Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starscomplex but continuously rewarding and structured a certain way on purpose
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018
This is highly technical and reads for the most part like a college text book. I admire and enjoy Pinker for his knowledge. I am not a fan of his humor leading to a less enjoyable reading experience than expected. This book is for people seriously interested in linguistics to the extent of it being nerdy. What i mean by this is not negative it just was not broken down to a simpler level and that is what i was expecting. I was hoping to get a Daniel Dennet type of read. I do see the significance of the way humans group together words and the fluctuation of syntax can tell a lot about a people and their culture. I found it funny that Americans have certain slang aspects of their linguistic flow that indicates a type of laziness not detected in other areas.
Pinker is a great linguist but if you watch his lectures on u tube he is not the most entertaining speaker and this flows over into his books.
I do highly recommend this --you have to be in the same mindset that you are when studying a college text. I would take notes constantly.
People like the neuroscientist Sam Harris and friend of Pinker make their works very accessible to the public so as to not make the work seem like a medical journal. Here Pinker reads like one step up from the blandness of a medical journal. This is mainly just because i subjectively think he is not funny so my mind ejects this entertainment element that was intended to please and make it not so heavy.
