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The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
 
 
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The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (Paperback)

by Steven Pinker (Author) "As you are reading these words, you are taking part in one of the wonders of the natural world ..." (more)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

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From Publishers Weekly

A three-year-old toddler is "a grammatical genius"--master of most constructions, obeying adult rules of language. To Pinker, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology psycholinguist, the explanation for this miracle is that language is an instinct, an evolutionary adaptation that is partly "hard-wired" into the brain and partly learned. In this exciting synthesis--an entertaining, totally accessible study that will regale language lovers and challenge professionals in many disciplines--Pinker builds a bridge between "innatists" like MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who hold that infants are biologically programmed for language, and "social interactionists" who contend that they acquire it largely from the environment. If Pinker is right, the origins of language go much further back than 30,000 years ago (the date most commonly given in textbooks)--perhaps to Homo habilis , who lived 2.5 million years ago, or even eons earlier. Peppered with mind-stretching language exercises, the narrative first unravels how babies learn to talk and how people make sense of speech. Professor and co-director of MIT's Center for Cognitive Science, Pinker demolishes linguistic determinism, which holds that differences among languages cause marked differences in the thoughts of their speakers. He then follows neurolinguists in their quest for language centers in the brain and for genes that might help build brain circuits controlling grammar and speech. Pinker also argues that claims for chimpanzees' acquisition of language (via symbols or American Sign Language) are vastly exaggerated and rest on skimpy data. Finally, he takes delightful swipes at "language mavens" like William Safire and Richard Lederer, accusing them of rigidity and of grossly underestimating the average person's language skills. Pinker's book is a beautiful hymn to the infinite creative potential of language. Newbridge Book Clubs main selection; BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Following fast on the heels of Joel Davis's Mother Tongue ( LJ 12/93) is another provocative and skillfully written book by an MIT professor who specializes in the language development of children. While Pinker covers some of the same ground as did Davis, he argues that an "innate grammatical machinery of the brain" exists, which allows children to "reinvent" language on their own. Basing his ideas on Noam Chomsky's Universal Grammar theory, Pinker describes language as a "discrete combinatorial system" that might easily have evolved via natural selection. Pinker steps on a few toes (language mavens beware!), but his work, while controversial, is well argued, challenging, often humorous, and always fascinating. Most public and academic libraries will want to add this title to their collections.
- Laurie Bartolini, Lincoln Lib., Springfield, Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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As you are reading these words, you are taking part in one of the wonders of the natural world. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

39 Reviews
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3.8 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Flawed But Fascinating, Oct 13 2002
By Robert Carlberg (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Steven Pinker's best-known book has some wonderful chapters, some so-so chapters, and a few that damage the credibility of the rest. Chapter 6 on how the sounds of spoken languages are formed is itself worth the price of the book. Chapter 2 on the grammatic differences between languages is fascinating. Chapters 4, 5, 7 and 8, which talk about grammar and its role in determining meaning, are well-meaning but become repetitive and obvious. When talking about Artificial Intelligence he is ill-informed and unaccountably pessimistic about future advances in the field. In Chapters 3 and 9 he proposes a "language instinct" and in chapter 10 a "grammar gene," but both hew to discredited Chompskian models and don't even try to establish any mechanism. In chapter 11 he dismisses the whole field of non-human communication in toto, citing such Christian apologists as Herbert Terrace. Instead he sets up a series of straw men, claiming that because that apes cannot master advanced grammar in human languages (undisputed), somehow this makes their mental processes unworthy of study. This contradicts his earlier claim, in chapter 3, that mental processes can exist quite independently of grammar and language. He apparently never even considers that non-human grammar may differ from ours. Worse, he doesn't even mention non-primate language research! 12 is a vitriolic dismissal of all his critics, and 13 falls into the common trap of describing evolution as "wanting to build" this or that, a common convention for which he could be excused if this were his only failing.

Throughout, Pinker maintains a breezy, readable tone full of pop-culture references - which unfortunately becomes infuriating when it's obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars An engagingly erroneous professor, Feb 11 2003
By A Customer
I am a speech-language pathologist who is still waiting for empirical proof that Chomsky is correct. I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime - or ever. You need to know that Pinker is a passionate, obsessional convert to Chomsky and that he has many axes to grind. He is a radical descriptivist and, like most in that school, derides (and even dismisses) standard American English. He does this while building a successful career as a writer who has mastered, very engagingly, Standard American English. In fact, his mastery of SAE is his only appeal, in my view. What we have here is a man who dismisses SAE standards while writing books that are bestsellers because they are written in an excellent SAE style. How many books would he sell if he wrote in BAE (black American English)? I doubt that he could even express the complex ideas he adheres to in BAE, despite his protests that all languages are equally comple.
Pinker spends hundreds of pages trying to convince us that Chomsky is correct. It remains true, however, that the rules of grammar that would apply to every language known to man would fill a page of text and this slim commonality could be dismissed as being a product of our shared species, not some language device that, so far, only exists as a metaphysical fantasy.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding language - fascinating, and vital for writers!, Jun 12 2006
By Danny Iny "Author and Entrepreneur, Founder o... (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Steven Pinker has written a fascinating account of how language works; how we, as listeners, process the sounds that make up words and sentences in a way that allows us to extract meaning. The book is clear, entertaining and very accessible; Pinker's writing style is witty and engaging.

My appreciation of the book is not only as a reader and enthusiast of language, but also as a writer; despite having been writing for years, and having studied numerous books on writing style and technique, it is "The Language Instinct" that positively impacted my writing more than anything else that I've read; an understanding (at least a partial one - I'm no expert) of the way your words will be parsed by the brain of your reader can be very valuable in one's attempt to write clearly and well.

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning something new, and being entertained in the process.

Danny Iny
Author of "Ordinary Miracles - Harness the power of writing and get your point across!" (ISBN 1-4116-7252-6)
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A master of his domain.
Insightful, interesting, and far-reaching. For a book on language, Steven Pinker has a lot of general information to offer, whether psychological, neurological, biological, or... Read more
Published 21 months ago by The Rogue Ninja

1.0 out of 5 stars Warmed-Over Chomskyite Baloney
Pinker knows a great deal that isn't so about language and human behavior, and misleads many people who mistake this mixture of fact, false knowledge and downright ignorance with... Read more
Published on Aug 27 2007 by Bruce I. Kodish

5.0 out of 5 stars I disagree with one reviewer (taking time for one)
The reader, for example from Glasgow Kentucky claims that Pinker's book is a populist account rather than the writing of a professional linguist? Read more
Published on Jun 11 2004 by Ninja

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and packed full of very interesting examples.
For a non-technical and non-orthodox introduction to the origins and characteristics of language this book is excellent. Read more
Published on May 31 2004 by Dr. Lee D. Carlson

1.0 out of 5 stars The Bookselling Instinct
Begin with a title that asserts the conclusion.

Start the book by aligning the author with Chomsky in postulating an innate, universal grammar capacity. Read more

Published on April 10 2004 by calmly

4.0 out of 5 stars Good intro to where human language comes from
Professor Pinker has written an entertaining and easy-to-read book about how the human race comes to have language, apparently based on Noam Chomsky's not-so-entertaining or... Read more
Published on Mar 20 2004 by Keith Nichols

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and useful book
This book covers modern linguistics for the general reader. Steven Pinker writes very well, so he's able to unload an enormous amount of facts without boring you in the details... Read more
Published on Feb 8 2004 by SPM

2.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Kool-Aid stored?
I waded through a book on modern linguistic theory, scratched my head over the author's apparent misplaced certainty over what seemed awfully flimsy conjecture, and then started... Read more
Published on Feb 6 2004 by littlebeartoe

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
I loved this book. I gained from it a greater appreciation of both the complexity and beauty of language.
Published on Nov 13 2003 by James L. Dam

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging
This is by far the most entertaining of the several books I've read on this topic. Steven Pinker bursts the bubble on some outdated theories of language retention and creation... Read more
Published on Sep 2 2003 by AMC

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