Is linguistics a science?

There is literally nothing wrong with only being able to speak one language.

So why is he so famous?

Yes. No, it is not rooted in neuroscience. The specific methods are rooted in theoretical computer science.
Don't listen to the retard. Chomsky was and is a huge influence on linguistics. He came up with the idea of Universal Grammar -- the concept that humans are born with the innate ability of language. We linguists have spent the better part of 60 years searching for linguistic universals and their exceptions in order to demonstrate this idea and we've done a decent job. Also, linguistics has nothing to do with being a polyglot. Ignore the brainlets.

A lot. But his fame is mostly due to these two genius things:

1) He criticized behaviourst model of human behaviour and language acquistion by demonstrating that it is incapable of explaining higher cognitive functions. This directly lead him to propose that language is somehow built-in inside of our brain(innate language hypothesis).

2) He singlehandedly launched the field of transformational grammar, demonstrated how syntax and semantics are distinct, and made the study of syntax much more formal and rigorous.

I want brainlets to leave.

Eh. Probably not. Not even computational linguistics.

I'm a graduate student whose specialty is in theoretical computer science (specifically provable security and information theory); this semester, I made the decision to take a class in computational linguistics and speech processing. I'm utterly convinced that this entire sub-field is nothing but delusion. So far, all of the ``groundbreaking'' papers I've read deal either with:

(a) Applying elementary machine learning to some incredibly small, specific dataset
(b) Performing ad-hoc 'studies' which honestly remind me of the sorts of things we used to do in the third grade

What's worse, the people performing these studies actually think they're doing something impressive. I had the misfortune of having to communicate with a no-name professor at a no-name school to obtain an obscure (yet simple) dataset. To summarize his response to my inquiry, I didn't kiss his ass enough, so he would not oblige.

tl;dr computational linguistics, at least, is a complete joke.

>syntax and semantics are distinct

How is this reconcilable with now-proven notions in modern mathematical logic? For example, Godel's original proof of completeness for first-order languages is derived from a technique which is essentially a controlled conflation of syntax and semantics. This same technique can be extended for higher-order (complete) languages.

Go look at some recent breakthroughs in neuroscience.

>tl;dr computational linguistics, at least, is a complete joke.
Linguistics in general

because he's a raspy big nosed crocodilian kike

Could you elaborate? I'm about to apply to a Master's in CS and my major interest is in computational linguistics / natural language processing. Whether or not you think it's "third grade", will I get a job?
Fucking kys

It is wrong for a linguist. I've never met a linguistics student, even an undergrad, who isn't at least bilingual. Most of them seem to speak at least three languages with reasonable fluency.
Once you understand languages at a fundamental level, it seems very easy to pick up new languages.

I highly, highly suggest a different focus. As somebody who has no long-term interest in computational linguistics but instead general ability in the area of theoretical computer science, I'm able to operate at or above the level of somebody who has specialized in the area.

Computational linguistics is basically an extremely applied version of machine learning. It would be better to instead focus on something more generally applicable in industry like artificial intelligence or machine learning--computational linguistics is really nothing more than a niche application of these.

It's part of the monster that is cognitive science.

Thanks. At my university there are two AI classes, one ML, one NLP. So it seems they're aware of its niche-ness.

No, that's the problem with Chomsky. He makes assumptions about the brain based off survey evidence from available languages, but with no supporting experimental evidence.

t. bilingual (with moderate knowledge of 3 other languages) neuroscience grad student with no interest in cognitive or language stuff

"Cognitive revolution" wasn't a proper scientific revolution in the Kuhnian sense and contemporary cog psych is dead and replaced almost entirely by cog neuro and social psych.

T. American
Here in Europe, even a day laborer or a trash collector can usually speak 2 or 3 languages.

I can confirm this. Language is communication. Once you understand the trick, one on one communication seems no longer be bound to location. Just learn HOW people express. It is easy once you get it. But a lot has to do with understanding sounds relative to emotion

It's completely irrelevant to speak another language here though.
Here, you need to speak Spanish in the Southwest + California. That's it. While Spanish (arguably French or Cantonese too depending on where you live) is indeed useful mentally and professionally, it's not very important, let alone a more minor language like Japanese or Swahili.

Foreigners don't get how massive, isolated, and spacious the insular US is until they come here and exactly why that is relevant to the conversation. Other countries where multiple languages are spoken will often fit at least twice into just one of our states alone, which are as sparsely populated as northen Germany, Extremadura, or Nei Mongol but still retain that massive aforementioned land area. These countries, comparatively tiny and usually with multiple languages, have negligible cost to visit other comparatively tiny countries with other multiple languages. And even then, travelers usually stick to the coasts and will only travel to the insular US to Chicago or Denver, where it's far more likely to encounter other foreigners.

Even if somehow our "sink or swim" in respect to knowing English mentality were irradicated, there's only English speakers to practice with for 70% of Americans.

Translation and interpretation is not science. Language teaching and learning is not science. But those things aren't linguistics, in fact they have little if anything to do with linguistics whatsoever.
The object of inquiry in linguistics is the human language faculty. The language faculty is also sometimes just called "Language," which is unfortunate because it can lead to deep misconceptions. When you see linguistics defined as "the scientific study of language and languages," you should read it as "the scientific study of the language faculty and its properties."
Linguistics has problems like every other field, but it is squarely in the domain of science. I might go as far as to say that people who claim that linguistics isn't science are deeply confused as to what linguistics is.

Chomsky basically invented modern linguistics (generative grammar). He created constituent analysis and formalized the notion of Context Free Languages, demonstrated that such formal languages aren't powerful enough to generate natural languages, and proposed Transformational Grammar as a candidate sufficient alternative/augmentation. The field has continued to progress in attempts to arrive at a system which is capable of accounting for general language competence, and is plausible as a characterization of the language faculty.

The idea that a linguist (one who studies linguistics) should be expected to speak many languages is indicative of the misconception that linguistics is about translation/interpretation or teaching/learning languages.