"Language and Human Nature" exposes a century's worth of flawed
thinking about language, exhibits some of the dangers it presents,
and suggests a path to recovery. It begins by examining the causes
of changes in the English vocabulary. These sometimes take the form
of new words, but more often that of new senses for old words. In
the course of this examination, Halpern discusses a wide variety of
verbal solecisms, vulgarisms, and infelicities generally. His
objective is not to deplore such things, but to expose the reasons
for their existence, the human traits that generate them.
A large part of this book is devoted to contesting the claims of
academic linguists to be the only experts in the study of language
change. Language is too central to civilized life to be so deeply
misunderstood without causing a multitude of troubles throughout
our culture. We are currently experiencing such troubles, a number
of which are examined here. The exposure of linguists'
misunderstandings is not an end in itself, but a necessary first
step in recovery from the confusion we are now enmeshed in.
The picture of the relationship between words and thoughts that
is part of the attempt to deal with language "scientifically" is
partly responsible for dangerous cultural developments. The attempt
by linguists to treat their subject scientifically makes them view
meaning as an irritating complication to be ignored if possible. It
turns them into formalists who try to understand language by
studying its physical representations, with a resort to semantics
only when unavoidable. With words practically stripped of their
role as bearers of meaning, it becomes easy to see them as
unimportant. Halpern's book is a serious critique of such
oversimplified theorizing.
"Mark Halpern" is a freelance editor and writer. He holds
degrees in English Language and Literature from the City College of
New York and Columbia University. His writings have appeared in
"The Vocabula Review," "The Atlantic Monthly," "The American
Scholar," and "The New Atlantis." He is the author of" Binding
Time," a book about computer programming.
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