Geoffrey Nunberg (June 1, 1945– August 11, 2020) was an American lexical semantician and author. In 2001 he received the Linguistics, Language, and the Public Interest Award from the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: '' Language'' ...

for his contributions to National Public Radio's ''Fresh Air'', and he has published a number of popular press books including '' Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Controversial Times'' (2004). Nunberg is primarily known for his public-facing work interpreting linguistic science for lay audiences, though his contributions to linguistic theory are also well regarded. Nunberg received his doctorate from the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

(CUNY) in 1977 for his dissertation, ''The Pragmatics of Reference''. Prior to his PhD, Nunberg received a Bachelor's degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and a master's degree from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

where he studied under

William Labov William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...

. Following his education, Nunberg began working as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley and visiting professor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. In the mid-1980s he moved to the

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from Stamf ...

where he worked until 2001. Following Xerox, he returned to research at universities, returning to appointments at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information and at Berkeley's

School of Information This list of information schools, sometimes abbreviated to iSchools, includes members of the iSchools organization. iSchools organization The iSchools organization reflects a consortium of over 100 information schools across the globe. iSchools pr ...

. Following a long battle with cancer, Nunberg died August 11, 2020.

Life

Nunberg was born in 1945 to his mother, a high school teacher, and his father, a commercial real estate worker. He grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and as a teenager he was attracted to the growing

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the under ...

scene in nearby Greenwich Village. He graduated from Scarsdale High School to attend

, but left to pursue an art degree at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may st ...

. While in art school, he began writing as a side project but eventually left art school to re-enroll at Columbia from where he ultimately received his Bachelor's degree.

Interests and writing

Geoffrey Nunberg and Juliette Powell in 2012

As a linguist, he is best known for his work on

lexical semantics Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings.Pustejovsky, J. (2005) Lexical Semantics: Overview' in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, Volumes 1-14Ta ...

, in particular on the phenomena of

polysemy Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a singl ...

deferred reference In natural language, a deferred reference is the metonymic Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metony ...

and

indexicality In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy of language, indexicality is the phenomenon of a '' sign'' pointing to (or ''indexing'') some object in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is called an index or, ...

. He also wrote extensively about the cultural and social implications of new technologies. Nunberg's criticisms of the

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

of Google Books ignited a widespread controversy among librarians and scholars. Nunberg was a frequent contributor to the collective blog ''

Language Log ''Language Log'' is a collaborative language blog maintained by Mark Liberman, a phonetician at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the posts focus on language use in the media and in popular culture. Text available through Google Search f ...

''. Nunberg commented on language, usage, and society for

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

's ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to ...

'' program since 1988. His commentaries on language also appeared frequently in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and other publications. He was the emeritus chair of the ''

American Heritage Dictionary American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

'' usage panel. His books for general audiences include '' The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from NPR's Fresh Air'', '' Going : Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times,'' '' Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show'', and ''

The Years of Talking Dangerously ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'' (2009). He's one of the contributors to ''

The Cambridge grammar of the English language ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CGEL'') is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was pub ...

''. His last book, '' Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years'', was published in August 2012. The critic Malcolm Jones described Nunberg's method in that book as follows: "His means of studying the problem is utterly fresh: take a word, and the attitudes behind it and see where they came from and what they might say about us."

References

External links

Nunberg's website

''The Persistence of English''
��an essay by Nunberg regarding the diversity and unity of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

through its history (PDF)
''Wikipedia: Blessing or Curse?''
''Fresh Air'' commentary, June 5, 2007 (audio)

''Fresh Air'' commentary, June 5, 2007 (transcript) * Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: (2006) *
Google Books: The Metadata Mess
a slide presentation from the Google Book Settlement Conf at UC Berkeley on 28 August 2009
Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars
article in The Chronicle of Higher Education
Counting on Google Books
article in The Chronicle of Higher Education {{DEFAULTSORT:Nunberg, Geoffrey 1945 births 2020 deaths Writers from New York City Sociolinguists Semanticists University of California, Berkeley faculty Stanford University Department of Linguistics faculty Linguists from the United States 21st-century American non-fiction writers Scientists at PARC (company) 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century linguists 20th-century linguists American male non-fiction writers