Review of Evans (2014) : the language myth: why language is not an instinct

• Main Author: LaPolla, Randy J.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Humanities::Linguistics; Vyvyan Evans; Linguistics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145761
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This book takes on the question of whether a child’s language acquisition depends on an innate informationally-encapsulated language module in the brain, essentially hard-wired grammar, or depends on general cognitive mechanisms. The former view was presented to a lay audience by Stephen Pinker in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct, and other publications. E takes on the task of presenting the latter view to a lay audience, primarily by presenting empirical arguments for why the former view is wrong. The title is of course a reaction to Pinker’s, though I would have preferred The Language Instinct Myth or The Myth of the Language Instinct, as the myth is not language itself, but that language is an instinct, and there is already Harris 1981 with the same title, which unfortunately was not cited in E’s book.