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
Results 1-5 of 8
... kind , let alone one accessible to the general reader , comes along this year .... His book is groundbreaking , exhilarat- ing , fun , and almost certainly correct . Do yourself a favor and read it . " -Sunday Times ( London ) " A ...
... kind is better captured in the story of the Tower of Babel , in which humanity , speaking a single language , came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened . A common language connects the members of a com- munity ...
... kind of instinct was first articu- lated in 1871 by Darwin himself . In The Descent of Man he had to contend with language because its confinement to humans seemed to present a challenge to his theory . As in all matters , his ...
... kind , ” as in the related words generic , genus , and genre . The Bantu " genders " refer to kinds like humans , animals , extended objects , clusters of objects , and body parts . It just happens that in many European languages the ...
... kind of linguistic genius is involved every time a child learns his or her mother tongue . First , let us do away with the folklore that parents teach their children language . No one supposes that parents provide explicit grammar ...
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 |