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・诺姆・乔姆斯基于1928年12月7日诞生在

宾夕法尼亚州费城。早年在费城橡树巷乡村日间学校和中心

中学求学。然后进入宾夕法尼亚大学深造，攻读语言学、数学

及哲学。在宾夕法尼亚大学取得了博士学位。可是，他为取

得博士学位而进行的大部分研究工作是他在1951年至1955

年间担任哈佛大学研究学会初级研究员期间进行的。1955年

以来，乔姆斯基一直在麻省理工学院任教，现为该校费拉里・

P・沃德现代语言和现代语言学讲座的教授。乔姆斯基已婚，

有二个女儿和一个儿子。

乔姆斯基的学术成就在学术界受到普遍的赞赏。芝加哥

大学（于1967年）、伦敦大学（于1967年）、洛约拉大学（于

1970年）、斯沃斯莫尔学院（于1970年）、巴德学院（于1971

年）、德里大学（于1972年）及马萨诸塞大学（于1973年）均授

予他名誉博士学位。乔姆斯基为美国促进科学进步学会会员、

国家科学院成员、美国艺术科学院成员、美国政治社会科学院

成员、英国科学院通讯会员。（1957―58年）曾任哥伦比亚大

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-

学客座研究员、（1958―59年）曾任普林斯顿大学高级研究所

研究员、（1966年）曾任加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校美国语言

学会教授、（1966―67年）曾在加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校主

持贝克曼讲座、（1969年）曾在牛津大学主持约翰・洛克讲座、

（同年）也在伦敦大学主持纪念希尔曼讲座、（1971年）在剑桥

大学三一学院主持纪念伯特兰・罗素讲座。

乔姆斯基最初在语言学方面成名。他父亲是一位颇有声

望的希伯来语言学者。乔姆斯基从他父亲那里学到了有关历

史语言学原则的某些知识。（最初，乔姆斯基为了攻读硕士学

位开始做一些研究工作。研究的课题是现代希伯来口语。）但

他的成名之作，也就是，他所创建的生成语法体系，则渊源于

他对现代逻辑学以及数学原理感兴趣。只是到后来，他才把

这套体系用来描写自然语言。在乔姆斯基学术发展上起了相

当重要影响的是宾夕法尼亚大学语言学教授齐律格・哈里

斯。乔姆斯基本人曾解释道，正是对哈里斯政治观点的同情，

促使他在大学本科攻读语言学。所以，是政治把他引向语言

学研究的这种说法是不无道理的。

从孩提时代起，乔姆斯基就对政治感兴趣。他的政治观

点是在他称做“纽约激进犹太人社区”中形成的，而且一贯倾

向于社会主义或无政府主义。