An incredibly interesting book, presenting a solid, strong argument for the instinctive nature of language. It was both in depth and extremely accessible to me as someone with no experience in the study of linguistics (albeit aspiring to be a linguist), and within its arguments also provided introductions to the various areas and disciplines of linguistics. It did take me a while to read, and I did write extensive notes on it, but overall a rewarding read!!

Pinker is entertaining as he explains the basic tenets of language development for laypeople or beginning students of linguistics. He argues that humans do indeed have an instinct for language - for grammar, to be specific - unparalleled in other species, as one-of-a-kind as the elephant's trunk. This instinct driven by nature prevails over environmental or nuturing factors, though one can't take that argument too literally. Obviously, whether a baby speaks English or Zulu is determined by the family and community, but many so-called "mistakes" children make in grammar are proof of the brain's perseverance in calculating sentences correctly.

My main disagreement with Pinker's argument relates to the beloved pasttime of descriptive linguists to bash "the language mavens" - i.e., teachers and writers who criticize certain styles of speech and writing. He is right that language is man-made; it is always changing and always will change. Every big change creates a dialect and no dialect is "wrong" or "right." Linguists can certainly contribute to socio-political progress in proving that Southern dialect, Ebonics, and the Queen's English are all grammatically consistent and equally rife with potential for creative expression. However, to argue that all languages change and therefore no one should care one way or another what is spoken where or when is dangerously libertine, for it ignores the significance of social subtlety and the value of skilled oratory and writing.

If one uses a youth dialect variant at a job interview or a conference with the word "like" inserted before every adjective, verb, and noun, "it will kill the pathos," as a professor of mine once said. Likewise, if one uses the Queen's English at a rave, you will be kindly asked to remove the pole from thine ass, and rightly so. Both linguists and writers should recognize that no language is ultimately superior to the other, but that social constructs do dictate what sort of language will be received well in what sort of context and to dismiss these rules is indeed to demonstrate social and aesthetic ignorance and/or arrogance. (See EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES by Lynne Truss for more on that.)

Some professors have dismissed Pinker's book as pop science, whereas others are of course excited about his giving the subject popular appeal. I've taken courses on linguistics, but I'm not a linguist, so I found it to be neither patronizing nor elite.

Para os que não conhecem Steven Pinker, ou que estão familiarizados apenas com seu trabalho desenvolvido durante a última década, aí vai uma pequeno histórico.

Pinker começou sua carreira acadêmica na área da psicologia cognitiva, com foco na aquisição de linguagem por crianças, área eminentemente multi e interdisciplinar, estudada por psicólogos, linguistas, biólogos, neurologistas, etc. Após um período em que Pinker dedicou-se à pesquisa eminentemente acadêmica, ele escreve The Language Instinct, seu primeiro livro de divulgação científica, em que Pinker navegando por diversas áreas do conhecimento e demonstra uma erudição incrível.

A tese principal de The Language Instinct é, como o próprio nome do livro indica, a existência de um "instinto para a linguagem" presente na espécie humana. A ideia vem do linguista Noam Chomsky e sua teoria de gramática universal, desenvolvida a partir da década de 1960, que defende a existência de um componente genético que possibilitou a criação da linguagem - e sua gramática - como a conhecemos.

Em breve resumo, pode-se dizer que, o fato de todas as crianças, de todas as culturas, aprenderem a língua do ambiente em que estão inseridas de maneira perfeita e, ademais, perderem essa habilidade por volta da puberdade, seria algo inscrito em nossos próprios genes.

Aqui vale dizer que o fato da criança (ou mesmo um adulto) cometer erros gramaticais não invalida a perfeita compreensão da gramática da língua pela pessoa, pois seus erros pouco tem a ver com sua aquisição inata da língua, mas sim com um processo artificial de formalização da língua pela sociedade (como verbos irregulares: eu faço - eu fiz, não "fazi", como seria de se esperar). Nenhuma criança - ou adulto - que tenha nascido no Brasil, por mais ignorante e iletrado que seja, vai falar algo como "Eu quero um bola de sorvete", pois a concordância do artigo com o gênero do substantivo é algo básico na língua portuguesa, que todos os falantes nativos irão acertar sem dificuldade (dificuldade essa que será imensa para um culto alemão que aprendeu o português após chegar à idade adulta).

Em cada capítulo, Pinker lida com temas como aquisição, surgimento e evolução de uma língua, "mal uso" da língua, inteligência artificial, influência da língua na própria existência humana (tese sapir-whorf), a língua e o cérebro, entre outros, se valendo de pesquisas nas mais variadas áreas do conhecimento. Originalmente escrito em 1994, a minha edição, de 2007, conta com um interessante apêndice em que Pinker discorre sobre as descobertas recentes referentes aos temas de cada um dos capítulos.

Acredito que o livro vá interessar todas as mentes curiosas que se interessam, de maneira geral, por línguas e ciências. Só não dei 5/5 em razão de alguns capítulos mais técnicos, como os que explicam as teorias de Chomsky ou lidam com a gramática de um ponto de vista científico, serem um pouco enfadonhos para minha cabeça pouco afeta a temas mais de "exatas".

This one was recommended to me by Ben, and he was spot-on in thinking that I would find it both interesting and enlightening. I cracked open the book thinking that it was going to be just another discussion of linguistics, but it ended up dealing a heckuvalot more with neurology and human behavior, drawing particular attention to the interesting tendencies that we humans have built-in for the construction, use, and comprehension of spoken language.

The author seems quite fair in his broad-based approach to dealing with a wide variety of subject areas and approaches -- it was impressive how often sign language was used as a reference. (Side note: I found it particularly surprising to hear a linguist give so much credit to the design, style, and mentality of ASL. Taking a couple courses in the language in college, I was vaguely aware of the specificity of its grammar, but I had no idea it literally impacted the human brain the same way audible speech does.)

In contrast to the Ramachandran book I recently read (and despised), this text found a great balance between examples, scientific terminology, and illustrations/explanations/examples in layman's terms. It was both approachable and informative, something I'm not accustomed to finding in a nonfiction book.

Definitely worth looking into. Chad's getting it next -- this is right up his alley.

Pinker is a fabulous author and has an interesting story to tell with this one. His premise is that much of what we consider to be learned in our early years as children,through practice with language, is actually pre hardwired in our brains as in an almost universal understanding of syntax that can get laid out in a number of different languages in a number of different ways. That the ways humans have developed to think of the world is inherent in our understanding of this language. I don't know if he made enough "hard" or solid arguments for me to buy into this completely. I don't know if he answered fully my objections to his argument. One being that could humans not have been able to pick up on patterns locally in their environment instead of this having to be factored in? The only really good counterargument to this would have been his description of deaf children and their own "invented" signs when not taught this initially. I would have like to have heard more of this but was still very impressed overall with the author and what he was trying to accomplish with this work and would definitely pick up another book of his.

I have this incredible mental block about reviewing nonfiction.

My formal linguistics experience is limited to exactly one History of the English Language class as a college junior (and it remains one of the most fascinating, satisfying and illuminating classroom experiences I've ever had, university-level or otherwise), which was about when I realized that the study of language was up there with the school paper and my creative-writing courses in terms of the all-over fulfillment I found in it. It helped that I had an enthusiastic professor whose wealth of knowledge and general zeal turned my disappointment in the English department's lack of additional linguistic offerings into a fervent hunt for extracurricular reading material regarding the topic, though I can't help but feel that my self-guided tour through the field isn't yielding the same benefits I'd've received from exploring the same terrain with an expert leading the way. Hence my concern that I'll sound like I'm trying to pretend that I know what I'm talking about on some deeper level when my background in the roots of language is far more recreational than academic. All's I can say for sure is that The Language Instinct was great fun, beautifully written and an absolute whirlwind of information that covers a dizzying array of unexpected but thought-provokingly relevant subjects.

Oh, and that Steven Pinker has the most admirably disheveled hair since Georges Perec. Their locks are not to be trifled with, nor, clearly, are their minds.

The last language-centric book I read argued in favor of a point that had been laughed into noncredibility for years thanks to the implied racism it still carried from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis days, which is that the world actually looks different based on one's view of the world based on his or her culture and language (Through the Language Glass, written by Guy Deutscher and published in 2010 -- and which I must admit to having read long enough ago that I have shamefully forgotten many of its finer details but do recall as having made a rather convincing argument, as it delved into stuff such as how a language can reflect a culture's attitude toward its women) -- an hypothesis that Pinker decried within the first 50 pages of this 1994 bestseller as "wrong, all wrong," as it is his view that "discussions that assume that language determines thought carry on only by a collective suspension of disbelief." My copy of The Language Instinct includes Pinker's chapter-by-chapter asides about updates in the many areas he explored in a book he published more than two decades ago, including the neo-Whorfism that has sprung up in recent years, a revival that allowed works such as Through the Language Glass to be taken more seriously because the misguided blinders and red herrings of the linguistic avenue of contemplation have finally fallen away and its points can be made in such a way to sidestep the unfortunate pitfalls of the past.

Seeing the inverse of an argument made just as successfully as my initial exposure to it was what sucked me in for good with this book. The overlapping of an argument's two sides and seeing familiar names, familiar backgrounds, familiar failings and completely different conclusions were all strangely rewarding payoffs for my own curious, solitary explorations.

And that spark of recognition just kept cropping up in myriad forms as I read on and on (and on and on, as it took me, like, two months to finish this -- absolutely no fault of Pinker's, but rather that of my compulsion to juggle two and three books at once and work's nasty habit of reducing my reading time in two-week cycles). While the biology and neurobiology and child development and abnormal psych were all a bit of alien territory for me, Pinker presented them all in such accessible ways that my tactile-learner self was picking up everything he was putting down. Which made the friendlier faces I'd seen before all the more inviting: The progression of Old English to Middle English to Modern English was like having tea (or mead) with an old friend, reading about the Great Vowel Shift was like reminiscing with an old lover and wondering if maybe the stars are finally aligned in our favor, the uncanny commonalities between seemingly unrelated tongues was a kiddie ball pit wrapped in a trampoline for my brain, and the pages and chapters of grammatical theory? Be still, my pedantic heart! I didn't even mind, as a happily neurotic proofreader, when Pinker started asserting that maybe the Grammar Mavens have their priorities all wrong, that even nontraditional dialects have their merits, that "whom" ought to go the way of "ye" and its other equally antiquated brethren, that it's okay to hang on to the rules of usage for clarity's sake rather than browbeating those poor folks who don't work themselves into paroxysms of glee at the very notion of sentence diagrams over their truly nitpicky transgressions.

I had no idea the lengths and detail necessary in asserting that something so mind-bogglingly complex but is so universally taken for granted -- that is, human speech -- is a deep-seated biological impulse, hard-wired into our brains to the point that we are all, in fact, baby geniuses when it comes to sussing out most of the nuances of our diabolically tricky native languages by the age of three. I had no well-formed opinion on the matter of language as a learned habit versus a communicative imperative instilled in us via evolution before coming into this but did Pinker ever reel me in, hold my attention and make me want to delve deeper into his research, theories and positions regarding the language instinct. Bearing witness to the impressive lengths he goes to to cover all his ground from every angle is reward enough for hearing him out for nearly 500 pages, because Pinker's dedication to the language instinct is evident enough in the miles of homework he did to make his point with armfuls of wide-ranging detail and chapter upon chapter of some truly compelling writing.

Can be pretty daunting for the untrained eye, especially all the terms and vocabulary from linguistics.
However, Pinker takes us to a mesmerizing journey to the depths of human brain and history of its development in the context of language learning and creation. He adds also many studies and academic trivia to fill in fact for the doubters and claims that language was a natural way to evolve human race.
As a teacher and educator, I will come back to this book in upcoming research and quote bits and pieces as same as using it as a reference to more academic studies.
It was 1-year road to understanding my students better and in fact understanding better the entire process of learning, remembering, categorizing and structuring language.

Ha sido duro, pero lo hemos acabado

When it comes to something I don't know much about, I'm pretty easily swayed by other people's arguments. Like, I finished this book feeling it was pretty intelligent and interesting, and then I read some criticisms and reviews and heck, I don't know what to think. Still, I did find it interesting, and while the book looks deceptively slim for how long it took me to get through it, Pinker expresses his arguments clearly, with examples and sourcing, etc.

His basic argument is that we're hardwired for language. That, as with our sight, hearing, etc, we have a 'language sense'; if properly stimulated during the critical period, our brains quickly figure out how to parse language (at least, the language spoken around us when we are at that age, even if that language is sign language). We don't need to hear every word or possible sentence structure (couldn't possibly) to pick up on the rules of grammar and apply them, when speaking and when listening. This only refers to the critical period; a child will learn grammar instinctively on being exposed to a language, but an adult must learn it by rote, in the same way as you have to learn to process visual input during the critical period for that, or you'll never have the same visual acuity as someone who did.

Thus far, I think I'm going along with him. I do have questions of a sort of chicken and the egg nature: which came first, the brain's Universal Grammar module, or language that necessitated it? I'm inclined to think that the structures that we now use to understand language were used for something else earlier in our evolution, and became co-opted into our communications array (so to speak) over time. Our brains formed language, and then the language formed our brains...

All in all, I don't know whether Pinker's right, but I found his work convincing. Having read a couple of other books on language, including Guy Deutscher's n  Through the Language Glassn, and applying what I know from those too, I find it hard to disagree with Pinker even where I want to, for example about relativism.

Didn't finish this book; unconvincing, dull, repetitive, and not well supported.

As an avid reader, and a not-so-avid writer, yes, I do find language interesting. I was hoping in this book to find some science on language, and how it could have evolved. Instead I found a pile of stuffy nonsense, full of opinion and short on facts. I did not finish this book, after realizing it was (for the great part) bullshit.

The writer intends to confuse, I would swear, going on and on about the most dull long-winded points that amounted to nothing, while anything that could have a possibility of substance was disregarded and glossed over.

While venting my doubts and frustration about the book to Caleb one day I was surprised to learn he knew of the theories in the book, and he let me know that they're pretty much considered disregarded at this point. I'm not sorry that I started reading the book, because honestly sometimes I question my critical thinking skills. I often feel like I am easily influenced by others thought and opinions to an extent that I hardly have any of my own, and I am nothing but a chameleon. Not that it is wrong to be influenced by others; nothing in this world is original; but I hate feeling as if I am just a leaf in the wind. Being able to detect the poorly constructed arguments in this book did not necessarily make me feel less influenced, but it did give me some sort of hope that I do have a critical bone, somewhere in my body.

A highly interesting book about how language came about in the human mind. It gets quite technical at times, but that's an added bonus for anyone who is truly interested in the subject.

What a mind-expanding journey into our innate and external language domains!

All human beings possess an instinct to acquire, use and comprehend language. We do so by employing our innate combinatorial cognitive system - the same system that lets us navigate through the world.

Pinker takes the reader on a reading mission through grammar, morphology, phonetics, language pathologies, language & thought, anthropology, biology & evolution, and much much more. At times, it may stray a bit too far from the main point - our language instinct - but these paths lead to interesting topics that I would not have considered, had I not read this book.

I rate it 5 out of 5 stars thanks to its vocabulary, insightful explanations and ways of conveying information about language and cognition, and its scope - covering a wide range of interesting topics.