Ideology And Linguistic Theory: Noam Chomsky And The Deep Structure Debates( Series - History Of Linguistic Thought )

"Ideology and Linguistic Theory" provides a highly-charged reappraisal of the notorious "schism" between linguist Noam Chomsky and many of his most-prized students. The schism concerned the role of meaning in grammar and resulted in a split throughout the entire linguistics community during the late sixties and early seventies. This book is more than just a chronicle of the controversy, however--authors Geoffrey Huck and John Goldsmith offer a revisionist analysis of this very public schism and the ensuing Deep Structure Debates.
Huck and Goldsmith argue that the triumph of Chomsky's interpretive semantics had less to do with the fact that it was right than with the fact that the contrary argument for generative semantics failed to establish an institutional base. Through detailed examination of key issues, the authors reveal similarities between the two models, and demonstrate the extent to which Chomsky's paradigm drew from the concepts employed by his estranged students. The text is further supplemented by extended interviews with four of the original participants--Ray Jackendoff, George Lakoff, Paul M. Postal and John Robert Ross.