Avram Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1928. He received his early

education at the Oak Lane Country Day School and the

Central High School, Philadelphia, and then went on to

the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied linguistics,

mathematics, and philosophy. It was at the University of

Pennsylvania that he took his Ph.D., although most of the

research that led to this degree was carried out as a Ju-

nior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University

between 1951 and 1955. Since 1955 he has taught at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he now holds

the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Languages and Lin-

guistics. He is married, with two daughters and a son.

Chomsky's work has been widely acclaimed in academic

circles. He has been awarded several honorary doctoratcs:

by the University of Chicago (1967), the University of Lon-

don(1967), Loyola University (1970), Swarthmore College

(1970), Bard College (1971), the University ofDelhi(1972),

the University of Massachusetts (1973). He is a Fellow of

the American Society for the Advancement of Science; a

member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Ameri-

can Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Aca-

demy of Political and Social Sciences; and a Correspond-

ing Fellow of the British Academy. He has been a Visiting

Fellow at Columbia University (1957-58), a Fellow of the

阿弗拉姆・諾姆・喬姆斯基於1928年12月7日誕生在

賓夕法尼亞州費城。早年在費城橡樹巷鄉村日間學校和中心

中學求學。然後進入賓夕法尼亞大學深造，攻讀語言學、數學

及哲學。在賓夕法尼亞大學取得瞭博士學位。可是，他為取

得博士學位而進行的大部分研究工作是他在1951年至1955

年間擔任哈佛大學研究學會初級研究員期間進行的。1955年

以來，喬姆斯基一直在麻省理工學院任教，現為該校費拉裏・

P・沃德現代語言和現代語言學講座的教授。喬姆斯基已婚，

有二個女兒和一個兒子。

喬姆斯基的學術成就在學術界受到普遍的贊賞。芝加哥

大學（於1967年）、倫敦大學（於1967年）、洛約拉大學（於

1970年）、斯沃斯莫爾學院（於1970年）、巴德學院（於1971

年）、德裏大學（於1972年）及馬薩諸塞大學（於1973年）均授

予他名譽博士學位。喬姆斯基為美國促進科學進步學會會員、

國傢科學院成員、美國藝術科學院成員、美國政治社會科學院

成員、英國科學院通訊會員。（1957―58年）曾任哥倫比亞大

Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University(1958

-59), the Linguistic Society of America Professor at the

University of California at Los Angeles (1966), the Beck-

man Professor at the University of California at Berkeley

(1966-67). He has delivered the John Locke Lectures at

Oxford University (1969), the Shearman Memorial Lectures

at the University of London (1969), the Trinity College

Bertrand Russell Memorial Lectures at Cambridge Univer-

sity (1971).

Chomsky first made his reputation in linguistics. He

had learned something of the principles of historical lin-

guistics from his father, who was a Hebrew scholar of con-

siderable repute. (Chomsky himself did some of his earliest

linguistic research, for the degree of M.A.,on modern spo-

ken Hebrew.) But the work for which he is now famous,

the construction of a system of generative grammar, devel-

oped out of his interest in modern logic and the founda-

tions of mathematics, and was only subsequently applied

to the description of natural languages. Of considerable im-

portance in Chomsky's intellectual development was the

influence of Zellig Harris, Professor of Linguistics at the

University of Pennsylvania; and Chomsky himself has ex-

plained that it was really his sympathy with Harris's polit-

ical views that led him to work as an undergraduate in

linguistics. There is a sense, therefore, in which politics

brought him into linguistics.

Chomsky has been interested in politics since child-

hood. His views were formed in what he refers to as"the

radical Jewish community in New York" and have always

tended toward socialism or anarchism, In the 1960s he be-

學客座研究員、（1958―59年）曾任普林斯頓大學高級研究所

研究員、（1966年）曾任加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校美國語言

學會教授、（1966―67年）曾在加利福尼亞大學伯剋利分校主

持貝剋曼講座、（1969年）曾在牛津大學主持約翰・洛剋講座、

（同年）也在倫敦大學主持紀念希爾曼講座、（1971年）在劍橋

大學三一學院主持紀念伯特蘭・羅素講座。

喬姆斯基最初在語言學方麵成名。他父親是一位頗有聲

望的希伯來語言學者。喬姆斯基從他父親那裏學到瞭有關曆

史語言學原則的某些知識。（最初，喬姆斯基為瞭攻讀碩士學

位開始做一些研究工作。研究的課題是現代希伯來口語。）但

他的成名之作，也就是，他所創建的生成語法體係，則淵源於

他對現代邏輯學以及數學原理感興趣。隻是到後來，他纔把

這套體係用來描寫自然語言。在喬姆斯基學術發展上起瞭相

當重要影響的是賓夕法尼亞大學語言學教授齊律格・哈裏

斯。喬姆斯基本人曾解釋道，正是對哈裏斯政治觀點的同情，

促使他在大學本科攻讀語言學。所以，是政治把他引嚮語言

學研究的這種說法是不無道理的。

從孩提時代起，喬姆斯基就對政治感興趣。他的政治觀

點是在他稱做“紐約激進猶太人社區”中形成的，而且一貫傾

嚮於社會主義或無政府主義。