Sunday 28 September 2008

Steven Pinker - on language and thought, and dictionaries

This YouTube video presents Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and one of the best known and best researchers today in the area of language and social psychology, giving a brief summary of some results from his latest book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, published in 2007 by Viking Press. 
The entire lecture is interesting, but I especially enjoyed his opening remarks about different approaches to understanding how languages evolve - he is a bit rude to the very "respected" L'Académie française. 

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1 comment:

  1. James28 September 2008 at 22:46

    I 've not watched it yet but i just want to say that the title of his book The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature reminds me to what my teacher at high school said
    " Mathematics is the language of Physics"

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