The Language Myth
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The Language Myth
''The Language Myth'' is a 2014 book by Vyvyan Evans, written for a general audience. It is a direct rebuttal of Steven Pinker's 1994 book '' The Language Instinct''. Evans argues against Noam Chomsky's claim that all human languages provide evidence for an underlying Universal Grammar. Evans posits, instead, a language-as-use thesis to account for the nature of language, how it is learned and how it evolves. Reception ''The Language Myth'' caused considerable controversy upon publication among supporters of Chomskyan universal grammar. David Adger argued that the "attack on generative linguistics misrepresents the field". Another vocal critic, Norbert Hornstein Norbert Hornstein is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Maryland. Working within a generative framework, he has worked on the nature of logical form, and has recently proposed that control should, like raising, be analyzed i ... attacked the book for presenting caricatures of Chomskyan gener ...
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Vyvyan Evans
Vyvyan Evans (born 23 September 1968) is a British cognitive linguist, digital communication technologist, popular science author, science fiction author and public intellectual. He has published fifteen books, both non-fiction and fiction. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University. He is an advocate of the usage-based model of language development, the domain-general view of mind, and the importance of non-verbal, paralinguistic cues in communication—the development of emoji as a system of digital communication being a case in point. Evans is also a published science fiction author. His writing envisages a near future in which language is not learned but streamed. Education and career Education and achievements Evans received his PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University in 2000. During his career he has worked and taught at the University of Sussex, University of Brighton, and Bangor University as a professor of linguistics In addition, Evans h ...
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Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He specializes in visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and his experimental topics include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, regularity and irregularity in language, the neural basis of words and grammar, and childhood language development. Other experimental topics he works on are the psychology of cooperation and of communication, including emotional expression, euphemism, innuendo, and how people use "common knowledge", a term of art meaning the shared understanding in which two or more people know something, know that the other one knows, know the other one knows that they know, and so on. ...
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The Language Instinct
''The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language'' is a 1994 book by Steven Pinker, written for a general audience. Pinker argues that humans are born with an innate capacity for language. He deals sympathetically with Noam Chomsky's claim that all human language shows evidence of a universal grammar, but dissents from Chomsky's skepticism that evolutionary theory can explain the human language instinct. Thesis Pinker criticizes a number of common ideas about language, for example that children must be taught to use it, that most people's grammar is poor, that the quality of language is steadily declining, that the kind of linguistic facilities that a language provides (for example, some languages have words to describe light and dark, but no words for colors) has a heavy influence on a person's possible range of thoughts (the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis), and that nonhuman animals have been taught language (see Great ape language). Pinker sees language as an ability unique ...
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Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American Left, American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, Criticism of capitalism, contemporary capitalism, and Corporate influence on politics in the United States, corporate influence on political institutions and the media. Born to Ashkenazi Jew ...
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David Adger
David Adger (born 23 September 1967) is a Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. Adger is interested in the human capacity for syntax. Adger served as president of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain from 2015 to 2020. Early life and education Adger was born on 23 September 1967 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. At the age of eleven Adger became fascinated by language, reading Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. At the age of sixteen, Adger won a school competition coordinated by the University of St Andrews and spent the money on copies of Noam Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. He studied linguistics and artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. Adger has described his undergraduate teaching as one of the "exhilarating experiences of my life". He remained in Edinburgh for his graduate studies, working toward a master's in cognitive science. He completed a doctorate under the supervision of Elisabet Engdahl in 1994. Dur ...
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Norbert Hornstein
Norbert Hornstein is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Maryland. Working within a generative framework, he has worked on the nature of logical form, and has recently proposed that control should, like raising, be analyzed in terms of movement. Hornstein graduated from McGill University in 1975 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1979. He was an assistant professor at Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ..., and has been at the University of Maryland since 1983. External links Homepageat Maryland Syntacticians Linguists from the United States Jewish linguists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) McGill University alumni Harvard University alumni University of Maryland, College Park facult ...
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Language (journal)
''Language'' is a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal published by the Linguistic Society of America since 1925. It covers all aspects of linguistics, focusing on the area of theoretical linguistics. Its current editor-in-chief is Andries Coetzee (University of Michigan). Under the editorship of Yale linguist Bernard Bloch, ''Language'' was the vehicle for publication of many of the important articles of American structural linguistics during the second quarter of the 20th century, and was the journal in which many of the most important subsequent developments in linguistics played themselves out. One of the most famous articles to appear in ''Language'' was the young Noam Chomsky's scathing 1959 review of the book ''Verbal Behavior'' by the behaviorist cognitive psychologist B. F. Skinner. This article argued that behaviorist psychology, then a dominant paradigm in linguistics (as in psychology at large), had no hope of explaining complex phenomena like language. It ...
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Linguistic Society Of America
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', the open access journal '' Semantics and Pragmatics'', and the open access journal ''Phonological Data & Analysis''. Its annual meetings, held every winter, foster discussion amongst its members through the presentation of peer-reviewed research, as well as conducting official business of the society. Since 1928, the LSA has offered training to linguists through courses held at its biennial Linguistic Institutes held in the summer. The LSA and its 3,600 members work to raise awareness of linguistic issues with the public and contribute to policy debates on issues including bilingual education and the preservation of endangered languages. History The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) was founded on 28 December 1924, when about 75 lin ...
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2014 Non-fiction Books
Fourteen or 14 may refer to: * 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15 * one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014 Music * 14th (band), a British electronic music duo * ''14'' (David Garrett album), 2013 *''14'', an unreleased album by Charli XCX * "14" (song), a 2007 song by Paula Cole from ''Courage'' * "Fourteen", a 2000 song by The Vandals from '' Look What I Almost Stepped In...'' Other uses * ''Fourteen'' (film), a 2019 American film directed by Dan Sallitt * ''Fourteen'' (play), a 1919 play by Alice Gerstenberg * ''Fourteen'' (manga), a 1990 manga series by Kazuo Umezu * ''14'' (novel), a 2013 science fiction novel by Peter Clines * '' The 14'', a 1973 British drama film directed by David Hemmings * Fourteen, West Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community * Lot Fourteen, redevelopment site in Adelaide, South Australia, previously occupied by the Royal Adelaide Hospital * "The Fourteen", a nickname for NASA Astronaut Group 3 * Fourte ...
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Cambridge University Press Books
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of the City of Cambridge was 145,700; the population of the wider built-up area (which extends outside the city council area) was 181,137. (2021 census) There is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age, and Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman Britain, Roman and Viking eras. The first Town charter#Municipal charters, town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951. The city is well known as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in the world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chap ...
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