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The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven PinkerIs there a difference between the meanings of these two sentences?(1) Hal loaded hay into the wagon, and,(2) Hal loaded the wagon with hay.Well, Steven Pinker claims there is a difference and it’s a difference that reveals something about the way the mind conceptualizes experience. That is “the stuff of thought” with which Pinker’s latest book is concerned, and this “stuff,” as he convincingly demonstrates, can be made accessible through a careful analysis of “the stuff of language,” i.e., word categories and their syntactic habitats.In the case of the two sentences above, we can see the human capacity to frame events in alternate ways through the dual function of verbs like “load.” This verb draws attention to the hay and its movement in the first sentence, but to the transformation (a kind of metaphorical “movement”) of the wagon in the second.That children can learn the dual use of “load” and the dual conceptualizations that it entails, and distinguish this verb from others (like, say, toss) that don’t work in both sentences (E.g., we don’t say “Hal tossed the wagon with hay” even though we can say “Hal tossed the hay into the wagon”) is evidence that distinct ways of thinking underlie our ability to master language. There are, after all, many thousands of verbs that fall into scores of different categories based on their applicability to different contexts like those involving Hal’s hay in the cases above. Pinker believes that our ability to learn the subtle distinctions that control these and other word usages is evidence of their role as reflectors and enablers of the basic elements of human thought, elements like causality, animation, possession, time-as-space, and so on.Pinker faces quite a challenge in bringing to life profound truths about human nature through a systematic, fine-grained analysis of mundane words like “drip” and “pour,” but he succeeds admirably. This is a book that will amply reward a careful reading.Of course some words are inherently more interesting than others, and for my money the chapter on “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” is by itself worth the price of the book. A number of features that help condemn a word to the realm of taboo are revealed here. For example, there are clear syntactic distinctions between the usually unprintable words for sex (which Pinker, I’m happy to report, audaciously prints) and their more presentable cousins, such as have sex, make love, sleep together, copulate, etc. I had never before noticed that the taboo and vulgar forms, which tend to specify physical motion, differ from the non-taboo terms in that they usually occur in a subject-verb-direct object construction (e.g., Austin shagged Vanessa). The more respectable terms lack a direct object and do not specify “a particular manner of motion or effect.” Furthermore, they are semantically symmetrical, so that if Austin had sex with Vanessa, Vanessa also had sex with Austin. More fundamentally Pinker ties the cathartic effect of some swearing with “the Rage circuit, which [is]… connected with negative emotion.” The Rage circuit, as part of the limbic system, is found in other animals and is associated with “a reflex in which a suddenly wounded or confined animal would erupt in a furious struggle to startle, injure and escape from a predator, often accompanied by a bloodcurdling yowl.”This is rich stuff, the drawing of a neat connection between a specific category of words and an emotional pattern linked to specific parts of the brain. This chapter also helps make sense of Tourette’s syndrome and otherwise identifies swearing as “a coherent neurobiological phenomenon.” Other chapters are similarly rewarding. Pinker’s analysis of metaphors both expands on, and, to an extent, revises the classic works in this field by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson and others.I have some quibbles with parts of Pinker’s overall model, but this is to be expected with a work so ambitious and wide-ranging. I am surprised, for example, that Pinker doesn’t mention the extensive work on cognitive prototypes by such authors as Brent Berlin and Eleanor Rosch since their research seems to overlap with his.Another point: His arguments against connectionist models of language and thought I found to be not quite convincing. Here Pinker is arguing for a genetically-based set of neural patterns to explain the complexities of language, where connectionism points to a more flexible, post-natal learning system. Pinker demonstrates that connectionism is probably not adequate to explain language learning if one assumes (as he apparently does) that learning after puberty is just as permanent as that which is learned in childhood. But such an assumption is unwarranted, and if childhood learning does have a special durability, his criticism of connectionism loses its punch.Also, in discussing social change (part of his analysis of changing tastes in the naming of children), he cites data indicating that most disappearances such as the end of hat-wearing among men in the 1960s, were the natural outcome of a long and steadily declining trajectory for this fashion. However, there are so many distinctly abrupt social changes that can be identified in this era (including such linguistic ones as the disappearance of the basic slang term “swell” and its replacement by “cool”) that this argument for gradual social change leaves me skeptical.Naturally these are the kinds of disputable points that a book like this is bound to stir up, and that’s, of course, all to the good. All in all, Pinker has succeeded, once again, in writing a book which, while effectively tackling a very knotty set of issues, manages to be both accessible and engaging. Five stars.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comments (16)   109 of 115 people found the following review helpful:5.0 out of 5 stars The best writer on the subject of language, September 14, 2007By Huntington Lyman (Middleburg, VA) – See all my reviews(REAL NAME)   This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)For the verbivore, no one sets out a feast like Steven Pinker. For my money, The Language Instinct is still the best, most comprehensive, and most entertaining introduction to linguistics ever composed, and I have been waiting for more than 10 years for this book (Words and Rules was also a great book, but a little technical for my taste; I am more drawn to semantics than grammar).The Stuff of Thought can be a little technical as well. After an introduction in the most appealing Pinker style, chapters 2 and 3, on the ways verbs imply metaphorical categories and the reasons competing language theories are wrong, are both persuasive and engaging, but only if you think about them really, really hard. I remember feeling the same way about the sentence trees and bushes early on in The Language Instinct. But the rewards for the persevering reader comes later. Should you find yourself bogging down, skip to the chapter The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, which treats the subject of George Carlin’s famous monologue in a manner that is more comprehensive and penetrating (sorry), but at times equally hilarious. That should provide the fuel to travel the rest of his landscape.The subject of this book is incredibly important and it represents the culmination of a number of themes. Pinker himself says that it completes two parallel trilogies of books he has been writing for the past ten years, and I also read this as the fulfillment of Lakoff and Johnson’s brilliant 1980 book “metaphors We Live By,” which lists the fundamental ways our physical reality structures our mental constructs, as revealed by pervasive metaphors. Pinker argues convincingly that Lakoff’s later work pushes the metaphorical envelope too far, but he agrees that metaphor provides key insights into thoughts and understanding. He explores the theme of how language reveals and subtly shapes the ways the human mind makes sense of the world in a comprehensive, thoughtful, and compelling manner, carrying Lakoff’s initial premise to a compelling, comprehensive theory of the function of metaphor in language and thought.The linguist S.I. Hiyakawa observed that the last thing fish would think to study would be water; as we increasingly live in a world where words impinge on our every moment of consciousness, unpacking language helps us all understand the way it reveals and shapes our mental worlds. It also helps us understand what is not up for debate, and one of Pinker’s most compelling themes is the universal community of human minds revealed by language commonalities. Pinker’s philosophy of language somehow makes me feel both that language reveals individual creative genius (often in unexpected speakers) and a central set of commonalities among all human minds.As a final note, the beauty of Pinker’s writing in itself is sufficient reason to read this book. As a language lover, I find it a discouraging irony that so many linguists are so poor at articulating their arguments and insights, and that so much written about language is difficult and boring to read. Pinker, while taking on complex, abstruce topics, writes with clarity, enthusiasm, and humor. Aside from Richard Lederer, he is the only linguist I know who makes me laugh regularly.Basically,I feel about Steven Pinker approximately the way Wayne and Garth felt about Aerosmith, and I am certainly dancing happily to The Stuff of Thought. Rock on, Steve!Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comment   37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:5.0 out of 5 stars Language – a window to the way our minds work. Good and clear insights from Pinker., November 18, 2007By D. Stuart “Researcher at Kudos” (Auckland NZ) – See all my reviewsThis review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)Once Steven Pinker gets over his difficult first chapter (he’s hunting around trying to find first gear) this book really takes off. Pinker uses the way we structure our language, with all of its grammatical rules and foibles, as evidence of how our minds work. Thus if we accept that children don’t learn grammar by rote memory, but more through induction and the creation of general rules, then we can see that the way these rules are framed are a reflection of the way we think.Pinker cites hundreds of references, dozens of fascinating experiments, and calls on – often with great wit and brio – many entertaining examples of our language and what it really says about us. A whole chapter on “the seven words you can’t use on television” shows the almost magical qualities we attach to words.For me the most fascinating work in this book focuses on the way we speak indirectly to each other, often alluding to what we mean to say. Why say: “It would be awesome if you would pass the ketchup,” when we really mean “Pass the ketchup.” The answer lies in our complex social brain: and our desire to get on with others by removing the power implications of a direct order. Pinker takes his examples much deeper than this.This is wonderful reading for people who are either fascinated by the human mind, or fascinated by our living language – or both. Five stars.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comments (2)   8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:5.0 out of 5 stars facinating book, December 8, 2007By L. Zhu “strictly nonfiction” (Sydney, Australia) – See all my reviews(REAL NAME)   This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)This is fascinating book. English is not my native tongue and I was always wondering why there are so many usage idioms in tense, verbs and propositions. Actually, they are not strange exceptions at all. This book explains the subtle “rules” behind:* verbs like “load”, “fill” and “pour” and why “pour the glass with water” and “fill water into the glass” sound strange.* the difference between tense and apsect.* under water (rather than inside water) and after dark (rather than light)The book also explores many other aspects of the language and mind, which is written in a clear and entertaining way.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comment   7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:4.0 out of 5 stars The Stuff of Pinker, November 25, 2007By Eclect (Boulder, CO) – See all my reviewsThis review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)Steven Pinker is a quite energetic fellow and an apparent sponge for quite a breadth of subjects and people’s views. This seems not to leave a great deal of room for modesty, and he has thus created some controversy in academic circles around his thoroughness on the one hand and his penchant for publicity on the other, somewhat as Carl Sagan used to be regarded in the academic astronomical world. Aware of the controversy surrounding him, I had not looked as his earlier books. I then had the opportunity to hear him speak in public about the current work, and this experience persuaded me to have a look.The book’s central premise is that universal patterns of human thought can be adduced from common patterns observed in many natural languages. The bulk of the book is about the patterns, and the connection back to conclusions about the innateness of various ways of looking at the world sometimes takes the back burner. But what is useful about the book is that he does it in a way that is not as complex and convoluted as the previous sentence. The book is quite heavy with endnotes and references, and at times he seems to be looking to score points in a debate among academics that is going on in the background. I do not know enough about the field to understand the subplots. The net effect to me was a perhaps avoidable distraction.I would suggest reading the last chapter (number 9) first or else after chapter 1 – it is short and sweet and lays out what he claims to have established in the rest of the book. Chapter 2 will be heavy going for those without prior exposure to formal grammars or current views of linguistics, but much of the later argument is not lost by skimming if it gives the impression of endless hair-splitting. The interesting behavioral meat comes in chapters 7 and 8, so skip ahead to them if necessary as an alternative to abandoning the book in midcourse.When I don’t know a great deal about the central subject or premise, I tend to calibrate the author’s credibility by what he tosses off that I do know something about. Thus, at the start of chapter 2 (page 25), he compares what he is setting out to do in analyzing English verb constructions with the film and book “Powers of Ten” by Charles and Ray Eames. He compares his adventure “Down the Rabbit Hole” with theirs, and implies that he is going to take us down sixteen orders of magnitude of complexity. Well, the Eames book covers 41 orders of magnitude (the sponge had a slight leak), and I think it would be generous to grant that he goes as much as two orders of detail into his analysis. (Even as much as one might be arguable.) This certainly calibrates Pinker’s view of himself, but it also leads me to wonder how many of the 690 endnotes and/or what they claim to cite have been hastily slapped into place. This will matter greatly to academics, and for the rest of us should only be taken as a variant of “caveat emptor”.One curious piece of understatement comes on page 85, where he writes of an example “very much in the news” about understanding gender differences. When former Harvard president Larry Summers made his ill-fated remarks in January 2005, it was Pinker’s earlier work (or at least the endnotes therein) that he felt he was citing, and Pinker came early and often to Summers’ defense. That he addresses this here (and somewhat out of context) with a whimper rather than a bang is a bit curious.Overall, then, this is an accessible book by someone who is likely to be discussed quite a ways into the future, much as his mentor and colleague Noam Chomsky has been. It is certainly worth taking a look if you have an interest in this general area.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comment   23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:5.0 out of 5 stars Why doesn’t a hammer ‘ham’?, September 14, 2007By JSBM “Author, ‘Surviving the Second Great Dep… (San Diego, CA) – See all my reviews(REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)   This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)If waiters wait and bankers bank, why don’t hammers ham? Stephen Pinker asks this question along with numerous other questions in his interesting and enlightening book “The Stuff of Thought”, which focuses on the bizarre quirks of language and its interaction with human conception. He also wonders why we abbreviate things but end up making them longer (it’s longer to say ‘www’ than ‘world wide web’); why the f-bomb is considered obscene, but the word ‘rape’, with its vile definition, is not; and how the tautological phrase ‘enough is enough’ actually says anything worthwhile. The reader will be quite familiar with the bizarre quirks in the English language that Pinker brings up and they will certainly come to the same conclusion that there may be rhyme, but no reason.Among dozens of entertaining anecdotes and studies, Pinker reveals that what we take in in language is not what we actually conceive or remember and this mismatch is the root of much of the antagonism in today’s society. One study described in the book showed that we don’t remember exact sentences, but we remember the gist of the idea. This leads to insight on how the human brain actually works. Pinker explains how Schankian reminding (placing a new concept in the same mental basket as previous events) is why we humans are so smart but also why language is so abstract and imperfect. The brain may be able to respond to 10,000 words, but it puts all of them in just seven basic constructions of thought, which most languages work with: basic concepts, relationships, taxonomy, spatial concepts, time line, causal relationships, and goals.Pinker is witty, but doesn’t waste time getting technical though the entire book is fairly approachable by a non-scientific mind. The book is reminiscent (Schankian?) of Stumbling on Happiness and delves deeper than another interesting book on language, Words That Work. However, there is no unifying idea and the book really just serves to sum up the oddities in our language. Despite this, the book deserves many rereads and is recommended to anyone who is interested in society, culture, psychology, or why hammers don’t ‘ham’.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comments (3)   29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not as good as his other books, October 16, 2007By E. S Winskill (Tacoma, WA USA) – See all my reviews(REAL NAME)   This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)I read it and enjoyed it. It is more densely written than Pinker’s other recent books, or perhaps I’m denser; but the prose was not quite as lucid and captivating as the earlier stuff, especially How the Mind Works. Its overall theme is a bit hard to tease out.There’s a lot of good material, especially plain old grammar– not so plain, actually, and I got some grammar lessons that I at last understood after all these years. This alone makes it worth it.There was some especially good writing about examples of “false metaphors” that had my wife and I rolling in the aisle…Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comment (1)   7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:4.0 out of 5 stars Relationship Types as a Window to Political Affiliation, October 12, 2007By Ben Franklin (Colorado) – See all my reviewsThis review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)Previous reviewers have already commented that the book is well written, in a manner available to both the layman and professional, with little of the normal academic speak and bias. I concur. One thought occurs to me, which seemed alluded to by at least one of the other reviewers, that is seeing the materials presented here as a model for all of human behaviiour. Late in the book there is a discussion of four relationship types, their origins in human evolution and their exhibition by specific behaviours and language. It is interesting to compare the Market Pricing example to the other three, and ask if the ability / comfort of an individual with Market Pricing relationship-language, abstract models, mathematics, etc. might explain individual’s preference for a specific political framework?Read the book. Gets a bit long in the middle, but worthwhile for the layman.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comments (4)   12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and well worth a reading but…, December 13, 2007By Goffredo Puccetti “Atoms with consciousness” (France) – See all my reviews(REAL NAME)   This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)It should be noted that this book is primarily the follow-up of ‘The Language Instinct’.Readers who were expecting something along the lines of “How the Mind Works” and “The Blank Slate” might encounter a slight disappointment since some chapters of the book are somehow less fun and engaging for the lay person who is not very much into linguistics.Having said so, it is definitely well worth a reading; Pinker punch lines are alive and kicking and at the end it is a highly informative and extremely well written book.Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Yes No Report this | PermalinkComment Comment (1)   4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:5.0 out of 5 stars Premium Pinker, November 27, 2007By Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA) – See all my reviews(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)This review is from: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Hardcover)This is premium Pinker, and while he ranges across the social sciences his primary focus here is on language, where he is unparalleled. His goal is to examine the nature of language and tease out the aspects of human nature that language embodies and elucidates. Note that the very concept of `human nature’ is anathema to many of the postmodernists. Have no fear, because Pinker doesn’t. He relishes the opportunity to burst the bubbles of political correctness, particularly with the use of hard facts and common sense.His task here is complex, since language is so complex, but his writing is always lucid and to the point. He takes verbs, for example, and examines the ways in which they can and cannot be used, the functions that they can and cannot serve and the forms of human reasoning which they undergird. This can be heady stuff but it reads beautifully as we watch a mind that is both rigorous and playful catch us in the act of being, quintessentially, ourselves.He is at his best when he is pulling together the insights of linguists, evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists–something he does with ease and clarity. After he proceeds step by step and chapter by chapter he sums it all up in a concluding chapter that is a model of transparent complexity.Although the materials are different, this book is like Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, its goal being the identification of those aspects of ratiocination that are uniquely human. The difference here is that Pinker draws specifically (and extensively) on the materials of language, draws more conclusions than Kant and does so in accessible and often amusing prose.