无意中在网络上翻出来1978年Chomsky获得美国官方研究资助（类似国家社科）的证明文件：一张punch card（上图来自TIME杂志），相当于现今国内项目资助证明。啧啧，两万美金，当时也不算小数目！这笔钱也算为TG到GB出了一份力！
是的，激励科学家奋勇向前探索真理的除了好奇心，还有经费和专利。好奇心是内因，而外因当然也十分重要，没有经费、专利等“物质文明”的激励，研究也许会难上加难。若有“大奖”荣誉，那更是锦上添花。“大奖”是对于科学家研究的肯定，很多时候比经费、专利、转化获利等更有意义，这便是“荣誉”的力量！
金秋时节，2015诺贝尔奖获奖名单相继出炉。没有数学奖（有“菲尔茨”奖替补嘛），当然也没有语言学奖（似乎是废话）。大家讨论得更多的也许是“三无”科学家获奖等问题。而作为语言学研究者，我们不禁要发问：国际上有没有接近于诺贝尔级别的语言学大奖呢？当然，“搞笑诺贝尔奖（Ig Nobel）”不能算，虽然曾经有语言学家（Nick Enfield）因为发现31种语言中共有“Huh”这个不可或缺的话语标记，而获此殊荣。（这让小编想起来前几年的那篇“呵呵”论文）
小编今天就八卦一下，为大家梳理几个主要的国际奖项，以下排名不分先后：
- Bloomfield图书奖（Leonard Bloomfield Book Award）
有人认为，这可能是最接近于Nobel或类似的奖项，由美国语言学会（LSA）评定并颁奖。但从名称您也可以发现，该奖是为了奖励某本著作设立，名副其实的Book Award。评价对象并不是一个研究者的所有产出（body of work）。该图书奖，每两年评定一次。像Labov，Boas等人都获得过，没有Chomsky和Pinker等人当然不奇怪，该奖1996才设立。当然，LSA还有其他各类奖项的评比，如从2013年起评定最佳论文奖，目前为止获奖的两篇论文均源自Language期刊。
- Smith语言学奖（Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics）
由英国人文社科院评定和颁发。相比LSA各类奖项浓重的MIT色彩，该奖项面向全球语言学家，不分国籍，基本参评标准如下：
Eligible nominations can be for a linguist of any nationality whose career has demonstrated the highest standards of achievement and scholarship. Preference will be given to theoretical linguists,though all linguists will be eligible.
该奖项由英国伦敦大学学院终身教授Neil Smith发起，并于2013年启动评比工作，每年评比一次，有点“终身成就奖”的意思，且优先考虑理论语言学家。目前有两位语言学奖获此殊荣：Chomsky（2014）和Labov（2015）。这个真不是图书奖，而且有真medal，有图有真相：
Rumelhart奖（The David E. Rumelhart Prize）
该奖项面向认知科学研究者,正如其口号“For Contributions to the Theoretical Foundations of Human Cognition”所言，语言学家特别是认知语言学家自然不会被排除在外。该奖项以认知科学家David Rumelhart命名，自2001年开始评定，并由认知科学学会（Cognitive Science Society）颁奖。知名语言学家Ray Jackendoff 于2014年获此殊荣，并发表了题为In Defense of Theory的获奖演说(小编以后会再做介绍)。该奖项也有真的medal：
写在中国大陆科学家获得诺贝尔奖之际。文末为大家奉上William Labov上个星期发表的“Smith奖”获奖感言：
“I’d like to express my gratitude to Neil and Saras Smith for their generous sponsorship of this medal and to the Linguistics Section of the British Academy for nominating me. It is aparticular honor for me to receive this recognition from the British Academysince British research has played such a major role in the study of languagevariation and change.
Shortly after my initial research onMartha’s Vineyard and New York City, Peter Trudgill carried out hissociolinguistic analysis of Norwich and not long after, James and Lesley Milroy broke new ground in the study of language and social networks in Belfast. Since then sociolinguistic research has surged ahead in Great Britain, and we in the United States have learned a great deal both from the similarities and the differences between American and British dialect development. Work by Paul Kerswill in Milton Keynes pushed ahead of what we learned in Philadelphia about the formation of new speech communities, and since then the study of language change and variation has moved to the fore in Glasgow, the Borders area,Tyneside, the Fens, and in London and its suburbs, with the work of Kerswilland Jenny Cheshire. As a result, we are much closer to understanding what makes language change, and how change spreads across the community.
I thank you for this recognition of my own work and for the remarkable contribution of British linguists to our understanding of the development of human language.”