Dear Dr. Noam Chomsky

 

Dear Dr. Noam Chomsky,

 

   I am not even sure that this will reach you. But , if a few minutes' grace is

given to me, you can go back to 1968 and I can say a few words about what

you refer to as "still mysterious ability."

 

   Reading your book, Language and Mind (enlarged edition), I've determined

to trespass on your time.

 

   I understand that linguistic competence refer to the native speaker-hearer's unconcious, tacit, intrinsic, implicit, intuitive, and finite knowledge of his language which allows him to understand and produce sentences which he never heard or uttered before and discriminates between ambiguous and unambiguous sentences, synonymous and nonsynonymous sentences,

acceptable and unacceptable sentences, etc..

 

   Indeed the linguistic competence has really mysterious properties.

But I wonder if you really mean the linguistic competence, the knowledge

of a language, by the" still mysterious ability."(page 100)

I wonder that every other ｅxpression that you use, if I understand correctly,

for describing the "still mysterious ability" is rather a different matter.

I'd like to cite a few of ｅxpressions in your accounts underlined that make me wonder.

 

  " The problem raised is that of specifying the mechanisms that opperate

on the data of sense and produce knowledge of a language - linguistic competence." (page 22)

 

 " The transformational operations relating deep and surface structure are actual mental operations, performed by the mind when a sentence is produced or understood." (page18)

 

 " Human must be endowed with a very rich and explicit set of mental attributes  that determine a specific form of language on the base of very slight and rather degeneratedata."(page 114)

 

By the ｅxpressions that I have underlined you seem to mean that there is "something" more mysterious in a speaker that operates on or governs knowledge of his language and as a result help him to produce what he intends to say and to be understood by others who share the "something."

And you seem to say about what is called "language acquisition device" by the ".... mental attributes."

 

   I am not sure that they refer to the still mysterious ability or linguistic competence or something else.

But their properties lead me to believe that they all is a invisible "performer" which engages in the linguistic behaviour with knowledge of a language.

And it does not seem to me that the knowledge of a language itself represents the performer.

 

  I understand that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" symbolizes the true ochestrator/conductor of social harmony, the free market.

I think that the "performer" is equal to the "invisible hand" In the way they govern something.

And so I'd like to refer to the performer, the still mysterious ability as " invisible tongue" in Adam Smith's notion.

I assume If there is an invisible hand in economics there is an invisible tongue in linguistics.

 

  Again this is one of your accounts about " man's apparently unique qualities of mind"(page101)

 

" What makes it possible for a normal intelligence to use language as an instrument for the free ｅxpression of thought and feeling."

 

 Let me rewrite it for the point of my discourse.

 

"The speaker-hearer's invisible tongue grown from its seed and equipped with knowledge of a language makes it possible  for him or her to use language and everything else needed of communication as data for the free expession of thought and feeling."

 

  I know anybody is free to try to establish a new usage if they want to.

But as a layman I would like to get your feedback and approval on my proposition which I hope is not a cock-and-bull story.

 

   My question for your feedback is:

Does the use of "invisible tongue" in the rewritten sentence as a term or as a metaphor for your "still mysterious ability" seem plausible"?

 

   I dare not want your lengthy and detailed answer.

I simply want to know whether your answer in the affirmative or in the negative.

Any answer you can give me will be a tremendous help and pride and joy to a man in the dark about linguistics.

I can be reached by my e-mail, gomse@ yahoo.co.kr

 

Thank you so much for your time and generous hospitality.

 

Sincerely,

Eungsu Choi