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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... theory . As in all matters , his observations are uncannily modern : As ... one of the founders of the noble science of philology observes , language is an art , like brewing or baking ; but writing would have been a better simile . It ...
... theories of the mental grammars underlying people's knowledge of particular languages and of the Universal Grammar underlying the particular grammars . Early on , Chomsky's work encouraged other scientists , among them Eric Lenneberg ...
... theory , the Universal Gram- mar that governs all naturally acquired human languages ( later in this chapter we will see why ) . Simon's parents had also failed to grasp the verb inflection system of ASL . In ASL , the verb to blow is ...
... theories about parenting in other cultures . The ! Kung San of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa believe that children must be drilled to sit , stand , and walk . They carefully pile sand around their infants to prop them upright ...
... theories in a popular science magazine and called him at MIT , suggesting that their daughter might be of interest to him . Chomsky is a paper - and - pencil theoretician who wouldn't know Jabba the Hutt from the Cookie Monster , so he ...
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 |