Product Description

This book looks at one of the most fundamental of our species' distinguishing characteristics: the use of language. The author argues that our language abilities are part of our genetic inheritance, not a cultural artefact, bringing together Darwinian natural selection and Chomsky's linguistics. The author debunks many of the standard facts - the dozens of Eskimo words for snow, the belief that we think using language, that English is a logic-defying tongue - and shows that language is a basic human instinct.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3617 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
Language is an instinct. People know how to talk in more or less the same way that spiders know how to spin webs, claims Pinker, in this elegant book about language and its uses. He explains the origins of language and its evolution, the instinctive way we use it, and the relationships between 'proper' languages and slang, pidgins and other 'improper' versions. This is cutting-edge research made accessible for everybody, enlivened by case histories and amusing anecdotes. Science writing at its very best. (Kirkus UK)

Another in a series of books (Joel Davis's Mother Tongue, p. 1303; Ray Jackendorf's Patterns in the Mind, p. 1439) popularizing Chomsky's once controversial theories explaining the biological basis of language. Variously mellow, intense, and bemused - but never boring - Pinker (Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience/MIT), emphasizes Darwinian theory and defines language as a "biological adaptation to communicate." While Pinker bases his argument on the innate nature of language, he situates language in that transitional area between instinct and learned behavior, between nature and culture. Starting with what he calls a "grammar gene," Pinker describes the way primitives, children (his special interest), even the deaf evolve natural languages responding to the universal need to communicate. He refutes the "comic history" of linguistic determinism, the belief that language shapes thinking, undermining it with examples from music, mathematics, and kinship theory. Following his lively, user-friendly demonstration of even the most forbidding aspects of linguistics, and his discussion of vocabulary, how words are acquired, built, and used, he rises to a celebration of the "harmony between the mind...and the texture of reality." This theme, the power and mystery of the human mind, permeates Pinker's engaging study, balanced with the more sober scientific belief that the mind is an "adapted computational model": "To a scientist," he writes, "the fundamental fact of human language is its sheer improbability." Among the many interesting though not sequential ideas: If language is innate, biologically based, then it can't be taught either to animals or computers. Pinker shows why adults have difficulty learning a foreign language, and he mediates coolly between rules and usage, between systematic and non-prescriptive grammar. Designed for a popular audience, this is in fact a hefty read full of wonder and wisdom. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
This book looks at one of the most fundamental of our species' distinguishing characteristics: the use of language. The author argues that our language abilities are part of our genetic inheritance, not a cultural artefact, bringing together Darwinian natural selection and Chomsky's linguistics. The author debunks many of the standard facts - the dozens of Eskimo words for snow, the belief that we think using language, that English is a logic-defying tongue - and shows that language is a basic human instinct.

About the Author
Steven Pinker is a best-selling author and Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for cognitive Neuroscience at MIT.

Customer Reviews

Cool . . . . but wrong
I first read this book ten years ago when I started teaching English in various parts of the world. I thought it a wonder. We are hard-wired for grammar; it must be true. My students in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East begged to differ.

Now I'm studying for an MA in Linguistics and I beg to differ too.

Still, I think you should read this book; it's a fine piece of propaganda. Then read Jean Aitchison's 'The Articulate Mammal'; Reith lecturer, Oxford prof and so forth. Not so cool . . . but right.

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. The language instinct is indeed already a done deal.

Be guided carefully through selected cases that either seem to confirm the existence of a language instinct or selected cases to discount arguments to the contary.

So do you think we have a language instinct? If so, you are ready for the next sell, the reasoning instinct. And the list of 40 or so other innate capabilities that we all may have.

And we might find the very genes that make this possible. These instincts and genes fortunately don't seem to enslave us (as being conditionable would). They make us free and creative beings. Sound like a great payoff, right?

See how how the mind creates language? By instinct. Not just any instinct, an instinct based on genes. It's all clear now, isn't it? Too deep? If not, you're ready for the actual conclusion: we all have the same mind. So, Pinker affirms, even if you can't understand a New Guinea tribesperson, you can feel comfortable as you listen to him/her that the universal grammar is at work.

We are free and we are all one. Now you don't have to go back to the ancient Greeks or earlier to get that warm message of unity.

Skinner and behaviorism get no creditin this book despite some promising steps by behaviorists with language, such as helping autistic children to speak. It seems hard to deny we have some great capacities and it seems hard to deny that we can be conditioned - being able to be conditioned seems one of our great capacities. Pinker says we are have the same mind, but in this book excludes behaviorist contribution, so I wonder what kind of sameness he has in "mind".

No one should accept this book as adequate. I expect from his credentials and his excellent writing that the author could do a lot better. A science needs to do a lot more than appeal to "instinct", "mind". "freedom" and "oneness". It certainly may seem good to acknowledge we are amazing beings: you may feel warm and cozy when you finish this book, but ask yourself how you can apply what was presented in this book. Move past feeling wonderful about the structure of language and consider how language functions - as B.F. Skinner did in "Verbal Behavior", a less accessible but more useful and scientific try at understanding what we are doing with language.

When we seem not to have many useful answers, it's dangerous to write as if it's all clear. Don't be lulled by Pinker. If you read this book, ask yourself honestly: "Do I understand now how the mind creates language? Can I even see whether the mind creates language?" But first be sure to thank your mother and father for helping you to say "Momma" and "Dada" meaningfully.

First Year Psychology
I picked this up for a piece of coursework on nature vs nurture in language development. It was perfect! I liked it so much that I bought my own copy and have read it since just because I wanted to find out more. Some sections are pretty heavy, but in general the book is pretty readable. Definately a little gem.