Screen LibraryThe stuff of thought：language as a window into human nature
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Viking,
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| Publisher Address: | New York |
| Publication Dates: | c2007. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Carrier Form: | ix, 499 p.: ill. ; 24 cm. |
| ISBN: |
9780670063277 (cloth) 0670063274 |
| Index Number: | B842 |
| CLC: |
B842.5 H0-05 |
| Call Number: | H0-05/P655 |
| Contents: |
Includes bibliographical references (p. [459]-481) and index. Words and worlds -- Down the rabbit hole -- Fifty thousand innate concepts (and other radical theories of language and thought) -- Cleaving the air -- The metaphor metaphor -- What's in a name? -- The seven words you can't say on television -- Games people play -- Escaping the cave. Psychologist Pinker explains how the mind works in a completely new way--by examining how we use words. Every time we swear, we reveal something about human emotions. When we use an innuendo to convey a bribe, threat, or sexual come-on (rather than just blurting it out), we disclose something about human relationships. Our use of prepositions and tenses tap into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and our nouns and verbs tap into mental models of matter and causation. Even the names we give our babies, as they change from decade to decade, have important things to day about our rela |