SOURCE: “Conclusion,” in Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, MIT Press, 1997, pp. 201-17.

In the following essay, Barsky provides an overview of Chomsky's linguistic studies, political engagement, and critical reception since the 1980s.

In the early 1980s, Chomsky made important progress in his linguistic work, which led him to embark upon what has been described as a “new program.” The products of this are recorded in Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures (1981), Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use (1986), Barriers (1986), and, finally, in a more accessible form, in Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures (1988), which also includes some political discussion arising out of questions posed by the Managua audience. The Minimalist Program, although not published until 1995, took shape around questions that came into focus in 1980 with the principles-and-parameters model.

These texts emerge from the postulate that languages have no language-particular rules or grammatical...