Very good, I guess I don't have as much to say, the book is clear and factually intensive. This book also made a lot of sense of what cognitive science and linguistics are (were) in intellectual history, and the particular aesthetic of the (strong) social sciences, this kind of ugly mixture of logical-mathematical models and qualitative evidence and theorizing....

Pinker demonstrates that he is a very strong expository writer (the best?), although perhaps nothing ever becomes wholly transparent without also becoming enigmatic....

But he, like Fodor, whom he internally quotes, is too hygienic, there is a too-perceptible longing for order, which, if it doesn't make the writing shallow (it is, after all, science exposition), nonetheless makes me uneasy....

On Sapir-Wharf: He gives it short shrift. What he says, IIRC, serves to refute a very vulgar and individualistic version, namely, that thought is conducted in language (rather than "mentalese"). But the stronger version of S-W that I want to insist on is social, that what we can express affects the kinds of conversations we have (ever try to have a conversation with someone and it gets derailed by puns or unintended double-entendres or whatever?) and so, in the long-term, shapes our lives. (It feels like people can live their whole lives without sitting down and thinking about what matters, Buddhism reveals this. It doesn't cancel out.) Because what you're encouraged to do by your friends, you often do; what is salient to them is what they transform in order to make their encouragements. But what's salient is a function of the actual language they speak, even if it is mostly about thought--and that's only one example. And what to make of people who claim that they have slightly different personalities in different languages? They're just mistaken? Really? Or what about nominative determinism--if that is even somewhat true, then it seems like similar mechanisms should be activated by the way a language sounds and feels, which associations are heavy in it, and which light. This feels extremely obvious to me.... And of course the different saliences of ideas matter, or else why do we feel like we learn from parapraxis, why are dreams pun-shaped?

In the updates at the end (a feature of the book for which I am very grateful and which makes me thankful Pinker is how he is, something I wish that all books included), he metions that S-W is coming back into vogue. Well, exactly what has changed? He said something that seems to suggest that S-W can mean many things, and maybe he was talking about a narrow version... I would have liked more clarity on that. Similarly, the updates included how he broke from Chomsky, or has disagreements with Chomsky. I had heard him talk about this elsewhere before reading the book, so I was surprised that the text of the book seemed to just be laying out the Chomskyan view simply. The updates say that he focused on more basic insights, or those which were likely to be evergreen... still it left me a little confused.

The stuff about descriptivism requires more thought, it remains a tangled issue....

In my bookshop are lots of books like, 'First 100 Words' and "ABC with pictures", you know those sort of books. We talk to our babies in 'motherese' and we point to things and name them, but we do not teach our babies grammar. We say things like 'look at those puppies there, they are much smaller than these ones here'. We don't explain when to use words like 'those' or 'these' or 'there' and 'here' and where we put them in a sentence.

We don't need to, Pinker says, Chomsky said, that grammar is built-in. That no matter what language a child learns, they will use the words grammatically without any instruction. And if a child learns wildly different languages as say Welsh, Spanish and English (there are many people who grow up speaking these particular three in Patagonia) they will use the correct grammar as well as words without any difficulty at all.
__________

Notes on reading: What I've learned so far: that it takes only one generation to turn a pidgin into a creole (language). Immigrant workers in Hawaii, Japanese, Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans even Portuguese and Europeans spoke to each other in pidgin. Pidgin is a collection of words without any grammar. It's a bit like what most of us who are not linguistically-gifted speak when we travel. We mix the few words we know of the local language with English and (if British) shouted loudly and repetitively until the 'native' gets it.

The children of the immigrant workers were looked after together when their parents were in the fields and they, just like that, because of the instinct for language, for grammar, turned the pidgin into a creole, a language that could express anything and everything. Children never speak pidgin, their brains impose structure on words and they learn from each other. Sadly, the window for language acquisition closes as puberty approaches. After that it is only talented individuals who can acquire a foreign language with perfect grammar and accent.

Jamaican, which Jamaicans continually put down as the patois of the poor people', not proper 'standard English' is in fact a proper language with its own grammar, although a majority of the words are derived from English and Akan,

Pinker says he's not 100% behind Chomsky's theories. He's pretty close though. I got bored with the chapters on Chomsky's language trees, I'm more interested in how we produce language than the structure of it.

Great book, a difficult and academic read (at least to me) and boring in bits too but none of that takes away from opening up a new skein of thought for me, and I enjoy that more than anything else from a book.

Interesting, through I suspect a bit dated by now. The parts about language - usage, construction, acquisition - are fascinating, the overly detailed kvetching about the overly detailed kvetching of newspaper columnists and the like and fitting things into evo-psych arguments and the like far less so.

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 otherwise. Prior to reading I was warned that the chapters on descriptive grammar rules were torture, but I actually really enjoyed them... despite being a little harder to digest than the rest of this well-written book, Pinker's down-to-earth approach gives readers the basics and then branches out on them in a manageable and surprisingly interesting way. A must for anyone even mildly interesting in learning why humans learn language.

I had The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language out of the library for the entire summer. I finally finished it by actively reading it on the train for a couple of weeks. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, it's just LONG and has enough dull/confusing stretches that I couldn't bring myself to read it in my free time - it was pretty much a train-only book.

The book's underlying claim is that all human beings are born with something Pinker calls a Universal Grammar, which causes us to acquire language instinctively. Whether we are born into an English or Kinyarwandan or sign-language community affects only the details of our language acquisition - we are wired to understand the way language works.

He makes many good points, and I learned a lot from reading this book, but something underlying the text was somewhat disturbing to me (and it's not just the way he seems to revere Noam Chomsky as a god, quoting him earnestly and often, and almost overemphasizing the one point where he disagrees with Chomsky as if to say, "Look, all you people who think I'm just digesting Chomsky for the masses - I DO have my own thoughts! So there!"). It's that Pinker is 100% an objectivist, believing that our language and culture don't really affect the underlying processes in our minds and that human beings are ultimately the same, whereas I can't see the world without some degree of relativity slipping in, thinking that we are all very very similar and are justified in acting as if we are all the same, but that there are subtle differences that we may not entirely be able to overcome. I think lanugage, at least to a small degree, does affect the way we think and process the world, even if the differences are mostly ones we can see past or work around when talking with others from a different language background.

(I laughed every time I turned the book over and saw the quote on the back from William F. Buckley, Jr.: "Steven Pinker is, I think, engagingly wrong in some of his conclusions, but the operative word here is engagingly. He reminds us of the pleasures of reading about language, provided people like him are at the wheel.")

A few details I really enjoyed about this book: Case studies and quotes from people with various neurological disorders affecting their language abilities. The detail to which Pinker addressed sign languages, showing how language acquisition follows the same steps whether it is spoken or gestured (deaf babies "babble" with their hands at the same age that hearing babies babble with their mouths). The linguistics primers, which had me making phoneme sounds and sticking my finger in my mouth to see how my tongue and lips were arranged (while on the train!). Reasons why the "language mavens" (people who bemoan the decline of English) are often wrong.

This is definitely a worthwhile read if you're interested in linguistics but haven't studied much on the topic yet. There's a lot of value in this book, even though some passages do get overwhelmingly dry or pedantic (pages of sentence diagramming scattered throughout the book, for example). I wouldn't recommend it to a casual reader, since I kind of had to will myself to finish reading the book, but I do think I learned a lot for sticking it out.

Holy shit, language is SO cool and Steven Pinker knows how to break it down. I came to the conclusion of some slang words being regular in past tense on my own and to finally find the grammatical reason was like scratching an itch. I had been dying to know how something so complex like language could be being processed as a bunch of yes/no signals and got enough insight reading this book to imagine it possible. His ruminations on the theory of specialized brain modules determining other aspects of humankind we take for granted were thought-provoking and left me wanting another book on the subject. I would recommend this book to anyone curious and motivated.

This was a fabulous overview of linguistics for the non-linguist. Not exactly light reading, though Pinker's dry humor makes it fun. His basic premise is that language is an evolutionary adaptation of humans to communicate information, just like wings are an adaptation of birds to fly, or gills for a fish to breathe underwater. For that I think he makes the case well. He's also very much anti-cultural relativism (one of my favorite quotes is: "I hate relativism. I hate relativism more than anything else except perhaps fiberglass power boats.") I suspect he's exaggerating the point to make a point, but that makes it a much richer topic for debate, yes? If you love words, from how they feel in your mouth to the deep structures of grammar, you'll enjoy this book.

Great book! An excellent overview of all aspects of language and speech through the prism of modern neurobiology and natural selection. Book is very well structured, each chapter describes certain component of language: words, grammars, language learning mechanisms etc. A lot of scientific results and interesting references included.

Probably the best book I have read on the topic. For starters, Pinker's writing is a pleasure to read: It's clear, clever, and affable. He writes the way he talks; he doesn't seem to feel the need to use fancy words just because he's writing a book (e.g. from the glossary entry for stem: "The main portion of a word, the one that prefixes and suffixes are stuck onto." He avoids that (inexplicable) academic affectation of pretending that the author and the reader don't exist (i.e., avoiding the first and second person).
And he covers more than just language itself: This book is also a not-bad introduction to evolution, genetics, the brain, and cognitive psychology. Lots of interesting stuff here.
That said, I was not completely convinced by all of his explanations (I still don't understand "trace") and arguments (I'm not convinced that the ability to read and write is not hard-wired to some extent in some people). And it was published in 1994: A lot has been learned since then about how the brain works, so some of his info might be out of date. Also the index leaves a lot to be desired.

Kniha je to zaujímavá, ale pomerne suchopárna, miestami až náročná, takže takých 200 strán pred koncom som každú stranu obracala s nádejou, že na tej ďalšej už bude řejstrík. Súvisí to ale aj s tým, že časť čara knihy spočíva v exkurze do angličtiny, ktorý podľa mňa naozaj dokáže oceniť len native speaker alebo fakt seriózny angličtinársky fajnšmeker.

Zhrnutie deja:
Kniha sa začína zaujímavými pasážami venovanými kognitívnej psychológii, mapujúcimi napríklad to, ako štvorročné deti dokážu vytvoriť plnohodnotný gramatický jazyk z umelých zlátanín (doložené na vzniku kreolských jazykov z pidgin alebo vzniku skutočného jazyka hluchonemých z pôvodného nefunkčného patvaru) a tiež "expetrimentami" na ľuďoch s vrodenou alebo získanou poruchou jazyka. Z týchto výskumov Pinker vyvodzuje, že sa všetci rodíme s predinštalovaným softwarom pre pochopenie a používanie gramatiky - napr. vrodené chápanie sveta v pojmoch vec a dej (podmet a prísudok), schopnosť odlíšiť, že keď ja hryziem psa nie je to to isté, ako keď pes hryzie mňa (deklinácia a/alebo slovosled), cit pre vytváranie vzťažných súvetí, vid a iné, ktoré si už nepamätám a má na to všetko aj dôkazy a znie to logicky a ja mu verím. Len by som rada podotkla, že ide o software, z ktorého vypadávajú slová, na ktorých si môžte vylomiť oči ako napríklad Näïkìmlyìïà (on to jí za ňu v jazyku Kinvujo, ktorým sa hovorí niekde v Afrike) alebo ktoré vám môžu spôsobiť smrť udusením ako napríklad slovo Frithdíbhunaíochtachóireach (preklad antidisestablishmentarianistical do Galštiny), takže predpokladám, že sa to zas nakupovalo cez nejaký pochybný nástenkový tender, niekto sa na tom dobre nabalil a evidentne si ani nedal námahu s čítaním licenčných podmienok, pretože je tam dosť nafigu klauzula o tom, že ak užívateľ nevyužije program v prvých 6 rokoch, už z neho bude nadosmrti vychádzať len já Tarzan ty Jane

Pinker ďalej tvrdí, že ľudia myslia v samostantom jazyku mysle tzv. mentálčine a nie napríklad vo fínčine (čomu tiež verím, lebo ja som fínčinu videla na vlastné oči a môžem potvrdiť, že myslieť sa v tom nedá) a gramatika je vlastne taký prevod mentálčiny do konkrétneho jazyka. Znie to logicky a Pinker na to má pomerne presvedčivé dôkazy.

Ale potom z toho akosi vyvodzuje, že taký Orwell ľudí zmiatol nadhodnocovaním úlohy jazyka a že jazyk (v zmysle slovenčina, angličtina, newspeak atď.) nemá myslenie ako ovlyvniť a to už je chujovina hop alebo pŕrrr. Mne je jasné, že ľudia môžu mať v hlave mentálny obraz červenej a môžu o nej myslieť, aj keď pre ňu nemajú pomenovanie (i keď to, že také spoločenstvá naozaj existujú, ma dosť prekvapilo) a že vnem farby je v tomto prípade prvotný. Ale čo taká oktarínová ? A čo taká farba z kozmu? To je napríklad farba, ktorá ani neexistuje, netuším, ako si ju mám predstaviť, ale vždy keď si na ňu spomeniem, idem pozatvárať okenice, zamknem na dva západy a do záhrady ma už v ten deň nikto nedostane. Alebo taký ten zvuk, ktorý podľa Douglasa Adamsa vydávajú deadliny, keď sa ženú okolo neho. Kedysi som ani netušila, že taký zvuk existuje, ale odkedy mi o ňom Adams povedal, mám akosi stále zaľahnuté v ušiach.

A podobných vecí, s ktorými som sa nestotožnila bolo viac, čo by ani tak nevadilo, ja s týmto druhom kníh rada vnútorne polemizujem, ale autor ich prednášal s takou tou bohorovnosťou- akože "je to takto a nijako inak" ktorá ma trochu iritovala. Tiež ma veľmi nepresvedčila časť knihy, ktorá sa zameriavala na lingvistickú analýzu myslenia, t. j na snahu prostredníctvom kdejakých šípiek, stromov a logických operátorov dokázať ako to v mozgu funguje. Tieto grafy mi prišli umelo vykonštruované a v žiadnom prípade ma napresvedčili, pretože ja dobre viem, že môj mozog nemyslí v šípkach a operátoroch. A už vôbec nie logických!

Námatkové a s ničím nesúvisiace poznámky
V současné turečtine má každé sloveso 2 miliony forem... a například gramatická konstrukce v jazyce kivunjo se celá vejde dovnitř slovesa, které ma sedm prefixů a sufixů, dva způsoby a čtrnáct časů, sloveso se shoduje se svým podmětem, svým předmětem a svými benefaktívními substantivy, z nichž každé má šestnáct rodů
S týmto by EU mala každopádne niečo robiť, lebo sa nám sem o chvíľu dovalí vlna gramatických migrantov.

Nejdelší slovo by v angličtine doposud mohlo být substantivum floccinaucinihilipilification, definované jako kategorizace něčeho jako bezcenné nebo bezvýznamné
Tak už som videla aj krkolomnejšie slová, ale vážne? Vylomiť si jazyk a dva zuby kvôli bezvýznamnej p***vine??

A teraz jeden malý floccinaucinihilipilificantný fakt - strach z dlhých slov sa volá seskvipedaliafóbia.

A na záver som sa ešte dozvedela, že tak, ako existujú osoby s normálnym IQ, ktoré kvôli poškodeniu konkrétnej časti mozgu nedokážu správne používať gramatiku (tzv. brockova afázia) existuje aj ich protiklad, osoby, ktoré majú IQ veľmi nízke, okolo 50, ale dokážu tvoriť zložité a gramaticky takmer správne vety, pričom majú slabosť pre nevšedne znejúce slová.


  
https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/17/021/cl...

I just finished reading the most challenging non-fiction leisure book I have ever read: Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. It was a close call, but I'm relieved that I powered through.

Before I dive into my review, I'd like to clarify that I found it challenging not because my knowledge of linguistics prior to reading this book was terribly basic, but rather because there is so much information packed into The Language Instinct. That is, however, its greatest merit - and the reason why my mind was being blown after every chapter.

In The Language Instinct, Pinker argues that humans' ability to acquire language is not dependant on education or imitation. Rather, it's instinctual. It's "wired into our brains by evolution."
According to Pinker, "evolution did not make a ladder. It made a bush." That is to say, Pinker disagrees with Darwin's theory that we evolved from Monkeys.

That's why computers will never be able to learn language the way a child could, and also why apes will never be able to speak English or Learn American Sign Language. Indeed, Pinker's research shows that those who claimed that laboratory apes' gestures resembled sign language were actually overanalyzing what they observed.

Of course, there are many Darwinists out there who would shake their heads at such a thought (Pinker, however, is pretty convincing). All it would take, however, is the discovery of an evolved trait for an aesthetic, and not pragmatic, purpose, to defy the theory of natural selection.

Anyway - because Pinker is trying to prove that language is an instinct, he begins at the roots of language acquisition. There is a lot of research on children. Such research is especially interesting when Pinker discusses 'creoles,' mother tongues that are developed as a result of several languages meshed together. The possibility of such 'meshing' suggests that an universal grammar underlies all language.

The existence of a "universal grammar," however, would not wholly verify that language is an instinct. After all, we have words for 'water' not because our DNA dictates it but because we need to refer to water. Neither is there a 'grammar gene - an American-born Chinese can just as easily learn English as his or her American peers. So, it seems that "complexity in the mind is not caused by learning; learning is caused by complexity in the mind."


The Language Instinct is also in many ways a defense of language. Pinker argues that there is no reason to look down upon primitive dialects because primitive cultures have complex language systems and, after all, a language is also a dialect - just one with "an army and a navy."

In his chapter on language mavens, a.k.a grammar nazis, Pinker also explains why certain grammatical errors are perhaps even preferable. For example, language mavens will argue that "Who did you see" should be "Whom did you see" or at least "Which person did you see" according to the rules of grammar. Yet can you imagine, Pinker asks, saying something like "Whom did you sound like?" Moreover, the final option ("which person") restricts the 'who' from being an animal or multiple people.

The Language Instinct is an enlightening read that leaves reader with a deeper understanding, and growing curiosity, of language. Pinker writes in a clear and sometimes almost conversational way that renders a PhD-worthy subject into one that general audiences can grasp. Of course, certain sections are utterly perplexing and almost impossible to retain. Above all, however, Pinker convincingly presents the thesis that language - contrary to what many believe - is instinctual.


As he says, "this is news." If language is innate, much more could be; such a revelation would revolutionize the way we consider education, study the human brain and even assess the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution!!

Factoids:

- We are told that a noun is the most important part of a sentence because it is the doer; however, a noun cannot operate without verb. So, the verb is the boss of a sentence
- Mentalese: the hypothetical "language of thought, or representation of concepts and propositions in the brain in which ideas, including the meanings of words and sentences, are couched.
- Listeme: an element of language that must be memorized because its sound or meaning does not conform to some general rule. All word roots, irregular forms and idioms are listemes.
- When your tongue is high and at front of your mouth, you'll produce high-frequency sounds (e.g. e in teeny); when your tongue is low and at the back of your mouth, you'll produce low-frequency sounds (e.g. a in large). Now, this is especially fascinating when we consider words such as frobbing, twiddling and tweaking. To frob is to move a dial or switch by drastically adjusting its range; to twiddle is to adjust the switch by a smaller margin; to tweak is to adjust the switch by only a litte. Interestingly, it's always the word with the high front vowel that goes first in expressions such as ping-pong and chit-chat. Hip-hop, flip-flop, the list goes on...
- English is an isolating language, meaning that you must say "to go" to indicate the act of going somewhere - two units are used to express one definition. The french aller, however, does the deed in one word.

"A blank slate is a dictator's dream"

Αυτή η φράση συνοψίζει τα όσα γραφει στο βιβλίο αυτό ο διαπρεπής πειραματικός ψυχολόγος και γνωσιολόγος Steven Pinker. Καταρρίπτει, με ταχύτητα μυδραλιοβόλου, έναν έναν τους μύθους περί γλώσσας. Περιγράφει, με ιδιαίτερη πρόζα, όλους τα χαρακτηριστικά της γλώσσας, για να καταλήξει με πειστικά επιχειρήματα και πειραματικές αποδείξεις ότι ο ανθρώπινος εγκέφαλος έχει διαμορφωθεί εξελικτικά για να ενσωματώσει στοιχεία μιας παγκόσμιας γραμματικής, ανεξαρτήτως της εθνικότητας ενός ατόμου.

Ακόμα και αν κάποιος δεν συμφωνίσει στο τέλος με αυτά που διατυπώνει ο Pinker, δεν μπορεί παρά να θαυμάσει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο επιχειρηματολογεί και τεκμηριώνει το οτιδήποτε υποστηρίζει. Είτε από ενδιαφέρον για θέματα γλώσσας, είτε απο πλευράς ψυχολογίας ή ανθρωπολογίας, είτε από καθαρή περιέργεια, το βιβλίο αυτό αποτελεί ένα τέλειο δώρο για έναν ανήσυχο και πάντα διψασμένο για γνώση εγκέφαλο. Σερβιριστείτε...