The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language

Front Cover
Harper 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

Contents

An Instinct to Acquire an Art
1
Chatterboxes
12
Mentalese
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

Baby Born TalkingDescribes Heaven
265

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About the author (2010)

One of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World Today," Steven Pinker is the author of seven books, including How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate—both Pulitzer Prize finalists and winners of the William James Book Award. He is an award-winning researcher and teacher, and a frequent contributor to Time and the New York Times.

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