This text answers many questions about the amazing human ability called language. It explains the mysteries of language by examining a single construction from a dozen viewpoints, including the history of language, its simulation by computer neural networks, the use of language as a source of wit and whimsey, the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak, and the tragic loss of language from neurological disease.
This text answers many questions about the amazing human ability called language. It explains the mysteries of language by examining a single construction from a dozen viewpoints, including the history of language, its simulation by computer neural networks, the use of language as a source of wit and whimsey, the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak, and the tragic loss of language from neurological disease.
Part of the Science Masters series - bringing together some of the world's finest scientists to explore and explain the key ideas in contemporary science Steven Pinker is one of the most exciting, accessible and popular science writers in the world and is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic He is a well-known science writer and broadcaster, and is a brilliant communicator - Words and Rules is sparkling, eye-opening, and utterly original Reprinted before publication in hardback 20,000 copies of hardback edition already sold 'Gripping...a brilliant tour de force' Matt Ridley, Daily Telegraph 'Few have Pinker's gift for simultaneously demystifying the lay reader, and filling the mind with wonder' Irish Times
Steven Pinker is Director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For more than a dozen years, Pinker (brain and cognitive sciences, MIT) has conducted experimental studies of human linguistic behavior and pondered the nature of language and its relation to the brain. He has thereby contributed voluminously to scientific literature in the still youthful field of cognitive science. In recent years, much of his time in the lab as well as theoretical analysis has focused on a single phenomenon--regular and irregular verbs. By attacking this phenomenon from a wide variety of disciplines, Pinker enters some of the great debates about how the brain processes language. In explaining how language works and how we learn it, he summarizes current research and competing theoretical models in an extremely readable and enjoyable style. With this title and with his previous ones, The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, Pinker joins Stephen J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett as one of the great popularizers of modern science.--Paul A. D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., ME Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
MIT linguist Pinker builds on his previous successes (How the Mind Works; The Language Instinct) with another book explaining how we learn and deploy word, phrase and utterance. Some linguists (notably Noam Chomsky) have argued that everything in speech comes from hidden, hard-wired rules. Others (notably some computer scientists) claim that we learn language by association, picking up raw data first. Pinker argues that our brains exhibit both kinds of thought, and that we can see them both in English verbs: rule application ("combination") governs regular verbs, memory ("lookup") handles irregulars. The interplay of the two characterizes all language, perhaps all thought. Each of Pinker's 10 chapters takes up a different field of research, but all 10 concern regular and irregular forms of words. Pinker shows what scientists learn from children's speech errors (My brother got sick and pukeded); from survey questions (What do you call more than one wug?); from similar rules in varying languages (English, German and Arapesh); from theoretical models and their failings and from brain disorders like jargon anomia (whose victims use complex sentences, but say things like "nose cone" when they mean "phone call"). Sometimes Pinker explains linguists' current consensus; at other times, he makes a case for his own theoretical school. His previous books have been accused of excessive ambition; here he largely sticks to his own fields. The result, with its crisp prose and neat analogies, makes required reading for anyone interested in cognition and language. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
