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 7
... species with a remark- able ability : we can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision . I am not referring to telepathy or mind control or the other obsessions of fringe science ; even in the depictions of believers ...
... species , language would stand out as the preeminent trait . To be sure , a solitary human is an impressive problem - solver and engineer . But a race of Robinson Crusoes would not give an extraterrestrial observer all that much to ...
... species , like blue - green algae and earthworms , that has wrought far - reaching changes on the planet . Archeologists have discovered the bones of ten thousand wild horses at the bottom of a cliff in France , the remains of herds ...
... species , it does not call for sequestering the study of humans from the domain of biology , for a magnificent ability unique to a particular living species is far from unique in the animal kingdom . Some kinds of bats home in on flying ...
... species such as song - learning birds . A language instinct may seem jarring to those who think of lan- guage as the zenith of the human intellect and who think of instincts as brute impulses that compel furry or feathered zombies to ...
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 |