The language instinct: How the mind creates language by Steven Pinker (A Book Review by Satrih)

Summary

Steven Pinker presented his book in thirteen uniquely entitled sections. First, language as an instinct to acquire an art is a concept of seeing language as a natural gift. He quoted from the works of Charles Robert Darwin and his follower like William James that highlighted the human nature to speak just like to do other things, and just like the animal instinct to sing or to love their offspring. Speaking is believed to be the main power of verbal communication while writing makes it more beautiful as an important accessory. Noam Chomsky is a contemporary linguist who came up with the same claim of language as an instinct, believing that there is a default thing in the human brain later called as the “mental grammar”.

In the second section entitled “Chatterboxes”, Pinker argued that language cannot be simply produced from cultural experiences, it is the special instinct in human, which is universal that human tend to produce language to be able to interact with others regardless of the correctness. It is the cultural experience where language is used or produced that has something to do with intelligence, not the language. His study on early human history proves that there is no such thing like a “Stone Age Language” as language is from the same kind of a human instinct regardless of time. Pinker argued that one does not necessarily have to be intelligent to be able to communicate or to interact with others in your society.

The third section of the book entitled “Mentalese” contained Pinker’s analysis of George Orwell’s novel published in 1948 entitled “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, in which Orwell talks about the future of London’s politics with the main character named Winston Smith, who had to experience different unexpected life situations simply by believing in the languages served by people he did not know well in terms of social role and thoughts, eventually led him to be a new personality. The terms “Oldspeak” and “Newspeak” explain that words do not necessarily represent the real thought of the person who speaks a language, hence ideas cannot be regarded as language. Pinker also mentioned the results of his studies on people of different disciplines that they do not think with words. Creative people said they think with their mental image while scientists said they think geometrically, not verbally.

The fourth section of the book talks about the main function of language, which is to deliver a news. Pinker also wrote that every human being has a brain that is consisted of a mental dictionary and a mental grammar. The grammar itself has two combinatorial systems, the one is artificial as can be seen in a chain of words and the other is natural as can be seen in brains.

In the fifth section, Pinker wanted to make clear that learning about words is not just about memorizing. It is as “wondrous” as learning grammar. Studying morphology is as challenging as studying syntax. Pinker analyzes words pattern and literary arts like poems to show that people can play with words as a kind of process to acquire new words without rules. An instinct to play is just natural. Some words may form with general patterns that we can guess the meaning even it is new, but some just want us to memorize that make words arbitrary, even mnemonic strategies cannot help. Quoting Darwin’s, Pinker highlighted that the human mind is by default meant to put everything in this world into words.

The sounds of silence section presented Pinker’s idea that sounds can also be perceived as words or language. Perceiving speech is one of miracles in humans’ biology that marks language as an instinct. All languages have same characteristics regarding phonemic issues when they are spoken. In contrast with spoken language, written language cannot be an instinct since it just became an invented culture long after human had been speaking all the time since the beginning of life. A few societies are known to have written languages.

The talking heads section explains why such advanced technology as computer will never as smart as the human brain. The sentence “the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard (p. 192)” is the answer. For computers, memorizing is easy but decision-making is hard. For human, decision-making is easy but memorizing is hard. Pinker also described more about language as an instinct to acquire an art as we cannot always believe that what people say is what they think or what they do. An instinct to defend oneself by lying is always expressed in language.

The tower of Babel explains the universality of languages. Variation, heredity and isolation are three factors that causes differences in languages as well as in human species. Pinker also highlighted that genes have nothing to do with languages, which means that there is no such thing as a certain individual is by default able to learn certain languages because of his gene. Another important point is that a language survives if there are still children who speak it, and it is facing a distinction when spoken only by adults.

Baby born talking – describes heaven explains language as innate. How babies develop their language skills since their first year in the world including errors they make, which is like the grammar system explained previously prove the human language skill is a biological instinct. Pinker also highlighted that foreign language, for most cases, is best learned since childhood. Children are better in acquiring language phonemics and mastery.

Language organs and grammar genes section is where Pinker gave a more detailed description of issues related to language organs especially the brain and myths surrounding grammar genes. Studies showed that both were seemingly to be exist yet still inconclusive. More researches by neurologists and biologists are required.

The big bang section was Pinker’s reorientation of his belief on the existence of a language instinct supported by Chomsky’s ideas, and compromised with Darwin’s natural selection theory, which is opposed by Chomsky. He came up with an idea to explain the distinction between evolution and natural selection. While evolution is about the changes in species over time, he argued that “Natural selection applies to any set of entities with the properties of multiplication, variation, and heredity.”

The language mavens section presented Pinker’s idea that the language focus for a scientist is different from a layman. Scientists tend to describe rules. He also concluded that there should be some evaluations and changes in grammar books to fit the reality of language used by laymen. Grammar should not be understood as bad or good, correct or incorrect. He also highlighted the importance of slangs to express thoughts. By then, every individual is given equal chances in language learning and development.

Mind design section explains why language is the most essential part of human life. The answer is that language is the path to knowledge of all aspect of life from all parts of the world. Pinker also highlighted that culture and language are a similar process in two different realms. While culture connects different learning types among the people in the community to have a shared pattern, language connects speakers of different types in the community for the acquisition of almost identical mental grammars. Again, Pinker highlighted that universality or commonality is the fundamental principle of the existence of a language instinct. Differences as well as similarities in human are equally innate.

Theories, evidences, contributions to the knowledge of the field, noteworthy ideas, strengths and weaknesses

Pinker incorporated theories of great authors of various disciplines from socio-linguistics, neurologists, literary artists, biologists, historians, doctors, and so forth. Charles Darwin’s evolution and natural selection theory, Noam Chomsky with his default language device in the human brain, George Orwell with his 1948 novel entitled “Nineteen Forty-Eight”, and a wide variety of study areas related appeared in Pinker’s book to support each other. He quoted a lot from Chomsky’s ideas, which are in favor of his idea on the existence of a language instinct. He observed histories on the development of languages since the Stone Age that led him to conclude that all languages have a universal grammar as a mental process and that languages are not culturally invented. Children’s ability to develop their language skill since the first year of their lives show that language is innate. An instinct to speak in human proves that a language instinct does exist. He explained grammar rules and words forms in details to show that differences and similarities in languages show a universality or commonality that becomes the fundamental principle of the existence of a language instinct in human. He intellectually compromised contradictory ideas of different authors as well as with his own idea. I would say that the evidences Pinker presented to support his idea are very comprehensive, thoughtful and highly developed. As a foreign language teacher, Pinker’s ideas are enlightening as well as convincing. I believe his ideas would have significant contribution to the teaching of foreign language particularly.

All Pinker’s ideas in my summary are encouraging. The idea that language does not necessarily represent one’s thoughts should encourage teachers to approach students in more persuasive ways especially in motivating to learn. Knowing that language is not just about memorizing should encourage teachers to create more engaging teaching strategies as well as to facilitate a more interesting learning process. The concept of wordplay could be the basic of gamification in language teaching. The idea that a language skill has nothing to do with gene should create equal opportunity for all to learn and express themselves in any languages. The idea that it is the spoken language alone that makes language an instinct should encourage learners to practice speaking every piece of new language they learned with the help of teachers who motivate and facilitate. The fact that a foreign language is best learned since childhood should encourage the curriculum developer to design a better education system for foreign language acquisition.

Also in the summary, I found the idea of why computers cannot be smarter than human brains, noteworthy. I always told my students to never rely on Google translation as it is not like our brain that can see or understand the context or in Pinker’s word, such thing like Google translation is incapable of decision-making even though it is good at memorizing. The main strength of Pinker’s Language Instinct in my view is the great number of theorists’ works, normative as well as empirical studies and even literary arts he cited to support his idea. The main weakness could be the inconclusiveness or uncertainty in some theories he quoted that made him need to compromise, as I understand from the discrepancies he exposed between his own belief, Chomsky’s, and Darwin’s.

#languages #instinct