The Language Instinct
How the Mind Creates Language
Ranked #1 in Linguistics, Ranked #2 in Language — see more rankings.
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... more
Reviews and Recommendations
We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Language Instinct from the world's leading experts.
Simon Baron-Cohen It’s a really wonderful example of what you can do: take research into something as fundamental to human nature as language and make it accessible to a wide audience. (Source)
Lane Greene There are two achievements in this book. One is to smuggle Linguistics 101 into a popular book, which is just fantastic. The other is his own argument about the nature of language, and the title says it all. (Source)
Rankings by Category
The Language Instinct is ranked in the following categories:
- #80 in Anthropology
- #80 in Biology
- #33 in Brain
- #36 in Cognitive Psychology
- #32 in English
- #53 in Evolution
- #20 in Evolutionary Psychology
- #33 in Human Brain
- #91 in Human Nature
- #29 in Learning English
- #44 in Mind
- #48 in NLP
- #55 in Neurology
- #34 in Neuroscience
- #59 in Popular Science
- #71 in Psycho
- #86 in Psychology
- #98 in Science
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