The Language Instinct

i liked this book better than pinker's "how the mind works." it was a little more focused, obviously, and i feel that pinker had better explanations for his ideas re language and linguistics than for the mind as a whole (tho he did use examples from the "mind" book here, and vice versa). it got a little thick thru the parts discussing grammar rules, but on the whole a good read that kept my interest. less dense than "how the mind works" and on the whole more intriguing.

I give this book five stars not because its reasoning is impeccable, or its writing everywhere beautiful, or its theme always engaging and irresistible. In none of these dimensions is it flawless. But I would nonetheless recommend it without reservation to all readers, so I feel I must give it five stars.

This book is great because of its fascinating subject, and the myriad of relevant ideas and examples it reveals. The book is more of in interesting discussion on a topic than an orderly defense of a thesis. But so many of the examples are utterly fascinating that, were there no attempt to patch them together into a single narrative, this book would still be intriguing and enjoyable. To give you a sense of why I love this book I must mention a few of these here.

Pinker discusses:

>how children, in a single generation, can transform a pidgin (an awkward combination of two languages created by the mingling of two populations with different native languages) into a creole (a composite language that is no longer awkward but instead melds the parent languages into a new one with all of the richness and complexity of any other natural language). He further describes how deaf children creolized artificially constructed sign languages into a natural language with all of the features and depth of expression that extant languages have.

>in depth, the concept that language defines the boundaries of thought and expression.

>how varieties of brain injuries and genetic mutations can alter very specific language abilities while leaving other general cognitive functioning unharmed.

>efforts to teach other animals language.

>how languages change over time and what rules the changes preserve and what aspects of language are up for grabs.

I will force myself to stop. As I flip through the pages of the book I find countless other examples and frequently get caught up in them all over again and have to tear myself away.

Now, I must warn you, that if you are not interested in theories of linguistics and cognition and computer science then there are, here and there, some more nuts and bolts discussions of how language works that you will find to be a bit dry. They're really not bad, and if you ARE interested in the above they're actually quite fascinating. But if you find your interest waning as you encounter these rougher patches, never fear, they are a relatively minor component of the book, and there are many more vigorous discussions yet to come.

If you are interested in language, how it works, how we learn it, and how it affects us, then you will love this book. I find Pinker's arguments in favor of the view that language is innate in humans to be compelling, and I think that most people would find the suggestion to be pretty intuitive. But don't let your feelings about the outcome of this argument obscure the many simpler pleasures available to the reader who innocently enjoys the many vistas afforded by this excellent tour of the world of linguistics.

I thought this was going to be a book about HOW to learn a language. I'm giving this four stars, b/c it's not really the author's fault that I picked the wrong book for my purpose. It's written well and explained well, but I really don't need someone to spend a whole lot of pages explaining to me that we instinctively learn. BUT I understand that there are people who do want to read a whole lot of pages explaining this theory, so...four stars it is. In case you didn't get that, it's NOT a book that teaches you how to learn a language.

Pinker's The Blank Slate is one of my all time favorite books. The Language Instinct is good enough for me to buy a copy after reading one from the Library, but it is a tougher read, especially the first third or so. The difficulty stems from it being more technical than The Blank Slate. A book that deals in large part with linguistics has to use some of the conventions of the discipline. In addition to establishing the basic premise, that language learning has a large genetic component, I liked Pinker's concept that words per se do not control our thoughts. Thinking and the expression of thinking are not the same thing. Another thing I found helpful is the degree of complexity and difficulty for computers to understand both the words used in speech and the comprehension of the indtended thoughts.

As usual, Pinker's writing style is marvelous, and frequently funny.

Maybe the man has something to say. He must have, he gets so much attention and praise. Maybe what he says is mostly right. (Not fully, so much I am sure of. There is just too much random chattering.)
My problem is, I find him unreadable. He gets praised for his 'accessibility'. What does that mean? Simplemindedness? (or do I dislike him because of his hairstyle on the cover photo?)
The man is not proving anything, even if all of his hypotheses are true. They might be. I might even wish they were.
Somebody wrote in a review here, the book is somewhere between Chomsky and Gladwell. I assumed, mistakenly, that this meant, the book is a cross of boredom and hokuspokus. That was not what the reviewer meant.
But I conclude that it is what he ought to have meant.
When do I get a readable and competent book about language and evolution?