Author: Wenying Wang

Professor Noam Chomsky, a cognitive scientist, a linguist, and a philosopher, enjoying a high prestige in the world, visited the Department of Linguistics from BLCU online. He participated in the Inauguration Ceremony of the Institute for Chomsky Studies & “Understanding Chomsky”: Event Series with Noam Chomsky and received the honorary title of“Leading Scientistin Biolinguistics and Human Brain Sciences”.

No.1 Inauguration Ceremony of the Institute for Chomsky Studies & CeremonytoAward Prof.Chomsky the Honorary Title of “Leading Scientistin Biolinguistics and Human Brain Sciences”

CeremonytoAward Prof. Chomsky the Honorary Title of “Leading Scientistin Biolinguistics and Human Brain Sciences”was held as the prelude of“Understanding Chomsky”: Event Series with Noam Chomsky in the WuTong Hall. In order to express our salute to Professor Chomsky’s contributions to exploring the universe of human language and cognition, Principal LiLiu delivered a welcome speech and awarded the honorary title to him. Principal LiLiu also highly praised his great devotion to interdisciplinary linguistics, especially in branch disciplines related to brain science and life science, such as biolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics.

Principal Liu reviewed the dedication to introducing and spreading the theories of generative grammar made by older linguists such as Professor Lifang. Meanwhile, he deeply believed that the success passed down from generation to generation had established the station of BLCU as one of the centers in China’s generative grammar research. Based on the long-term academic groundwork and sufficient talented people, the Department of Linguistics is boosting by virtue of their joint efforts. Entering BLCU in 2019, the undergraduates will finish their 4-year university time next year as the first undergraduates from the linguistic major both in BLCU and in China. Besides, the first master’s students and Ph.D. students from the Language & Human brain science major have stepped into BLCU for two years. Time has witnessed the preponderance of the Department of Linguistics. Learning the elements of the “Chomsky Revolution” and cultivating skilled people for Chinese linguistics will be the first priority of the Institute for Chomsky Studies.

Professor Youxue Yu proclaimed the establishment of the Institute for Chomsky Studies. Then, standing for linguists from Chinese linguistics and foreign linguistics respectively, Professor Jianming Lu and Professor Zhuanglin Hu joined the unveiling ceremony together with Principal Liu. Professor Chomsky, Professor Zhengde Huang, Professor Chunyan Ning,etc. took part in this ceremony through an online platform. Professor Xiliang Cui, Professor Shengli Feng, Professor Qiuwu Ma, Mr. Amedei Franco, Professor Zheng Wen, etc. enjoyed the ceremony in the WuTong Hall. This historical moment has also been witnessed by numerous visitors and experts.

No.2 “Understanding Ourselves: Language and Thought” Academic lecture

After the ceremony, Professor Chomsky delivered a vital academic speech entitled “Understanding Ourselves: Language and Thought”, whose content is ample and instructive. During the lecture, professor Chomsky looked back to the tradition of the research about language and thought, teased out and differentiated some important concepts, dissected Galileo Challenge and Darwin 's problem by combining actual language phenomenon, made conclusive discussion for the fundamental features of UG, analyzed the relationship of internal language and language externalization, distinguished several concepts pair like generation and production, language acquisition and language use, which enlightened the observation and thought of language question.

No.3 “Overstep language's border:Face to face with the master”Online and offline round table

In addition to the academic lecture, professor Chomsky also attended the “Beyond the language's border：Face to face with master” round table organized by students and attended by experts. During the meeting, not only did professor Chomsky interact with teachers and students from the linguistics Department of BLCU, but answered several theoretical questions. Participating in the discussion Guests included not only Professor Jianming Lu, Yuming Li and other accomplished linguists, but also Dr. Yuyin He and Dr. Ye Feng, the two young linguists who had received systematic training in linguistic theories and experimental techniques, students majoring in linguistics for a short time and doctoral students majoring in language and human brain science, linguistics and postgraduates, foreign linguistics and applied Linguistics. Professor Chomsky gave detailed answers to questions on four topics: “language and cognition”, “the origin of language”, “language and technology” and several topics in theoretical linguistics.

As one of the contents of this series of activities, the “Chomsky Analects” Linguistics Thematic Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition also perfectly combines the spread of linguistic knowledge with the beauty of calligraphy and painting art with its novel idea. The portrait painted by Professor Ming Qi, a famous painter of BLCU, for Professor Chomsky is a vivid work. Professor Li Liu, Professor Xiliang Cui, Professor Zheng Wen, Professor Qiang Qi, Professor Zhanyi Zhang, Mr. Shouxin Wo and retired staff representatives Senmiao Lu, Qiusheng Pengand Dazhi Chen and other calligraphy experts have also become an important part of this series of academic activities, which has played a role in improving the theoretical thinking and learning of students majoring in linguistics and enhancing their artistic appreciation ability. At the opening ceremony of the “Understanding Chomsky” series of activities, Professor Chomsky watched the video display of the calligraphy exhibition online.

This series of activities, sponsored by the Department of Linguistics of BLCU, is one of the special activities of the Department of Linguistics to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of BLCU, and hosted by Professor Fuzhen Si, the head of the Department of Linguistics. Fuzhen Si said that the establishment of Chomsky Research Institute means that we have better opportunities and conditions to devote ourselves to the exploration of language and mind, language and human brain science. According to statistics, more than 2200 people watched the live broadcast, in addition to the participants in the online conference room and offline venue.