The Sounds Of Silence Steven Pinker Analysis

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, language is an arbitrary means of communicating through oral, written, spoken, and/or gestured symbols (dictionary.cambridge.org). In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker aims to enhance the readers knowledge about different aspects of language and explain the underlying concepts of how it is formed and used. Whether the reader is familiar with concepts of language or just reading for pleasure, Pinker is able to effectively communicate and explain the many different principles that go into language learning and how they affect our daily language use. In The Sounds of Silence, Pinker talks about the importance of sound, mainly in relation to speech and perception. Phonology is very important in the role of an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher because having extended knowledge on the pronunciations of my native language can help me to better assist non-native speakers in theirs. It will allow me to better guide others in improving their speech skills which can positively impact their reading and writing skills. Teaching phonology can be difficult because the English language will not have the same number of phonemes as any given student’s L1. However, Pinker points out that this does not really matter, because in speech, we often do not hear the phonemes, rather we focus on the abstract units of language underlying the sounds that we hear (Pinker 191). He also goes into detail about how the sounds that we hear combine