Abstract

Though Mr. Lin purports to attack “Chomsky's view of language” and to defend the “common sense view of language”, he in fact attacks “views” that are basic and common to linguists, psycholinguists, and developmental psychologists. Indeed, though he cites W. V. O. Quine, L. Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin in his support, they all sharply part company from his views, Austin particularly. Lin's views are not common sense but a set of scholarly and philological prejudices that linguistics disparaged from its inception as an organized science a hundred years ago. Professor [of Philosophy]: I will explain to you the secrets of language in all its wealth and complexity.