The Author
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Steven Pinker is a Professor of Linguistics at MIT, where he studied under Noam Chomsky (I'm sure that name's familiar to some of you). He has silly hair and a dynamic personality. I attended one of his lectures a couple years ago and got a taste of it, (the personality, not the hair). Chomsky is notorious for having brilliant but unintelligible ideas. So that's when Pinker swoops in with his cool '70's fro and translates Chomsky for the rest of us mortals.
The Book
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This book is Pinker's first foray into the "pop science" genre. His most recent book Words and Rules is still sitting on my shelf (maybe i'll read it once i kick this Epinions habit). He has hopped on the band wagon of with such linguists as Deborah Tannen to create a scientifically sound, but entertainingly readable book. He is very well equipped to handle this. His writing is fluid and visual, and he throws in a few witticisms, as well as a few actual jokes.
The content of the book covers most of the more interesting problems faced by linguists these days. such as the nature of language, first language acquisition, historical sound change, animal language, and much, much more. I personally find this stuff fascinating because language is so transparent and yet so integral to our human experience. As you will see if you read this book, although there are many theories, there are more questions than answers. If you get frustrated by the tree laden syntax chapters, don't be ashamed to skim, or even skip altogether, some of the denser parts. I don't think Pinker intended the average reader to be able to digest all that. I still don't understand it, and i spent four years studying the stuff. I strongly suggest you do not skip the chapter "The Language Mavens." It will have you thinking about your own language use in a different light.
To illustrate his points, Pinker uses both personal anecdotes and traditional linguistic data. He also falls back on such linguistic standards as the "wug test" to demonstrate the generative nature of grammar. By using examples of what cannot be done in a language, he explores the edges of what is possible and impossible, and thus develops a base to work from. His personal stories are a nice break from the science. Linguistics is a field that lends itself to examples from personal experience because there is no real, accurate scientific measure of the phenomena in question. Coming from an intense, academic school of thought, tho, he tends to emphasize the logical structure over the interpretive nature of language when constructing his explanations.
Why it's good
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At the time of writing, my writing, that is, Pinker's book is simply the best out there for explaining Chomskian linguistics to laypeople. Every time a friend or relative asks me "What exactly is linguistics?" or "So, how many languages do you speak?" I give them a copy of this book. It provides as much detail or as little detail as you can handle. If you are returning to the field this is definitely a good to get back into it, and to catch up on some of Chomsky's more recent brain farts.
Why it's not so good
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Contrary to popular belief, there is more than one respected school of thought in the field of linguistics. Pinker, understandably, tends to emphasize his. Because Pinker is such a master at weaving an argument, it is easy to forget to be critical. He does not tell the whole story. I would recommend this as a starting point, but don't stop here. See my review of Deacon's "Symbolic Species" to get an alternate perspective.
I also think that he tried to appeal to too many people with this work. If its a text, it certainly cannot stand on its own. If it is meant for the casual-but-curious, why all the tedious academic mumbo.
Ok, so should I read it?
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YES!
If you are really interested, this is a good place to start, but don't stop there.
Teachers same goes for you, even if you just xeroxed pages, it needs supplement. You could also use excerpted chapters as a supplement to other course materials. (a professor of mine did this)
Recommended:
