The Language Instinct is a book by Steven Pinker for a general audience, published in 1994. In it, Pinker argues that humans are born with an innate capacity for language. In addition, he deals sympathetically with Noam Chomsky's claim that all human language shows evidence of a universal grammar. In the final chapter Pinker dissents from the skepticism shown by Chomsky that evolution by natural selection is up to the challenge of explaining a hu...
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The Language Instinct is a book by Steven Pinker for a general audience, published in 1994. In it, Pinker argues that humans are born with an innate capacity for language. In addition, he deals sympathetically with Noam Chomsky's claim that all human language shows evidence of a universal grammar. In the final chapter Pinker dissents from the skepticism shown by Chomsky that evolution by natural selection is up to the challenge of explaining a human language instinct.
Pinker sets out to disabuse the reader of a number of common ideas about language, e.g. that children must be taught to use it, that most people's grammar is poor, that the quality of language is steadily declining, that language has a heavy influence on a person's possible range of thoughts (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), and that nonhuman animals have been taught language (see Great Ape language). Each of these claims, he argues, is false. Instead, Pinker sees language as an ability unique to humans, produced by...
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