Educating Eve
Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate is a book by Geoffrey Sampson, providing arguments against Noam Chomsky's theory of a human instinct for (first) language acquisition. Sampson explains the original title of the book as a deliberate allusion to Educating Rita (1980), and uses the plot of that play to illustrate his argument. Sampson's book is a response to Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct specifically and Chomskyan linguistic nativism broadly.
first edition | |
| Author | Geoffrey Sampson |
|---|---|
| Original title | Educating Eve |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction (Linguistics) |
| Publisher | Continuum International Publishing Group |
Publication date | 1997 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-304-33908-2 |
| 401 21 | |
| LC Class | P37.5.I55 S26 1997 |
| Followed by | The 'Language Instinct' Debate. Revised edition. |
The title, Educating Eve, was dropped after the first edition because the allusion to Educating Rita "was deemed unduly mysterious". The revised edition (2005) contains an additional chapter and "many passages, from a few words up to new chapter-sections, that discuss relevant scientific findings which have emerged since the first edition, or respond to objections made by critics of that edition."