|
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature | 
| Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $8.86
You Save: $7.14 (45%)
Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 2486
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0143114247
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
EAN: 9780143114246
ASIN: 0143114247
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language
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 booksincluding the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slatehave catapulted him into the limelight as one of todays most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 39 more reviews...
Worthwhile, but could have been shorter January 8, 2009
Joseph Oppenheim (San Diego, CA USA)
There were things I liked about "The Stuff of Thought" and things I didn't. I would have preferred the book to be shorter. I certainly could take away many profound observations. However, I don't think Pinker had to go into so many examples, although I am sure many readers will like that. Anyway, here are some important things which I will remember from the book.
1. We can learn a lot about people from the way they put together words. Pinker shows many examples.
2. What is an event? 9-11 was an event, however there were also many events which went into effecting it.
3. Words take on new meanings to reflect on how the world works.
4. Learning a language is really a remarkable process. Pinker discredits linguistic determination, that is the brain learning language to generate thinking. He asserts that thoughts effect language. Meanings are stored, not the exact combination of words which reflect them. Personally, I think both can work in parallel, when learning a language, but Pinker makes a good argument.
5. Metaphors are very important. They are an essential part of thought. "To think is to grasp a metaphor". He shows the use of metaphor in Leviticus, which makes one think even more that biblical scripture, at least the Torah, should not necessarily be taken literally, more like a living document which encourages deeper thinking especially as times change.
6. The chapter on profanity is certainly interesting. The amygdala, in the brain, is important in storing memories with emotion. Bilingual people react more to taboo words in their first language, rather than their second. Aphasia, loss of articulate language, victims retain the ability to swear. This shows more memories of thought formulas rather than rule combinations. Such swearing in Tourettes's Syndrome is called copolalia.
7. The basal ganglia in the brain, when weakened, taboo thoughts are more easily released. There is a "Rage Circuit" which runs from the amygdala to the hypothalmus - limbic circuitry.
8. Implicative language, like with sarcasm and politeness, versus direct. Hierarchical and "culture of honor" societies use politeness more.
9. Pinker brings up UN Resolution 242, about the Israeli - Palestinian situation, showing how the wording was intentionally made ambiguous, so each side could more likely agree to it. Best to get some agreement, so at least there is somewhere from which to proceed in negotiations. There again, words reflect thoughts, to often encourage further thinking.
So, the book is certainly worthwhile, despite its perhaps unnecessary length.
 A bible for any creator of an artificial language December 24, 2008
Mr. Cecil Ponsaing (SE Queensland Au)
Not having read the whole book yet, but being in the process, and having been asked by Amazon to write a review; ...
... In reading the book, I am being overloaded with tons of interesting language- thought correspondences and their opposites, which one just does not think about when one just speaks a language and, indeed, when one "just" learns another one. There are so many logical extras to language, which non linguists never think about. But if you want to create a language, this book would be one that you would have to know backwards; like a conscientious christian knows his bible. Without this book it will be very hard to make your artificial language consice and better than the natural languages, and then, your artificial language, your creation, will just be another one in the long line of failed artificial languages.
Fascinating, deep, and satisfying December 7, 2008
John S. Fry (Menlo Park, CA USA)
In his inimitably thoughtful and engaging style, Pinker explains the field of conceptual semantics to the lay reader, and shows what modern theoretical linguistics reveals about how human beings think. The book is in some sense an integration of Pinker's previous books The Language Instinct, Words and Rules, and How the Mind Works.
Human thought, Pinker argues, is built around certain primitive concepts, including space, force, dominance, agency, animacy, sex, and contamination. In the most interesting chapters he shows how our human conceptions of space, time, and matter are reflected in linguistic features like tense, aspect, and the count/mass distinction. The relatively recent research results of Beth Levin and her colleagues in the area of lexical semantics, summarized in Chapter 2, are particularly illuminating, as they reveal how seemingly random variations in verb subcategorization patterns actually reflect deep, underlying conceptual schemas in the mind.
In the final chapters Pinker offers the optimistic conclusion that we need not be permanently shackled by our limited primate brains; scientific progress relies on our remarkable ability to extend our knowledge to new domains through the use of metaphor, analogy, and linguistic combinatorics. "The goal of education," Pinker concludes, "is to make up for the shortcomings in our instinctive ways of thinking about the physical and social world."
Evolution of language November 30, 2008
Ilya Grigorik (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Being a newcomer to the analysis and debate of linguistics, the opening parts of the book felt a little heavy - Pinker assumes a certain level of knowledge of the topic area. Having said that, I am glad I persisted as I later found many interesting parallels to the study of NLP (Natural Language Processing) in the computer science community, and eventually the 'academic' is replaced with hundreds of references and insightful case studies on how we use our language, why we structure it the way we do, and what it says about us.
The book really picks up in the latter half as Pinker picks apart numerous examples of our speech, and life situations (politics, power, sex, and so on), and explains the language and foundation behind it. Linguistics offers a fascinating perspective on how our minds operate, and this is a great introduction. I am looking forward to reading more about the topic in the feature.
Always Educational November 18, 2008
Bernard Chapin (CHICAGO! USA)
Steven Pinker is one of the greatest minds we have. The Blank Slate is on my top 20 lifetime list for books and I've enjoyed seeing him in interviews (and one outstanding debate) online. The Stuff of Thought unfortunately is fairly pedestrian by his standards. To me, this book was far more about language than it was human nature or psychology. As far as linguistics is concerned readers learn much but the same cannot be said in terms of it providing a window into our souls. Some of the wordplay was entertaining and he is insightful concerning speech but not enough psychology was illuminated here in my view to warrant opening it again.
|
|
|
Can't find the right gift? Try a Gift Certificate
| |
