The Origins Of Meaning: Language In Thelight Of Evolution

摘要

Of the three books under review, Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought is the most entertaining, although not necessarily the most informative. It is written in the style now familiar from his earlier books (The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules and The Blank Slate), a style that might now be termed Pinkerese, with its seemingly endless repertoire of anecdotes and jokes, ranging from cartoon strips to American politics to Shakespeare. Pinker is besotted with words. He is nevertheless a serious scholar, and his books have important things to say, although the message sometimes gets buried in the stylistic froth.