In this interview, we talk to Randy Harris about the controversies surrounding the generative semantics movement in American linguistics of the 1960s and 70s.
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References for Episode 42
Chomsky, N. (2015/1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax (50th Anniversary edition.). The MIT Press.
Harris, R. A. (2021/1993). The linguistics wars: Noam Chomsky, George Lakoff, and the battle over Deep Structure (2nd ed.). Oxford.
Huck, G. J., & Goldsmith, J. A. (1995). Ideology and linguistic theory: Noam Chomsky and the deep structure debates. Routledge.
Katz, J. J., & Postal, P. M. (1964). An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions. M.I.T. Press.
McCawley, J. D. (1980). Linguistic theory in America: The first quarter-century of transformational generative grammar, by Frederick J. Newmeyer (Book Review). Linguistics, 18(9), 911-930.
Newmeyer, F. J. (1986/1980). Linguistic theory in America: The first quarter-century of transformational generative grammar (2nd ed.). Academic Press.
Postal, P. M. (1972). The best theory. In S. Peters (Ed.), Goals of linguistic theory. Prentice-Hall.
Postal, P. M. (1988). Topic…Comment: Advances in linguistic rhetoric. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6(1), 129-137.
Transcript by Luca Dinu
JMc: Hi, I’m James McElvenny, and you’re listening to the History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences podcast, [00:14] online at hiphilangsci.net. [00:17] There you can find links and references to all the literature we discuss. [00:21] Today we’re talking to Randy Harris, [00:24] who is Professor of both English Language and Literature and Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada. [00:32] Among other things, Randy is the author of The Linguistics Wars, [00:37] the classic account of the generative semantics controversy that engulfed generative linguistics in the 1960s and ’70s. [00:45] A second edition of Randy’s book came out in 2021, and I’ve been wanting to talk to him about it since then, [00:52] but as a history podcast, we are by definition behind the times, [00:57] so it’s only appropriate that we’re only getting to his book now. [01:01] So, Randy, can you tell us, what were the linguistics wars? [01:05] Who were the chief combatants, and what were they fighting about? [01:09]
RH: Well, first, thanks for inviting me on. I’m a big fan of the podcast. [01:13] It’s a really important and interesting podcast about the history of linguistics, [01:18] and I’m also a fan of your work, your Ogden book, Language and Meaning. [01:22] It is really, really valuable, and I’m looking forward to the new one that you’ve got coming out on the history of modern linguistics. [01:30] So, maybe the best way to start is just to talk about how I entered the project in the first place. [01:35] So, I was a PhD student, and I just discovered a field called rhetoric. [01:41] My other degrees were in literature and linguistics before I got there, [01:46] and I was casting around. I’d originally gone to do communication theory, [01:50] but it turned out that the department wasn’t as strong in that as I thought, [01:54] and they had a really good rhetorician, and he was doing something called rhetoric of science, [01:59] which is basically the study of scientific argumentation. [02:03] I started reading in that field quite a bit and studying under him, Michael Halloran, [02:08] and then when it came time to write a dissertation, I started casting around for scientific episodes. [02:14] One of the themes of rhetoric of science at that point was mostly looking at controversies, [02:19] looking at how scientific disputes get resolved or fail to get resolved through warring camps. [02:25] I read Fritz Newmeyer’s book, Linguistic Theory in America, [02:29] and one of the key chapters is about this group called the generative semanticists and Chomsky coming at odds with each other, [02:39] but I’d also read a review of the book by James McCawley, [02:42] who was one of the people associated with the linguistics wars on the generative semanticists’ side, [02:47] and it was fairly polite, but said that basically Newmeyer’s book didn’t tell the whole story. [02:53] So I thought, “Well, I’d look into this a bit,” and I wrote basically all of the major players. [02:58] So I wrote Chomsky, of course, and the major players on the generative semanticists’ side were Paul Postal, [03:06] who was a colleague of Chomsky’s just before that, George Lakoff, John Robert Ross (Haj Ross), [03:13] and Ray Jackendoff, who was aligned with...