Language in Cognition

Reviews / Votes

"Amongst the book's strengths, particularly commendable are theconnections made to other cognitive domains and the biologicalsciences." (The Linguist, July 2010) "Although each subsection is brief, the author includeschapter-by-chapter notes of cited material at the end of the text.The motivated reader will have no trouble tracking down the primarysources that the author discusses." (PsycCRITIQUES, March2010)"Boeckx has a deep familiarity with all of the (very wide-ranging)material he presents, and has done original and important work inseveral of these areas. He is a lucid and engaging expositor, andis highly qualified in every respect to undertake an enterprise ofthis nature ... [He] brings together the right topics, someright at the edge or even at the horizons of research. If I wereteaching undergraduate or graduate courses in these areas, I cannotthink of a competing text that I would prefer." -Noam Chomsky "No one had integrated, yet, the key four notions "language","cognition", "mental" and "structures" in such a masterly andoriginal way. A wealth of discoveries awaits both the novice readerand the expert. Cedric's art of revealing deep connections betweenfields, authors and ideas has frequently prompted me, while readingthis book, to wonder why I had not seen those connectionsbefore." -Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, University ofArizona "If Linguistics is the queen of the cognitive sciences,then Cedric Boeckx is her official court biographer. In one shortbook, he clearly outlines how the developments in linguistics haveupended earlier empiricist conceptions of mind and spurred excitinginvestigations of human evolution." -Norbert Hornstein, University of Maryland "Language in Cognition is not so much a book with factsand concepts, as a long argument and discussion with the reader. Itis an argument that every serious student of the mind sciencesshould know, even if they don't join the choir. Boeckx masterfullypresents the material, showing why biology must form a core part ofthe mind sciences, and how the mind sciences, and especiallylanguage, can pose new challenges for biology." -Marc Hauser, Harvard College, Author of MoralMinds "Cedric Boeckx provides a wonderful, modern review of thenecessity of mentalism, of innate structure for all of the mind,and the role of mathematics in articulating different principles ofrepresentation for different modules of mind---a summary of theChomskyan revolution over the last half century. He bringsperspective to the project by connecting the history of philosophywith modern experimentation showing that the"generative" approach to both language and mind hasreceived stunning support in acquisition, processing, and aphasia.At the same time, he acknowledges many mysteries: we do not knowwhat our "gut feelings" contain, though they arecentral to humanity and dignity. They may also contain amalgamscombined from different modules in ways we do not understand, butwhich also may ultimately submit to mathematical representation.The book situates grammar in the broader sciences in a manneraccessible to the generally educated student or curious layman. Itis a superb introduction to the fundamental role of generativethought in modern cognitive science, weaving togetherpsychological, biological, and philosophicalperspectives." -Tom Roeper, University of Massachusetts, Amherst