Forbes.com "Home Page for the World's Business Leaders" has taken a break from the accumulation of capital and oppression of the masses to publish a special report on Communicating with pieces by some well-known authors. There are a couple by Noam Chomsky On the Spontaneous Invention of Language and Why Kids Learn Languages Easily. You can hear his voice if you like here.
Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall has a piece on Why Words Hurt and another on The Dangers of Email. If you're interested in more monkey business there is an essay by Carl Zimmer entitled Can Chimps Talk?.
Stephen Pinker has a discussion of Why We Have Language and an audio clip on an What We Don't Know about Language.
The scope of the issue extends beyond linguistics, with pieces by writer Kurt Vonnegut, magician David Copperfield, futurist Ray Kurzweil, and even Walter Cronkite.
Posted by Bill Poser at October 27, 2005 07:54 PM