The Language Instinct
Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Steven Pinker |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Psycholinguistics, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary psychology of language, linguistics |
| Published | 1994 (William Morrow and Company) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 483 |
| ISBN | 0-688-12141-1 |
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.