The Language Instinct

How the Mind Creates Language

By: Steven Pinker

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2011 Steven Pinker (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Pinker writes with acid verve." ( Atlantic Monthly)

"An extremely valuable book, very informative, and very well written." (Noam Chomsky)

Textbook For Linguists

Any additional comments?

I have always had an interest in language, but this book goes WAY too in-depth for my interests. I enjoyed the first quarter of the book and it held my interest with cognitive science and evolutionary theory related to language development. Then it moved long-term into highly-detailed language structure and other details that couldn't hold my attention - think 9th grade grammar on steroids. I stuck with it for a few more hours and also tried skipping ahead, but I knew I was wasting my time and bailed on it half way through. It didn't help that the narrator is the type who over-enunciates and has a passionless, unnatural speaking style that reminds you with every syllable that they are a professional narrator with apparently zero interest in the topic.

From a Typer

As a person being nonverbal, I've always had a problem with my grammar because I communicate through an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device and I never learned the proper way to speak. I still need to remind myself to type in complete sentences and make sure that I'm using proper grammar. I thought that "The Language Instinct" was extremely fascinating. I totally understand my ongoing mistakes when I'm communicating with others. When I'm working, I like to listen to audiobooks. It was very distracting to me when I was corresponding with my colleagues through email because I was noticing myself using the same bad habits with my grammar from the book.

A very dry, technical work

The book is an expansion on Chomsky's universal language theory. nothing new, which is alright. The issue is precisely what the author tried to avoid in his own introduction as not to write a book for the academics but for every day people. The book managed to do that in the first 1/4 and collapsed into pure scientific rambling. I could not finish the book. however I would give another Pinker book a try just based on the excellent albeit not so well written content.

Too much detail in the middle

I'd give it a mixed review. The book has many details at the level of morphemes that are pretty hard to listen to, but I know I'd never have finished the book reading. Some of the data is dated (e.g. genome mapping, brain hemisphere stuff), which does reduce the credibility of some of the arguments. He also seems to be pretty selective in cherry-picking data to support his ideas. Still though, I learned a lot and enjoyed most of it.

Pinker is brilliant.

Pinker is a brilliant Harvard professor whose work is unconstrained by political correctness. This book is witty and insightful, and still current 20 years after first publication.

Many secrets of language revealed

I have been a lover of language and linguistics for many years. This was one of the most eye-opening, mind opening and entertaining books I have listened to in quite some time.

Narrators MUST Do Their Homework

What did you like best about this story?

I'd originally read The Language Instinct about ten years ago, so I knew what to expect. My feelings about the book haven't changed - I think throwing out the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis completely and Pinker's ridiculous attack on the social sciences weaken an otherwise excellent book. I was pleased to see that this new version includes updates with the latest research.

Would you be willing to try another one of Arthur Morey’s performances?

Morey's performance was average at best. When reading a technical/academic text like this, mispronunciations of terms and the names of Amazonian and Australian Aboriginal peoples is unforgivable. 'Warrrlll-pearee' for Warlpiri (prounounced wall-PREE)? Really?

Very smart but...

...it tends to read like a linguistics textbook. I often found my mind wandering and missed several portions of the book.

Books on language are best on audio

This is a reissue of a classic book from 1994. Arthur's reading is well paced with a calm manor allowing the listener to follow some intense sentence diagrams without the expected PTSD flashbacks from Mrs. Thomas' 8th grade English class. It is an enjoyable book, an interesting subject, precisely written, read well.

Hang in there

Any additional comments?

Very informative and mostly interesting, but you must bear through some less interesting sections here and there as Pinker explains some important concepts.