[…] The collegial disconnect from the world of science finds a new example in the argument presented by Caroline Quesnel, president of the National Federation of Quebec Teachers (FNEEQ), against the teaching of grammar advocated by the Report of the committee of experts on mastery of French at college: “It’s like asking a mathematics teacher at CEGEP to teach the multiplication tables! No, Noam Chomsky does not practice multiplication tables at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The science of language is called linguistics, and Chomsky is arguably the most famous researcher of it in the 20th century.e century. We are flabbergasted by the reaction of the president of the FNEEQ and we would be tempted to communicate to her the linguistics thesis of one of the three experts in this report. A doctorate from MIT has nothing to do with the caricature it makes of it, especially when one claims to defend knowledge. University research on language mobilizes some of our best minds. […] No one, however, confuses mathematics and finance or accounting, that is to say the theoretical principles with their applications. Literature wants to be an art and does not deal with language as a scientific object; this is rather the mission of linguistics. However, the science of language disappeared from the CEGEP with the Robillard reform carried out from 1993 to 1997. It is time to correct the error, despite the interests of the literary sector: it is an outlet for jobs for its graduates. There is still cause for concern when a union of higher education teachers shows evidence of obscurantism or corporatism. […]
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