The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.) Reprint Edition

by Steven Pinker (Author)

220 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0061336461

ISBN-10: 0061336467

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

About the Author

One of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World Today," Steven Pinker is the author of seven books, including How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate—both Pulitzer Prize finalists and winners of the William James Book Award. He is an award-winning researcher and teacher, and a frequent contributor to Time and the New York Times.

Series: P.S.
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (September 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061336467
ISBN-13: 978-0061336461
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.9 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 220 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Linguistics
- #8 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Semantics
- #11 in Books > Textbooks > Communication & Journalism > Communications

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Eduardo Vila

book's good, but STAY AWAY FROM KINDLE EDITION!

May 31, 2011

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is not a review of the book itself, just a warning for anyone thinking of getting the Kindle edition.

The people who published this for Kindle should be ashamed of themselves for selling this product with a straight face.

As Kindle books are often scanned from printed versions, I'v grown accustomed to seeing the occasional mis-scanned word, as they are usually sparse and don't distract from the content.

This book, however, contains hundreds of mis-scans. I'm talking about a few every page (some pages might contain up to 10 errors). And these are errors that routinely distract from the content of the book, as the errors will sometime spell a different word altogether, giving a sentence a completely different meaning that you will only realize is nonsensical after reading an entire paragraph.

Plus, 2 times out of ten, the combination of letters "th" will be scanned as "di". As you must realize, die difficulty of reading dirough paragraphs full of diese errors, in die kindle version of diis book, dioroughly distracts from the enjoyment of die material.

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Amanda Reckonwith

A Great Book, but a Flawed E-book Version

April 26, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a review of the 2010 Kindle edition of the book published by HarperCollins e-books. Without a doubt Pinker has written a five-star book that is both eye-opening and enjoyable. Out of appreciation to the author, I deducted only one star for errors in the Kindle edition. Since Pinker's book was originally published back in 1994, and by a different publisher, it seems conceivable that HarperCollins did not have a digital text and had to resort to scanning with OCR or some kind of not completely successful conversion process. How else to explain errors like those below? (Not a complete list, but what I thought to highlight as I read through.)

• that had seemed passé concern with topics (“that had seemed passé; concern with topics”)
• opiuminduced “(opium-induced”)
• painti (not i on the end, but subscript 1)
• S -> then S (apparently this should be “S -> if S then S”)
• mittengrabben. 1st (“mittengrabben. Ist” [letter i, not number 1])
• put xin the (“put x in the”)
• @@@ (no telling what this should be, but previously it appears as “m” with an acute accent)
• big nourish things (“big nounish things”)
• Astem (surely Pinker wrote “A-stem” or subscripted “stem”)
• Astemaffix (as above)
• fell to thinking, and chunk. (“fell to thinking, and thunk.”)
• out-Sally-Bided Sally Ride (“out-Sally-Rided Sally Ride”)
• VP -> VNP(PP) (“VP -> V NP (PP)”)
• Steven Tinker’s (even the author’s name is not immune)
• King Ethelbuld (“King Ethelbald”)
• a sad and urgent more. (“a sad and urgent note.”)
• A1 Galaburda (“Al Galaburda” [letter L, not number 1])
• and would not into nothing (“and would rot into nothing”)
• something in he world (“something in the world”)
• analyze the verb to broadcasts (“analyze the verb to broadcast as”)
• No one would say give In break (“No one would say give I a break” [with the words after "say" in italics])
• person off gender (“person of gender”)
• trout is a kind offish and (“trout is a kind of fish and”)
• about twelves times as large (“about twelve times as large”)

In a book with many playful and unusual examples of language, one can’t tell, since the e-book can’t be trusted, whether expressions like “isa” or “American Slurvian” are what Pinker intended, or simply more examples of poor editing. On the positive side, the publisher has evidently cleaned up the Kindle version to some extent, judging from the details in someone else’s 2011 review. Given Amazon’s ability to reach into my Kindle and swap files, I am hoping to find a corrected version of Pinker’s book there soon.

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May 1, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Well, not exactly a revision. There is a new “P.S.” section at the end: a little autobiography, how the book was written, some Frequently Asked Questions, Suggested Reading, lots of new references, and “some reflections on the contents of each chapter in the light of developments since 1994.”

The latter is pretty slight. If the typeface were the same size as the text, it would probably cover 15 pages. I can think of three reasons for the shortness:

1. Pinker thinks he was right about most everything in 1994 and doesn’t feel the need to change much.

2. He has updated and elaborated numerous things in two later language books, Words and Rules: The Ingredients Of Language and The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, to which he liberally refers. He notes that the last chapter “Mind Design” begat How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. It is obvious that his most recent, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, had beginnings in chapter 12, “The Language Mavens.”

3. He is a very busy man and did not want to take the time necessary for a thorough update.

I suspect all three are partially true. I was disappointed by how often I asked, "Has no recent research been done on ______ or is Pinker just not writing about it?" Which I suppose is a compliment about how interesting Pinker makes language research. Still, the P.S. definitely adds value. It is worth getting this edition.

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Lyle Bjork

A Brief Review of The Language Instinct

October 18, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

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.

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