The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

by Pinker, Steven
ISBN: 9780061336461
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9780061336461

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Overview

The classic book on the development of human language by the world's leading expert on language and the mind.

In this classic, 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.

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Pinker, Steven
  • ISBN: 9780061336461
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 7.90 x 1.10
  • Number Of Pages: 576
  • Publication Year: 2007

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  • Innate nature of language destroys the blank slate

    Wallace S. - 8 years 4 months ago

    Every now and then a popular science book completely changes public perceptions. The Language Instinct is one of those books. Building on work by linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker presents the evidence for language being an innate aspect of human behaviour, and in doing so he destroys the notion of the human brain as a blank slate. To put it simply, language is too complicated to take root in a blank slate. It needs systems to work within. Pinker's gift for explaining difficult concepts comes to the fore and by the end of the book the reader is left utterly convinced that language is indeed innate. Pinker would return to the subject of the blank slate again, but here is the book that put him on the map, and changed the public's perception of language and the brain forever.

    HPB Staff Review