what kept me coming back for more. Lots of fun metaphors and well-placed editorializing.
It’s especially impressive given the fact that for most normal people the basic assumptions of all of the participants are kind of absurd, and the “facts” of the debate stretch the applicability of the term. It reminded me of learning about theological disputes in a religion you don’t believe in; lots of interesting perspectives and interpretations, but ultimately the things they’re discussing don’t have much bearing on reality. The author is more credulous than he probably should be about the pretensions to scientific validity that Chomsky, his followers and his detractors have, but it doesn’t detract from the narrative or analysis of the debate.
September 22, 2023
As a recently graduated linguist, I wanted to find out more about generative semantics, which you hear as the butt of the joke in the field without any context. Despite being a very long book, it almost taught me nothing about the theory. It provides a painfully detailed historical context to the debate, which took me months to read. It's not that Harris doesn't know how to write, he is at times funny and engaging, it's just the whole book could be a long article instead. At some point right before finishing it, I wanted to throw the book out of the window: It's full of people's personal opinions, which are usually very petty, repeated over and over again. The fact that it was written 30 years ago doesn't help either, you feel how dated it is when Harris calls tagmemics a "well-established model" and says "there is talk about a 'minimalist program.'" I wish I didn't waste my time reading this.
August 24, 2024
Kinda skimmed the last two-three chapters, but will still count it as read.
The first half was pretty interesting, but then either I became too tired, or the author was spiralling a bit. The biggest problem in this book - either too little or too much biography/technicalities. One chapter a syntax framework will be throughly explained, and another one just mentioned (LFG). What is given in this book? I still don't get it.
I don't know why, but it was extremely hard to read. A lots of times the same points were repeated ad nauseum. Sometimes I was rolling my eyes at the "fancy" words, but that's my own prejudice I guess.
Uh, I guess the first half is the most important anyway (at least it seemed to me). I got something of out this book, but I can't that to read it fully is worth it.
The first half was pretty interesting, but then either I became too tired, or the author was spiralling a bit. The biggest problem in this book - either too little or too much biography/technicalities. One chapter a syntax framework will be throughly explained, and another one just mentioned (LFG). What is given in this book? I still don't get it.
I don't know why, but it was extremely hard to read. A lots of times the same points were repeated ad nauseum. Sometimes I was rolling my eyes at the "fancy" words, but that's my own prejudice I guess.
Uh, I guess the first half is the most important anyway (at least it seemed to me). I got something of out this book, but I can't that to read it fully is worth it.
September 1, 2022
Really enjoyable discussion of the progression of linguistics and the personalities of the field's players.
Read
November 9, 2017too much historical over-view and hard logic based examples.
March 24, 2008
This isn't about "Linguistics" so much as it is about semantics.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews