Rating: 
Summary: Good popular science review of human language
Review: There many good things about this book: it is readable by the non-expert, it is probably the best popular science introduction to language and it contains many valid arguments. However, the book is too verbose, contains too much detail and suffers from lack of pace. Pinker can be obstinate in his arguments which is not necessarily bad. My favorite: Pinker attacks the belief that "people think using words" only to conclude that sometimes people do think using words. The book also lacks a comprehensive discussion on quantitative approaches for language modeling. This was acceptable in 1995 but not today. It is high time to re-write this book!
ps The definition of a Markov model and a finite state machine in the glossary will make many scientists frown.
Rating: 
Summary: An amazing book (either you agree or desagree with it)
Review: This book is the sum of more than 45 years of investigation on one specific theoretical linguistic approach: Generative Grammar. So, if you are looking for a book that in a very humourous and clear way explains you the psychological and biological basis of Generativism, you are served.
In Fact, the most important achievement of Pinker is the union he proposses between Chomskyan innatism and Darwinist evolution. Going further than Chomsky himself, Pinker stablishes very good intuitions about the adaptative nature, in the very long term, of course, of our grammatical rules and units. In order to do this, he explains what is a formal approach tolanguage, why Sapir and Whorf were wrong, why language is not a matter of "language specialists@ saying people how to speak correctly, and so on.
This book is strongly reccomended for everyone who wants to know about the nature of human mind and its relation with a computational device called "grammar", but are afraid of specialist jargon (and, more important, It's a very funny prose).
By the way, any "theological" critic to the book just go to show that that kind of readers are not prepared for a serious linguistic research (not even a serious linguistic reflexion), and are deeply misguided about how to investigate on human nature. Human nature is not in a book!
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: This book has received very good reviews in the press; don't believe the hype.
Pinker's writing style is initially engaging, even fun -- it is perhaps best described as clever -- but after 100 pages or so it becomes annoying. The book is about 500 pages. Furthermore, the page count does not reflect the information content of the book. There is much repetition. Plus some questionable science. And perhaps some uncalled for criticism.
The main problem is that Pinker is trying to advance a theory of language (which is probably at least partially true) without having sufficient evidence in hand, and without even suggesting what it would take to prove or disprove it. This leads to argument-by-repetition and poor science. Intriguing ideas, such as the Whorf hypothesis or animal capacity for language, are glibly dismissed by personally attacking their proponents rather than by counterargument.
I found one chapter, "The Language Mavens", particularly bizarre. In it, Pinker shows his ego by skewering (albeit politely) various writers on language (e.g., Safire and Lederer) for not sharing his linguistic views.
"The Language Instinct" is probably best read as Pinker's version of "Linguistics 101". It is informative and features many linguistics factoids and anecdotes, provided you can get past Pinker's conceit.
Rating:
Summary: I disagree with one reviewer (taking time for one)
Review: The reader, for example from Glasgow Kentucky claims that Pinker's book is a populist account rather than the writing of a professional linguist? Yes, there is debate as to innateness in language, and yes there are professionals on both sides of the debate. To claim that Pinker isn't a professional linguist belies a rather superficial reading of the book, as well as the book's jacket, clearly denoting Pinker's professional qualifications on the knowledge.As for the "contractions violating universal grammar" in BVE, may I suggest a rereading of the chapter...that's not what he claimed. But, I do side with the reviewer that I've cited, that they should read Educating Eve, to get both sides of the story, but please be careful to get "both sides" correct...
Rating: 
Summary: Where's the Kool-Aid stored?
Review: I waded through a book on modern linguistic theory, scratched my head over the author's apparent misplaced certainty over what seemed awfully flimsy conjecture, and then started on Pinker's book. Is it just me, or has the entire linguistic profession drunk massive amounts of special Kool-Aid? Maybe Chomsky stirred up the first batch, but there's more. One example: after a few paragraphs exhaustively getting to the point about homophones and puns, Pinker says, "if there can be two thoughts corresponding to one word, thoughts can't be words," and he seems satisfied that the case is closed. Huh? Who says words are supposed to behave like memory registers in a computer? Context adds meaning; ain't that the point? and by "point", ain't it obvious that I didn't mean a sharpened pencil? even if it's stored (as it is right now) in my brain? This book is very well written, which is why I gave it two stars. But it's fanciful and unscientific. Yes, I know he's at M.I.T. It happens.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I loved this book. I gained from it a greater appreciation of both the complexity and beauty of language.
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