Rating: 
Summary: An interesting and thought provoking read
Review: I have a daughter who's just turned two and, therefore, prime material for an informal study of language development. Time and time again I found myself saying, "Yes - yes, of course" and relating it to what my daughter was doing. This was also one of those books that I kept finding interesting snippets I just had to tell my wife - immediately! She was so happy when I finished this book, I can tell you.Steven Pinker is firmly on the side of us having in-built facilities for language development (as opposed to us having generic capabilities that have to be completely tuned each time for language). That suits me just fine but obviously if you are a nurturist you may find a lot to disagree with. Some of his more controversial points I did feel were pushing it, but on the overall premise that we have some built-in capabilities for language, I found him to be most persuasive. This is definitely a lay-man's book. However, it is not a non-technical book - a previous study of logic, in particular, will probably help when reading. I glazed over a number of the Chomsky equation bits and pieces and I don't think I missed out on much by doing so. You can read it on many levels and find something.
Rating: 
Summary: Lengthy but worth persevering with
Review: Whether you agree with Pinker's theories (some being extensions of concepts he presents in the earlier 'How the Mind Works') or not, the value of popular science writing is that it simplifies the complicated, and ignites the reader's interest in the subject matter. I feel this book does both. It has elicited the usual responses to his work: generous acclaim from the public and bitter invective from academics and pseudo-intellectuals. I would suggest you distinguish the qualities of the book from that of its pro-Chomsky arguments. Pinker's writing is engaging, well reasoned and funny. There is a lot of it though, and the varying quality of the chapters adds weight to the argument his books could be cut down in size, allowing them to be read before the printed material itself perishes naturally.
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Summary: I just have to keep looking¿..
Review: Four years now I am on a quest to find a book that will if not answer, then at least properly formulate some of the questions puzzling my mind about language. By now I went through almost a dozen without finding the answers I seek. Although the language instinct is one of the best I read so far, it still left me with more questions than answers. The title says it all. Beyond giving us some fascinating tidbits of information and a thoroughly entertaining introduction to modern linguistics, the author set out to prove that our ability to use language is an innate faculty of our brain, our evolutionary advantage, just as the trunk is the evolutionay advantage of the elephant. Pinker gives us several great examples to prove the innate nature of language. How else could we explain, for example, that brain-damage can impair specific language functions?
Where the question becomes a little muddy is where this turns into an implication that if there is any logic in the world it is the one we created through our innate gift for grammar.
There is clearly a touch of metaphysics in this book. Forget logic, forget intelligence, language is the key to the universe. I would like to think that there is a world outside our mind and that world does have logic. The falling tree DOES make a sound even if we are not there to hear it.
The way this has a fundamental bearing on the question discussed in the book is by asking the very legitimate question about the primacy of our innate faculties of intelligence and language.
Chomsky (whom I have no inclination to read so I have to rely on Pinker's interpretation) claims that there is a deep structure of language that is fundamentally similar in any and every language of mankind. Pinker builds most of his argument on this axiom. The question that is not asked though is whether this 'deep structure' could simply be: intelligence.
Language, as a phenomena sits somewhere between intelligence (our ability to understand the way the world functions) and communication (the successful transfer of that understanding.)
The 'deep structure' of language is nothing else but the 'deep structure' of the logic of the world around us with objects having attributes and actors performing actions in relation to them. Recognizing this fundamental logic is not even particular to humans. Even rats can understand the foreseeable consequences of performing different actions on objects with different attributes. The fact that we can communicate this logic does not make us its creator. The world has certain logic; our intelligence enables us to recognize it and language is but a tool enabling us to communicate that understanding.
Marxist theory claims that the key to human evolution is our ability to use tools precipitated by and developed in conjunction with our ability to walk upright. It is the use of tools that created the intelligence which in turn is the thing that differentiates us from the rest of the animals. The whole idea is a lead-on to his theories about tools as the means of production, but that is beside to point now)
Marx's idea is focusing on our ability to act on the world around us, Pinker's focuses on our ability to communicate our observations and intentions. The whole issue is some sort of 'the chicken or the egg' question. I have great difficulties to accept the claim of the book that language (and its 'deep structure') just mysteriously appeared somewhere in the process of evolution.
Without properly placing the 'language as an instinct' idea into the context of intelligence and communication, the Marxian idea sounds more ........ well, evolutionary to me.
The answer is, of course and most likely all of the above, but in its single minded focus The Language Instinct fails to point to our other innate faculties that also may have played a significant role not only in our evolution, but also in the evolution of language. Languages differ considerably in the ways we convey understanding. Does this reflect differences in the ways we understand? Do different noun-verb orders create different thinking and different understanding?
Does more complex language mean more complex thinking? Understanding? What facilitates communication better? Tight or loose languages? Does the difference between French and German cultures have anything to do with the differences in the languages (one rich in shading the other in precision)?
Does the size of the vocabulary of a language have anything to do with the ability of its speakers to communicate?
Neither does this book talk about what gets communicated. How do I know what is the image in your mind when I say 'dog'? Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. To what extent is truth in the mind of the beholder and what does language have to do with that? I could continue asking questions, but the problem is not that these questions are not asked or answered. A book is what it is, what it is not should not be held against it. On the other hand, these issues should have been at least hinted at as they have bearings on the subject discussed, the claims made.
Having all that said, I also must say that the book is thoroughly enjoyable to read, contains information I am glad to have, dispelling some popular believes I am glad to have no more.
Should you read this book? Absolutely! My criticism is not about what it is but mostly about what it is not. The claims in it may be a little over-reaching, but one can say that they are so only to make the arguments more compelling. As for my questions, maybe I will get some answers reading his next book, "How the mind works"
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Summary: This book inspired my own Multilingualism
Review: This book combines evolutionary theory with linguistics in an inspiring manner. I should know. It inspired me to teach myself over 20 languages and to write [my own book]. It's all about evolution. Pinker uses example after example to prove his point. When you get right down to it, we are not much different from the Chimps and Bonobos. The only thing that separates us, is our amazing ability to communicate verbally. I applied Pinker's thinking to my own linguistic studies. And I am happy to admit that I've incorporated some of his inspiring
linguistic theories into my own personal methods for learning languages fast. I own this man big time. Thanx Stephen for this wonderful book and for your more recent The Blank Slate.
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Summary: Seems quite plausible
Review: I do software programming. His way of explaining a system where we can handle interpreting sentences "on the fly", from a starting word, building a structure of meaning while proceeding to an unknown end (the end of the sentence is not known to us until we get there) is consitent with how computers determine the meaning of commands. Showing the place of recursion is impressive. The book is not always easy to read, but I was impressed with the quality and consistency of thought. I hated grammer in 7th grade (in the 1960s), so my English teacher would have been amazed at my reading a book on language. I recommend this book highly.
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Summary: A smart professor with good writing skills
Review: Pinker's strength is not in his original ideas. It's in his writing. He can explain, provoke thought, and elucidate, and he does so masterfully. You may not agree with the ideas. That's fine, but a person seeking an introduction into the world of psycholinguistics, can do much worse than read The Language Instinct. Pinker writes with wit, sarcasm, and passion. He is clearly thought provoking, and sometimes angst provoking as well. He likes to bash people he doesn't agree with, and he does so with flair and humour - you may not like that, but it definitely shows that Pinker cares about his subject deeply, and it clearly shows the controversy in these subjects. I heartily recommend this book. This is one of the popular science books you can read, understand, and quite often laugh in the process.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs an editor
Review: Pinker needs a good editor as this book could have easily been cut down to two hundred pages. Pinker doesn't make his points; he jackhammers them a thousand times before moving on to his next topic.
In addition to his severe chatterbox syndrome, readers should know that there is nothing new in this book. This is third generation Chomsky - and when it comes to Chomsky, people usually embrace his theories without any proof. Saying that we are genetically hard wired for speech is no more startling than saying that we are hard wired to walk on two legs rather than on all fours or to grasp objects with the use of opposable thumbs. So what? It is a big jump from there to claiming that we are hard wired for language and that there is a universal grammar that applies to every language. There isn't. For every grammar rule that the Chomsky camp claims is universal, there is an exception. Does the Chomsky camp give up when presented with this evidence? Nope, they change the rules of the game. Of course, you can win if you keep changing the rules, retreat from positions, dismiss (or ignore) the exceptions. Who couldn't?
This book will seem fascinating if you have never had any prior exposure to linguistics. To those of us who have, it is nothing but a tiresome anthology of what has been written in the last 50 years. This field has been rightfully marginalized in academia (the professors who teach this are usually relegated to the bottom of the humanities department with Feminist theorists, Marxists, and post-modernist literary theorists).
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Summary: An engagingly erroneous professor
Review: I am a speech-language pathologist who is still waiting for empirical proof that Chomsky is correct. I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime - or ever. You need to know that Pinker is a passionate, obsessional convert to Chomsky and that he has many axes to grind. He is a radical descriptivist and, like most in that school, derides (and even dismisses) standard American English. He does this while building a successful career as a writer who has mastered, very engagingly, Standard American English. In fact, his mastery of SAE is his only appeal, in my view. What we have here is a man who dismisses SAE standards while writing books that are bestsellers because they are written in an excellent SAE style. How many books would he sell if he wrote in BAE (black American English)? I doubt that he could even express the complex ideas he adheres to in BAE, despite his protests that all languages are equally comple.
Pinker spends hundreds of pages trying to convince us that Chomsky is correct. It remains true, however, that the rules of grammar that would apply to every language known to man would fill a page of text and this slim commonality could be dismissed as being a product of our shared species, not some language device that, so far, only exists as a metaphysical fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Wrong, wrong, wrong
Review: I am a speech-language pathologist who is still waiting for empirical proof that Chomsky is correct. I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime - or ever. You need to know that Pinker is a breathlessly passionate, obsessional convert to Chomsky and that he has many, many liberal axes to grind. He is a radical descriptivist and, like most in that school, derides and dismisses standard American English in favor of supposedly superior dialects. In the typical self-hating liberal caucasian pattern, he starts out by claiming that all languages are equally complex and then goes on to knock his own heritage of Standard American English for its supposed deficiencies and inferiority. He does this while building a successful career as a writer whose mastery of SAE is his only appeal, in my view. What we have here is a man who dismisses SAE standards while writing books that are bestsellers because they are written in an excellent SAE style. Only in academia could we find such nonsense and such self-loathing among educated white men and women. How many books would Pinker sell if he wrote in BAE (black American English)? I doubt that he could express the complex ideas he adheres to in BAE, despite his protests that all languages are equally complex (and if Pinker really thinks that BAE is complex enough to express any thought, I challenge him to explain Chomsky's theories in it).
Pinker spends hundreds of pages trying to convince us that Chomsky is correct. He fails. This book is not a reasoned argument. It is the ravings of a man who throws out whatever examples he can find to support his religious-like adherence to Chomsky - only he doesn't tell you that he ignores all of the examples that argue against his viewpoint. Where is this supposed language device that, so far, only exists as a metaphysical fantasy in Pinker's mind?
Oh yeah, and I am sick of hearing how Chomsky is one of the most quoted intellectuals in the twentieth century. It is dishonest of Pinker to make that statement and not carefully add that Chomsky is usually quoted for his radical, virulently anti-American political writings that have absolutely nothing to do with his linguistic work. The fact is, few people actually read his linguistic work. They are nearly unreadable.
If you read this book, take with a grain of salt. Keep your eyes open for the many inconsistencies.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply Flawed But Fascinating
Review: Steven Pinker's best-known book has some wonderful chapters, some so-so chapters, and a few that damage the credibility of the rest. Chapter 6 on how the sounds of spoken languages are formed is itself worth the price of the book. Chapter 2 on the grammatic differences between languages is fascinating. Chapters 4, 5, 7 and 8, which talk about grammar and its role in determining meaning, are well-meaning but become repetitive and obvious. When talking about Artificial Intelligence he is ill-informed and unaccountably pessimistic about future advances in the field. In Chapters 3 and 9 he proposes a "language instinct" and in chapter 10 a "grammar gene," but both hew to discredited Chompskian models and don't even try to establish any mechanism. In chapter 11 he dismisses the whole field of non-human communication in toto, citing such Christian apologists as Herbert Terrace. Instead he sets up a series of straw men, claiming that because that apes cannot master advanced grammar in human languages (undisputed), somehow this makes their mental processes unworthy of study. This contradicts his earlier claim, in chapter 3, that mental processes can exist quite independently of grammar and language. He apparently never even considers that non-human grammar may differ from ours. Worse, he doesn't even mention non-primate language research! 12 is a vitriolic dismissal of all his critics, and 13 falls into the common trap of describing evolution as "wanting to build" this or that, a common convention for which he could be excused if this were his only failing. Throughout, Pinker maintains a breezy, readable tone full of pop-culture references - which unfortunately becomes infuriating when it's obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about.
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