The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates LanguageHarper Collins, 2010 M12 14 - 576 pages "A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." — New York Times Book Review The classic work on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published. |
From inside the book
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... language following brain injury , is devastating , and in severe cases family mem- bers may feel that the whole person is lost forever . This book is about human language . Unlike most books with " language " in the title , it will not ...
... linguistic abilities has revolutionary implications for our understanding of language and its role in human affairs , and for our view of humanity itself . Most educated people already have opinions about language . They know that it is ...
... language . First , virtually every sentence that a person utters or understands is a brand - new combina- tion of words , appearing for the first time in the history of the uni- verse . Therefore a language ... human organism learns through ...
... language more or less as we study some com- plex bodily organ ? At first glance , the proposal may seem absurd , if only because of the great variety of human languages . But a closer consideration dispels these doubts . Even knowing ...
... human psyche is molded by the surrounding culture . But it is also because no thinker can afford to ignore him . As one of his severest critics , the philosopher Hilary Putnam , acknowl- edges , When one reads Chomsky , one is struck by ...
Contents
1 | |
12 | |
44 | |
How Language Works | 74 |
Words Words Words | 119 |
The Sounds of Silence | 153 |
Talking Heads | 190 |
The Tower of Babel | 231 |
Language Organs and Grammar Genes | 302 |
The Big Bang | 340 |
The Language Mavens | 382 |
Mind Design | 419 |
Notes | 449 |
References | 469 |
Glossary | 503 |
Index | 517 |