Language and Mind by Steven Pinker

Language and Mind by Steven Pinker

From the author of the bestselling The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works comes an engaging, often hilarious, always insightful look at the philosophy of language.. In Words and Rules , Steven Pinker answers questions about the miraculous human ability called language, and does it in the gripping, witty style of his other bestsellers. Here Pinker explains the mysteries of language by examining a single phenomenonregular and irregular verbsfrom a dozen vantage points. As the story unfolds, the reader is immersed in the evolution of the English language over the centuries, the theories of Noam Chomsky and his critics, the simulation of neural networks on computers, the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak, the tragic loss of language from neurological disease, and more illustrations using humorous wordplay than anyone would have thought possible. }Who other than MI T scientist Steven Pinker could explore a single linguistic phenomenon - the use of irregular verbs - from the vantage points of psychology, biology, history, philosophy, linguistics, and child development?In Words and Rules , Pinker answers questions about the miraculous human ability called language and does it in the gripping, witty style of his other bestsellers. As the stories unfold, the reader is immersed in the evolution of the English language over the centuries, the theories of Noam Chomsky and his critics, the simulation of neural networks on computers, the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak, the tragic loss of language from neurological disease, and more illustrations using humorous wordplay than anyone would have thought possible. Pinker makes sense of all these phenomena with the help of a single powerful idea: that the essence of language is a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules. Pinker is well known for his skills of explaining the art and science of language. His bestselling book How the Mind Works was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was the No.1 bestselling book for amazon.com in 1997. His other bestseller The Language Instinct was named one of the Ten Best Books of 1994 by The New York Times Book Review and nominated for the William James Book Award by the American Psychological Association. }

Pinker, Steven: - Steven Pinker is Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology at MIT. His research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has earned prizes from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Psychological Association. Pinker has also received many awards for his teaching at MIT and for his books How the Mind Works (which was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and The Language Instinct. He is an elected fellow of several scientific societies, associate editor of Cognition, and a member of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. He has written for the New York Times, Time, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Slate, and Technology Review.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780465072699
ISBN 10	0465072690
Title	Language and Mind
Author	Steven Pinker
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Basic Books
Year published	1999-10-28
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable