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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... sign high up on the wall of the building which displayed the time and temperature . The third speaker , a sixty - nine - year - old Filipino , was saying " It's better here than in the Philippines ; here you can get all kinds of food ...
... sign languages of the deaf . Contrary to popular misconceptions , sign languages are not panto- mimes and gestures , inventions of educators , or ciphers of the spoken language of the surrounding community . They are found wherever ...
... sign itself , sweeping it in one motion from a point representing the talker to a point representing the hearer . This is a common device in sign languages , formally identical to inflecting a verb for agreement in spoken languages ...
... sign language as a difficult intellectual puzzle , much as a hearing adult does in foreign language classes . Their proficiency is notably below that of deaf people who acquired sign language as infants , just as adult immigrants are ...
How The Mind Creates Language Steven Pinker. toward the left and then toward the right and repeat , or blow toward the ... sign systems , sometimes based on the surrounding spoken language . But these crude codes are always unlearnable ...
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 |