Noam Chomsky: “On the Poverty of the Stimulus”

Dr Hans van der Koot (UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences) gives a short summary of Professor Noam Chomsky’s recent lecture at UCL.

On Monday 10 October, Professor Noam Chomsky (MIT) gave a presentation in the Department of Linguistics at UCL about the importance of the study of human language to our understanding of the human mind, entitled ‘On the Poverty of the Stimulus’.

A video of the lecture is available below:

He presented a range of arguments supporting the conclusion that key properties of human language have their basis in our genetic endowment. The presentation took place in front of an invited audience of UK specialists in the study of human language, and was streamed live to several other rooms in UCL.

Professor Chomsky is without a doubt one of the most distinguished intellectuals in the world. His work spans the fields of philosophy, linguistics, psychology, biology and other areas of the natural sciences, with the various strands held together by a focus on understanding the human mind in all its complexity.

An audio recording of the event will be made available via UCL’s Itunes portal (iTunes U) and on UCL Linguistics.