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  • The Language Instinct

  • How the Mind Creates Language
  • By: Steven Pinker
  • Narrated by: Arthur Morey
  • Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (60 ratings)

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The Language Instinct

By: Steven Pinker
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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Publisher's Summary

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.

©2011 Steven Pinker (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Pinker writes with acid verve." ( Atlantic Monthly)
"An extremely valuable book, very informative, and very well written." (Noam Chomsky)

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an insightful book about language and our brain

this book brings many new perspectives of language. it also explained a lot of things i didn't understand when acquiring English as a second language.

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If words are you, this book will fascinate

If you are interested in language, writing, words, developmental psychology or neuroscience, this book will fascinate you. I came to it having read Pinker's "The Sense of Style" and was riveted, mostly, from start to end. Although targeted at a lay audience I found some of the grammatical analysis a bit technical and skimmed it without losing the thrust of the book. Pinker argues that language is hardwired into human beings in a way that is unique from any other animal. He cites "universal grammar", the physical impossibility of being able to know every combination of available words i.e. the brain has hardwired rules for language recognition, and deaf children spontaneously creating their own, fully grammatical languages, as evidence. At 483 pages or nearly 19 hours as an audible book this is not a short read but it is immensely rewarding and stimulating.

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