A world-renown linguist and political thinker, Dr. Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at MIT, visited NTHU on August 10, 2010. President Chen took this occasion to award Dr. Chomsky with an honorary doctorate in linguistics and an Honorary Chair Professorship to recognize his academic achievements and continuous contributions to the fields of linguistics, analytic philosophy, cognitive science. Following the ceremony, Dr. Chomsky gave a talk on the "Poverty of Stimulus: the Unfinished Business".

Dr. Chomsky emphasized the importance of scientific method when conducting research, and that one shall never yield to any "hypothetic solutions"; and always be skeptical of anything that is taken for granted. "Poverty of Stimulus" means the limited experience a child is exposed, but somehow the child can grow up to be proficient in his/her mother tongue. He called this relevant capacity the "language acquisition device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for modern linguists should be to figure out what the LAD is and what constraints it imposes on the acquisition of languages. He said the unique language capability of a child comes from the built-in genes and the capability varies as one grows. For instance, most people's language learning skill slows down after puberty.

He suggested that language capability is biologically bestowed on humans, and thus linguistics can be considered as a part of cognitive psychology studies since language acquisition goes through active cerebellum processing, and hence is a highly nonlinear biological process. He advocated the idea of language being an innate capability back in the 1950's. His revolutionary "Generative Grammar" theory suggested that an innate set of linguistic principles shared by all humans, known as "Universal grammar."

He also established the "Chomsky Hierarchy", a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. This theory has profound influence on the future classification of mathematics and sciences. He has long been a political advocate for the underdogs, and has never hesitated to speak his opinions toward America's foreign policies. The nation repsects his opinion and considers him as the "most influential scholar", and is the only living "most influential scientists in the 20^th century" according to the Science magazine.