Science

April 21, 2008

Words in mind

Faced with pictures of odd clay creatures sporting prominent heads and pointy limbs, students at Carnegie Mellon were asked to identify which “aliens” were friendly and which were not... New York Times.

Posted at 11:02 PM in Common sense, Consciousness, Science | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

BOOK



  • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, The First Word is about the quest for the origins of human language. Although language is a distinctly human gift, it leaves no permanent trace and its evolution has long been a mystery. It is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being. The First Word follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why language evolution was considered a scientific taboo for more than a hundred years and why scientists are at last able to explore the subject.
  • Buy this book (Amazon.com)
  • Buy this book (Amazon.co.uk)
  • Buy this book (Powell's)
  • Buy this book (Barnes & Noble)

REVIEWS

  • from THE JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
    "The task she has undertaken... is formidable. Kenneally does it very well."
  • from NEUROLOGY TODAY
    "In addition to its astonishing breadth, this book is up to date, educational, and entertaining."
  • from AMERICAN SCIENTIST
    "...a lucid, readable, comprehensive account."
  • from THE FINANCIAL TIMES
    "[An] admirably serious update on the [language evolution] debate."
  • from THE NEW YORKER
    "[An] accessible account... including many provocative findings."
  • from THE BOSTON GLOBE
    "Kenneally's reporting and interpretation of this research, whose implications for the study of language and human nature are immense, occupy center stage in 'The First Word' and generate real excitement on the page."
  • from THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
    "...a cogent and often compelling account... As Kenneally dissects each scholar's theory, a wonderful evolution occurs on the pages: She explains, understatedly, what it means to be part of human nature."
  • from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
    "...an elegant exposition."
  • from THE NEW YORK TIMES
    [A] lucid survey of this expanding field... covers an enormous expanse of ground as she brings the reader up to date on developments in a wide variety of disciplines touching on language evolution... explains difficult ideas concisely and clearly... scrupulously fair-minded... zeroes in on a host of fascinating experiments.
  • from THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
    "[The] scientists who study the origins of language are a passionate, fractious bunch, and you don’t have to be an egghead to be tantalized by the questions that drive their research: how and when did we learn to speak, and to what extent is language a uniquely human attribute?... Much of what [Kenneally] describes is fascinating."

Book list picks

Advance praise

  • Steven Pinker
    "A clear and splendidly written account of a new field of research on a central question about the human species."
  • Steven Johnson
    "'The First Word' is a rare and delightful mix: both a probing exploration of one of the great remaining mysteries of life, and a riveting story of the battles and breakthroughs that drive scientific progress."

New York Times

CHRISTINE KENNEALLY

  • I am a journalist and author who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate and New Scientist, as well as other publications. My book, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, was published in hardback by Viking in 2007. The paperback from Penguin is out now. Before becoming a reporter, I received a Ph.D. in linguistics from Cambridge University and a B.A. (Hons) in English and Linguistics from Melbourne University. I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and have lived in England, Iowa, and Brooklyn, New York (ckenneally at ckenneally dot com).

RECENT JOURNALISM

Slate

New Scientist

The New York Times

Washington Post

The Boston Globe

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THE NEW YORKER

The Huffington Post

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  • Thank you Rod Stewart. Seriously.
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Discover

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other articles


  • Other articles can be found at The New York Times, Wired News, Salon and Scientific American.

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