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 9
... thing , but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught . " A ... things to say about its spelling system . The conception of language as a kind of instinct was first articu- lated in 1871 by ...
... thing to do . What voluptuous thrill may not shake a fly , when she at last discovers the one particular leaf , or carrion , or bit of dung , that out of all the world can stimulate her ovipositor to its discharge ? Does not the ...
... thing as a Stone Age language . Earlier in this century the anthropological lin- guist Edward Sapir wrote , " When it comes to linguistic form , Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd , Confucius with the head- hunting savage of ...
... thing about the dialect is how linguistically uninteresting it is : if Labov did not have to call attention to it to debunk the claim that ghetto children lack true linguistic competence , it would have been filed away as just another ...
... thing of the remote past , one episode of creolization occurred recently enough for us to study its principal players . Just before the turn of the century there was a boom in Hawaiian sugar plantations , whose demands for labor quickly ...
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 |