The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language - Softcover

Pinker, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140175296 ISBN 13: 9780140175295

Publisher: Penguin, 1995

Synopsis

Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind is a groundbreaking study of language's origins as an evolutionary adaptation.

How do we 'know' how to speak?

In his landmark book Stephen Pinker shows how language is part of our genetic inheritance rather than a cultural creation. From the DNA that builds our brains to the pontification of newspaper columnists, Pinker destroys the myths about language - that children learn to talk by copying their parents, that grammatical standards are in decline, that English defies logic - revealing the innate human instinct to communicate that we are all born with.

'Reading Steven Pinker's book is one of the biggest favours I've ever done my brain ... highly accessible to the general reader yet at the same time seminal for professionals ... exhilaratingly brilliant'
  Richard Dawkins

'An extremely valuable book, very informative, and very well written'
  Noam Chomsky

'Brilliant ... Pinker describes every aspect of language, from the resolution of ambiguity to the way speech evolved ... he expounds difficult ideas with clarity, wit and polish'
  Observer

'Dazzling ... Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct, as innate to us as language is to geese ... Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'
  Independent

Steven Pinker is a best-selling author and Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for cognitive Neuroscience at MIT. Pinker has been awarded research prizes from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Psychological Association, graduate and undergraduate teaching prizes from MIT, and book prizes from the American Psychological Association, the Linguistics Society of America and the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Language Instinct.

About this title

About the Author

Steven Pinker is one of the world's most influential thinkers and writers on the human condition. His popular and highly praised books include The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. The recipient of several major awards for his teaching, books, and scientific research, Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He also writes frequently for The New York Times, the Guardian and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals," Foreign Policy's "100 Global Thinkers," and Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today."

From the Back Cover

'Dazzling ... Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct, as innate to us as language is to geese ... Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'
Independent

How do we 'know' how to speak? In his landmark book Stephen Pinker shows how language is part of our genetic inheritance rather than a cultural creation. Destroying the myths about language - that children learn to talk by copying their parents, that grammatical standards are in decline, that English defies logic - Pinker reveals the innate human instinct to communicate that we are all born with.

'Reading Steven Pinker's book is one of the biggest favours I've ever done my brain ... highly accessible to the general reader yet at the same time seminal for professionals ... exhilaratingly brilliant'
Richard Dawkins

'An extremely valuable book, very informative, and very well written'
Noam Chomsky

'Brilliant ... Pinker describes every aspect of language, from the resolution of ambiguity to the way speech evolved ... he expounds difficult ideas with clarity, wit and polish'
Observer

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140175296
• ISBN 13: 9780140175295
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496