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From: zohrab_p@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Zohrab)
Subject: Re: Chomksy, Significance, and Current Trends
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Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 16:59:14 GMT
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In article <40albm$dt8@ruccs.rutgers.edu>,
Jay Rifkin <jirifkin@ruccs.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> zohrab_p@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Zohrab) writes:
> 
> >In fact, the bases of Generative Grammar (the Competence-Performance
> >distinction, and native-speaker intuitions) won't stand up to one minute's
> >intelligent analysis.
> 
> I'd be very interested in seeing your analysis.  One minute of your time
> doesn't seem like too much to ask.  Please, post it.
>  - Jay 				(jirifkin@eden.rutgers.edu)

I was afraid someone would say that -- on the other hand, I was also afraid my
posting would be ignored entirely !

I am not professionally involved with Linguistics  any more, so I have to
recapitulate arguments I was involved in some years back, and which I haven't
revisited since.

Also, I would prefer to be posting on Men's Rights issues, but here goes....

I'll stick to the competence/performance issue for the moment, as I can't be
bothered reading up (and can't recall) the details of my previous writings on
intuitions  -- maybe later.

As far as the competence/performance distinction is concerned, I refer you to
what I, at least, regard as the locus classicus: Noam Chomsky: "Aspects of the
Theory of Syntax" MIT Press 1965, pp 3-4. 

"Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a
completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and
is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory
limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors
(random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual
performance....  

We thus make a fundamental distinction between competence (the
speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of
language in concrete situations)."

Now I referred to "one minute's intelligent analysis" (or some such idea), so
I'll keep it brief, as I assume that 30 seconds will be devoted to
competence/performance, and 30 seconds to intuitions !

The fallacy in the quoted passage is the statement that there is only one
distinction/idealisation involved.  In fact, there are several, mutually
independent ones involved:

1.  the distinction between an "ideal" and various kinds of "non-ideal"
subjects of study (including some listed below, and possibly others);;

2.  the distinction between speakers and listeners;

3.  the distinction between homogeneous and non-homogeneous communities;

4.  the distinction between someone who knows their language perfectly, and
the rest of us;

5.  the distinction between effects of language competence and memory
characteristics;

6. ditto for distractions;

7.  ditto for shifts of attention;

8.  ditto for shifts of interest;

9. ditto for random errors;

10. ditto for characteristic errors;


That will do for the time being.  Others emerge later, I believe, from the
study of Pragmatics (but I'd have to check back on my previous work to be
sure).

Now I might -- in fact I have applied to -- do a thesis which denied the
validity of distinction no. 5 -- while probably treating most, if not all, of
the other idealisations above as valid for research purposes.

A Generativist cannot, in practice, do that, because it is all presented as
one single "package", and once you start unravelling it, as I do, the whole
edifice of Generative Grammar (whose main value is as a "sexy" drawcard in the
world of academic politics, etc., rather than its theoretical merits) starts
inexorably to crumble.

Hooray !  I've found a way to relate all this back to Men's Rights, which is
what I'd really like to post about (elsewhere):  Political Correctness.

Political Correctness is the political equivalent of the
Competence/Performance distinction -- and it's no accident that both are
products of the university environment.  They are both the products of the
facile thinking of leftists academics.

Political Correctness is an alliance between various groups, which all tacitly
agree to give each other the powerful status of "victim" -- powerful, because
victimhood attracts sympathetic coverage from the media, which translates
downline into legislation which favours those self-styled "victims" at the
expense of non-politically-correct groups.

The strength of Political Correctness lies in its unity -- once one group
(e.g. women) gets separated off, and its claims to genuine "victimhood" fall
into disrepute, then the individual groups will be liable to being picked off,
in a quasi divide-and-rule scenario. 

I personally am not interested in picking off the other groups (though I do
resent the racist way that all ethnic groups conspire to presents themselves
 and their members as faultless, and individual outsiders as always at fault,
in cases of dispute).  However, it is obvious to most thinking people that
once women, the majority-dressed-up-as-minority, get isolated from the genuine
minorities, then ethnic majorities will be in a stronger position to improve
their political position relative to ethnic minorities.

That is the parallel with the competence-performance distinction.

How many seconds did it take you to read the purely Linguitic part of that
posting ?

Peter Zohrab


-- 
ASK ME TO EMAIL MY FREE INTERNAT'L MEN'S RESOURCE-LIST or alt.mens-rights FAQ
Two Rights of Man: 1. The right to equality with Woman;
                   2. The right to an equal say in interpreting "equality".
A MAN'S GOT TO DO WHAT A MAN'S GOT TO DO -- but ... women can do anything !
