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Quote by Steven Pinker

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The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

This book delves into the fascinating subject of language, examining how humans have developed the ability to create and use language. It explores the biological and cognitive aspects of language, discussing theories and evidence regarding the evolution of language skills in humans. more

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Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is a renowned cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author. His research focuses on language, cognition, and human behavior, particularly the relationship between language and thought. Pinker is known for his in-depth research on the evolution of language and his contributions to the field of cognitive science. more

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“As far as the language instinct is concerned, the correlation between genes and languages is a coincidence. People store genes in their gonads and pass them to their children through their genitals; they store grammars in their brains and pass them to their children through their mouths. Gonads and brains are attached to each other in bodies, so when bodies move, genes and grammars move together. That is the only reason that geneticists find any correlation between the two.”

GeneticsLinguisticsLanguage Acquisition
Book:The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
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“The study of universal grammar is a joint venture between globetrotting theoreticians who worry about impossible grammars and laboratory experimentalists who put young children through these impossible grammars. Perhaps, as in physics, one of these days there will be a grand unified theory of universal grammar. Linguistics today is where physics was in the age of Galileo and Kepler. The collection of principles may one day be replaced by one powerful principle - perhaps just the principle of recursion. that underlies them all. Universal grammar is still waiting for its Newton and Einstein. Whatever it turns out to be, its job its to keep children on the right track to their language.”

Language AcquisitionUniversal Grammar
Book:The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World
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“When someone recommends a book to you, you know two things; that it is a good book and you have a good friend. If you listen to everybody, you will be nobody. Judge a man by what he tried, not by what he accomplished. People hate what they know but fear what they don't. A curious mind is never bored. Parents, teachers, and politicians should not be judged by their popularity. People believe in everything except the reality.”

KoreanForeign LanguageLanguage LearningLanguage AcquisitionKorean Writers
Author:Min Kim
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“Now we have come full circle to the subtitle of this book: children learn by unlearning other languages. Viewed in the Darwinian light, all humanly possible grammars compete to match the language spoken in the child's environment. And fitness, because we have competition, can be measured by the compatibility of a grammar with what a child hears in a particular linguistic environment. This theory of language takes both nature and nurture into account: nature proposes, and nurture disposes.”

LanguageLanguage Acquisition
Book:The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World
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