Book Review: The Biolinguistic Enterprise: New Perspectives on the Evolution and Nature of the Human Language Faculty. (Di Sciullo & Boeckx, 2011. OUP) (original) (raw)

Appeared in "International Journal of Language Studies" Vol. 6 n 4 (October, 2012). 154-182. Pre-publication version.

Edited by Anna Maria di Sciullo and Cedric Boeckx Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-955327-3 (Hbk) 978-0-19-955328-0 (Pbk) One of the most fascinating but at the same time still not very thoroughly investigated fields is the "Biolinguistic enterprise" of human language faculty as opposed to other means of communication between say animals or computers and humans. Anna Maria di Sciullo and Cedric Boeckx, the editors of the present issue, belong to the founders of the new type of interdisciplinary research that seeks to explore "the basic properties of human language and to investigate how it matures in the individual, how it is put to use in thought and communication, what brain circuits implement it, what combination of genes supports it, and how it emerged in our species." (General preface).