false 3915 5755 0060958332 9780060958336 150 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543218m/5755.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543218s/5755.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5755.The_Language_Instinct_How_the_Mind_Creates_Language 4.09 1329 In this classic study, the world's leading expert on language and the mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about languages: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it envolved.  With wit, erudition, and deft use it everyday 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 like web spinning in spiders or sonar bats.  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.

]]> 3915 3.99 4344 633 1994 5752 0142003344 9780142003343 118 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543215m/5752.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543215s/5752.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5752.The_Blank_Slate_The_Modern_Denial_of_Human_Nature 4.05 840 The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.]]> 3915 3.99 4344 633 2002 835623 0393318486 9780393318487 71 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178769811m/835623.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178769811s/835623.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/835623.How_the_Mind_Works 4.00 713 3915 3.99 4344 633 1997 373969 0670063274 9780670063277 193 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1189780023m/373969.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1189780023s/373969.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/373969.The_Stuff_of_Thought_Language_as_a_Window_into_Human_Nature 3.77 707 New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books—including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate—have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important and popular science writers.

Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.

With his signature wit and style, Pinker takes on scientific questions like whether language affects thought, as well as forays into everyday life—why is bulk e-mail called spam and how do romantic comedies get such mileage out of the ambiguities of dating? The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of readers of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.]]> 3915 3.99 4344 633 2007 5753 0753810255 9780753810255 15 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543216m/5753.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543216s/5753.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5753.Words_and_Rules 3.77 169 3915 3.99 4344 633 1999 31553 0618246983 9780618246984 4 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168280435m/31553.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168280435s/31553.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31553.The_Best_American_Science_and_Nature_Writing_2004 3.95 43 3915 3.99 4344 633 12780 3.97 418 83 2004 100108 0141022388 9780141022383 1 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171464590m/100108.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171464590s/100108.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100108.Hotheads 4.09 11 3915 3.99 4344 633 2005 5756 0262660733 9780262660730 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543218m/5756.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165543218s/5756.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5756.Learnability_and_Cognition_The_Acquisition_of_Argument_Structure 4.11 9
In tackling a learning paradox that has challenged scholars for more than a decade, Pinker synthesizes a vast literature in linguistics and psycholinguistics and outlines explicit theories of the mental representation, learning, and development of verb meaning and verb syntax. The new theory that he describes has some surprising implications for the relation between language and thought.

Pinker's solution provides insight into such key questions as, When do children generalize and when do they stick with what they hear? What is the rationale behind linguistic constraints? How is the syntax of predicates and arguments related to their semantics? What is a possible word meaning? Do languages force their speakers to construe the world in certain ways? Why does children's language seem different from that of adults?

Steven Pinker is Associate Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Learnability and Cognition is included in the series Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change, edited by Lila Gleitman, Susan Carey, Elissa Newport, and Elizabeth Spelke. A Bradford Book]]> 3915 3.99 4344 633 1989 4665812 0141038721 9780141038728 2 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4665812.The_Seven_Words_You_Can_t_Say_on_Television 4.00 9 3915 3.99 4344 633 2008 1473806 0674510542 9780674510548 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1473806.Language_Learnability_and_Language_Development 4.33 3 3915 3.99 4344 633 1984 2909114 075283990X 9780752839905 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2909114.Human_Language 4.33 3 3915 3.99 4344 633 0 132474 0060993200 9780060993207 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132474.A_Reader_s_Guide_to_the_Language_Instinct 5.00 2 3915 3.99 4344 633 1998 2599110 0262661780 9780262661782 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2599110.Visual_Cognition 4.50 2
While this research, which appeared as a special issue of the journal Cognition, is at the cutting edge of cognitive science, it does not assume a highly technical background on the part of readers. The book begins with a tutorial introduction by the editor, making it suitable for specialists and nonspecialists alike.

Steven Pinker is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science at MIT.]]> 3915 3.99 4344 633 1986 984565 0226504565 9780226504568 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/984565.Overregularization_in_Language_Acquisition 5.00 1 150160 3.75 64 11 3915 3.99 4344 633 1992 6874832 8535913025 9788535913026 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1253058633m/6874832.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1253058633s/6874832.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6874832-do-que-feito-o-pensamento-a-lingua-como-janela-para-a-natureza-hum 3.00 1 3915 3.99 4344 633 2008 6518452 4140911301 9784140911303 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6518452 3.00 1 859389 3.00 3 0 3915 3.99 4344 633 794304 3.00 3 0 2950309 3.00 3 0 2009 6518453 4140911328 9784140911327 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6518453 3.00 1 859389 3.00 3 0 3915 3.99 4344 633 794304 3.00 3 0 2950309 3.00 3 0 2009 6518454 414091131X 9784140911310 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6518454 3.00 1 859389 3.00 3 0 3915 3.99 4344 633 794304 3.00 3 0 2950309 3.00 3 0 2009 7346664 0641599005 9780641599002 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7346664-blank-slate 0.0 0 3915 3.99 4344 633 2002 7055960 1615536124 9781615536122 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7055960-the-stuff-of-thought 0.0 0 3915 3.99 4344 633 464311 3.12 26 13 2007