Genealogy Books - The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: engaging but polemical
Comment: This book is a good presentation of basic linguistics, theoretical and empirical, for the general
reader. There are some analytical constructs that will be new to many readers but anyone comfortable
with toy logic games will have no trouble with them.

The book is always interesting. It is best
and most reliable when Pinker sticks to well-established claims. It is engaging and worth reading
even when he doesn't -- the issues are interesting, but his presentation is unduly slanted in favor
of his view.

Thus the weakest aspect of the book is the one surrounding the title, human
language as an instinct. Here the book bags empirics or rigorous theory and turns to exhortation.
That's fine if the reader is aware of the type of argument Pinker is making, though it is sometimes
a little hard to tell because he shifts somewhat freely. The trouble arises if someone credits the
evidence marshaled for basic tenets of linguistics to Pinker's rank speculation.

Overall,
definitely worth reading. It will catch you up on the generative grammar you always wanted to learn
and go beyond it, at least for the purposes of your next cocktail party.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Wonderful Book
Comment: I have a ten year old daughter who is struggling to speak and so, when I saw an interview with Dr.
Pinker on PBS, I was inspired to pick-up his book. It's been life-changing. It's easy to understand
but by no means insultingly simple or, worse, incomplete. I've been able to help my daughter with
the knowledge I've gained.

I've even been able to correspond with Dr. Pinker and he was charming
and knowledgeable and recommended several wonderful and helpful people to us, without whom all
would have been lost.

I'll continue to recommend this book to everyone, but especially to
teachers, sign language interpreters and teachers & parents of the deaf.

Customer Rating:

Summary: This is wit?
Comment: Perhaps it's a brilliant overview pushing speculation as fact, but I stopped reading after the
introduction and skimming the first chapter. I found it confusing, dull, and hardly fun. I also
suspect that more people own than read this book - and that a majority of readers are simply
fulfilling classroom assignments. How many people want to exchange their precious free time to
struggle with this difficult text?

Customer Rating:

Summary: beautifully written
Comment: I'm sorry I can't offer a better opinion on the accuracy of this book, which did seem to have
something of an agenda when I read it. I'm not a linguist. I did find it an interesting read,
though, and it challenged me to think about the topics raised.

(Since I read eclectically in many
topics but am "expert" in few, I'm used to taking books with a grain of salt. It's not a bad
practice, especially if you can't run the book by several real experts.)

That aside--I'd be
tempted to hand this book to an English class as a lesson in *style.* Content aside, Pinker's
writing is entertaining and lovely. Which probably isn't the purpose he was looking to accomplish,
but hey. I wish more books were written this way (with much importance given to the content,
OC--but good content doesn't *have* to preclude good style).

Customer Rating:

Summary: Pinker Should Write For Time Magazine
Comment: I just finished the book and think it shares a few things in common with weekly newsmagazines: it is
fun to read, Pinker spices his subject with numerous references to pop culture; where there are
competing explenations the author doesn't weigh their strengths and weaknesses but goes with the
theory he likes; the more I knew about a particular subject the less satisfied I was with the
author's presentation, he's the journalist who flies to a new country and writes as if he knows the
situation after three days.

I hate Time Magazine. If that's your taste, though, you'll enjoy
this book. If you know little about linguistics this book can be a good introduction, the author
covers a range of subjects and offers spirited arguments for all of them. Pinker's style, however,
is infuriating when it comes to some subjects, he doesn't engage competing theories so much as
turns them into straw men so he can knock them down. He comes off as the wunderkind who is trying
too hard to impress the teacher.

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