The Language Instinct

Stephen Pinker

The Guardian recently ran a feature in its books section: "10 books which will blow your mind". The Language Instinct was listed. What is there to add? It's a rich and wonderful book and, while not quite as accessible as the "popular science" label might suggest, anyone who is at all interested in language (is it possible not to be?) is going to find it an engaging read.

Pinker argues that language is not learnt but instead comes as part of our genetic programming, as instinctive as, say, the urge to protect our young. While languages across the globe vary widely their core structures are identical. In fact, he says, we are all born with a "universal grammar" built into the human mind through the process of evolution. In support of his central theme Pinker looks at language acquisition in children generally, in children and adults with localised brain damage, and at the doomed attempts to teach sign language to chimps.

A part of the book looks at where in the brain language is centred. The answer, as it always seems to be with the science of the brain, is that we're surer than we've ever been before but we're still not all that sure. The old "prescription" v. "description" debate is wheeled out in the later stages of the book with linguistics prof Pinker, unsurprisingly, firmly in favour of description and lobbing a few well chosen grenades at the prescribers (mostly newspaper columnists).