Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century - with Steven Pinker

Does writing well matter in an age of instant communication? Drawing on the latest research in linguistics and cognitive science, Steven Pinker replaces the recycled dogma of style guides with reason and evidence.

In this brand-new talk, introduced by Lord Melvyn Bragg, Steven argues that style still matters: in communicating effectively, in enhancing the spread of ideas, in earning a reader’s trust and, not least, in adding beauty to the world.

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and conducts research on language and cognition but also writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and is the author of many books, including The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works.

Melvyn Bragg is a broadcaster, writer and novelist. He was made a Life Peer (Lord Bragg of Wigton) in 1998. Since then he has hosted over 660 episodes of In Our Time on subjects ranging from Quantum Gravity to Truth. He was presenter of the BBC radio series The Routes of English, a history of the English language. He is currently Chancellor of the University of Leeds

Product links on this page may be affiliate links which means it won't cost you any extra but we may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase through the link.

[TheRoyalInstitution]

Thanks to some linguistically gifted fans, we now have English and Spanish subtitles for this video. Many thanks and gracias!

[garethinkster]

"Avoids cliches like the plague"

Love it.

[steventyroler]

"There's nothing sinister or gauche about driving on the left."

sinister - (Latin) on the left side
gauche - (French) left

Ya gotta listen carefully to get Pinker's jokes

[vadim]

I would never have thought that a lecture on linguistics might turn out to be so fascinatingly captivating and humorous

[hendriaditjandra]

"Bureaucracy speaks in gibberish to avoid responsibility."

Sadly, this is true

[hhiskgj]

37:21 there is a similar joke in Arabic I wonder if they have the same origin. the joke goes : people in prison who have nothing to pass their time tell jokes and they have memorize it all and numbered it so one goes 17 and they laughed another said 10 and they laughed another said 121 and they laughed but one of them continued to laugh for a long time they asked him why? he said this is the first time I hear this joke.

[pravinda]

I think there must be a lot of research done about Steven's fabulous hair.

[boxiness]

a summary of the video: we shouldn't concern ourselves so much with minor errors, but instead we should prioritize writing good prose for clear communication. more specifically, here are some helpful ideas:
- classic style: language as a window on the world
- coherent ordering of ideas: a web of thoughts -> a string of words
- overcoming the curse of knowledge (empathize with the difficulty of learning)
- factual diligence and sound argumentation

[JCLeSinge]

This is excellent, I have one complaint which has nothing to do with writing and is so obscure that I don't blame Pinker for not knowing this, and using it as an example of something he thinks arbitrary:

Driving on the left comes from the days of fencing. You pass a person on the right (i.e. walking on the left of the pavement) so that you can draw your sword and get on guard more quickly. That's also why, traditionally, if a couple are out together, the man walks on the woman's right hand side (with her on the far left of the path); should it occur, the man can then put the woman behind him with his left hand while drawing with his right in one step. If he's on her other side, it takes two paces to get into position. It's also why we mount horses from the left; the cavalry all have to go from the same side, or one man gets his neighbour's spurs in the face as they swing into the saddle. We'd already picked left, so left it is.

America trained their cavalry to mount from whichever side has the higher ground, and the spacing issues of fencing weren't a consideration by then. So they arbitrarily picked the right to drive on. Other countries that drive on the right simply dropped the archaic traditions that predicated using the left historically.

Archaic, but not arbitrary.

[ryandeklerk]

If you look into the history of the English language, it becomes pretty evident that a lot of fake rules prescriptivists try to enforce are not inherent to English, but are based on rules in Latin - which is why people generally ignore them. Don't end a sentence with a preposition, don't split an infinitive, etc. It is perfectly fine to do these things in English and, in most cases, don't make a sentence any less clear or understandable.

In fact, a lot of things that people consider oddities of the English language can be traced back to the belief that English should utilize rules from Latin. For example, spelling. Back in the 1500s a group of people was tasked with a way to standardize the English language which, at the time, had tons of dialects and variations both in the written and spoken form. There was a lot of debate about whether a standardized spelling should aim to reflect the reality of English pronunciation or adhere as closely to Latin as possible. They chose the latter. If you've ever thought "Why is that word spelled that way?" this is likely the answer (the problem with vowels is completely different though - English vowels have shifted drastically over the past few hundred years and the spelling hasn't been updated to reflect this).

Considering the time, the choice of Latin as an ideal is obvious - it's the holy language of Christianity. The belief that English should follow Latin as closely as possible lasted for a long time and has resulted in these beliefs that common usage of English is "unpure". The problem here is that English is a germanic language, not a romance one. It can't be held to the rules of Latin because it's not based on Latin.

[ncooty]

I think Mr. Pinker underestimates the problem of unclear thinking as a source of unclear writing.

[okuno]

23:18 "the passive voice is overused by academics"

I see what you did there... :D

[MultiMrDmitry]

Thank you for uploading this wonderful lecture! As an aspiring poet and writer whose mother tongue is not English, I have always had a lot of worries and doubts about the intricacies of English - this clarified a lot of things for me!

[pianystrom]

I usually use straight forward prose, but when you describe a thought or a dream it's not bad to go weird and abstract, and also grammaticly slightly weirder. Love you, Steven!

[afterthesmash]

40:00 Au contraire, the Cookie Monster's signature line is "om nom nom nom" (and his usage is flawless).

[unoriginalusernameno]

Why am I watching a linguistics lecture at 2 f*ing AM in the morning?

[Ekvitarius]

“Avoids clichés like the plague”

Genius

[Timrath]

Postmodern writing really is a plague upon academic writing. I have eperienced it both as a reader and as a writer (when I wrote my thesis). For everyone who wonders why people write like that:
- They think they're supposed to. Everyone else seems to do it, so I better do it, too. It's subconscious imitation.
- It's fucking easy! As difficult as it is to read and understand postmodernist mumbo jumbo, it requires very little brain power to produce it. All you need is a big vocabulary. If you take a close look, you'll see that - while the vocabulary is impressive - the grammar is really primitive, and there's no sense of craftsmanship involved in the construction of sentences.
- It makes trite ideas seem as if they were important.
- It absolves you from the accusation of being sentimental or naive. Using words like "beautiful", especially when describing art, is academic suicide. Much better to say "conforms to aesthetic and stylistic conventions of its era". There. Now, nobody will suspect you of the heinous crime of actually enjoying art.
- It strengthens your feeling of belonging to that exclusive circle of erudites. You're better than the unwashed peasants who use everyday words.

[jordanhristovski]

STEVEN PINKER IS MY HERO. If only we could effectively communicate these ideas to everyone in the world without loss of information... I’m sure every one of them would agree. This is an incredible presentation.

[Ravi-UT]

Each time Steven Pinker said 'she' I realized a bit more how much I use 'he' instead of 'they' or 'she' and imagine my reader to be male. Time for some introspection..Thanks for the great lecture!