Benjamin K. Bergen
Benjamin K. Bergen is a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the Language and Cognition Laboratory. He writes for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today and appears on NPR's Morning Edition, the Brain Science Podcast, and elsewhere. He is trained in linguistics and cognitive science at UC Berkeley, receiving his Ph.D. in 2001. Bergen is an active researcher in cognitive linguistics and cognitive science, with over 40 publications and 60 presentations in the two related fields. He is the author of Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning, and most recently, What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves.
Bergen has presented dozens of invited lectures at linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science departments in the U.S. and abroad, and at national and international cognitive linguistics conferences. A large part of his research uses experimental methods to study the use of mental simulation in language understanding, including motor simulation, perceptual simulation, and how grammar affects mental simulation. In other work, he has constructed computationally precise models of language development and use.
Interested in joining a book club?
The Robert Greene Book Club
The syllabus to this book club is everything Robert Greene. You can start reading with any book on the list below, but there is no reading schedule. Read at your own pace and come to chat about what you've read or see if you want to read the books. It doesn't matter if you have never read anything by Robert Greene or if you read his books over and over.
What the F
What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves
"A lively study with the potential to offend just about anyone.... From a linguistic and sociological viewpoint, the book is illuminating, even playful...an entertaining...look at an essential component of language and society." ( Publishers Weekly)
"A delightful investigation of profanity."―New York Times Book Review
"A sweeping book, exploring not just the history of English profanity in words and in gestures, but also the impact that swears and other taboo words can have on the human brain...a valuable addition to the literature about profanity."―Atlantic.com
"In What the F, a self-proclaimed 'book-length love letter to profanity,' cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen succeeds in bringing me around to appreciate the broader context, as well as the finer points, of the role 'bad' words play in human society."―Science
Nearly everyone swears - whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies, and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.
That's a damn shame.
Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.
In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout "Goddamn!" when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?
Smart as hell and funny as f--k, What the F is mandatory listening for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.
Louder Than Words
The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning
“One may suppose knowing what a sentence means is about matching its words to definitions floating somewhere in our heads. But you know that Elvis is leaving the building and Elvis has left the building mean different things, and yet the difference has nothing to do with ‘definitions.' Ben Bergen shows us that the link between sentences and meanings is ongoing mental simulations—the same kinds that allow us to picture how we are going to build that birdhouse or clean out that garage, except that we actually do them, day and night. For those who think linguists are professional grammar police, this book shows the kind of thing linguists actually study, especially promising ones like Bergen who we will surely hear more from in the future.” - John McWhorter, Professor of Linguistics and American Studies, Columbia University, and Contributing Editor, The New Republic
“[An] impressive debut.... [Bergen] sets out his account with enthusiasm, energy and some delightful touches of humour. If you want an engaging, well-informed tour of how cognitive science approaches the problem of meaning, you stand to learn a great deal from this book.” - Nature
Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.
And when you talk, your listener fills in lots of details you didn’t mention - the curliness of the dog’s fur or the vast statuary on the grounds of the French palace. What’s the trick behind this magic? How does meaning work? In Louder than Words, cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen draws together a decade’s worth of research in psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience to offer a new theory of how our minds make meaning. When we hear words and sentences, Bergen contends, we engage the parts of our brain that we use for perception and action, repurposing these evolutionarily older networks to create simulations in our minds. These embodied simulations, as they're called, are what makes it possible for us to become better baseball players by merely visualizing a well-executed swing; what allows us to remember which cupboard the diapers are in without looking, and what makes it so hard to talk on a cell phone while we’re driving on the highway. Meaning is more than just knowing definitions of words, as others have previously argued. In understanding language, our brains engage in a creative process of constructing rich mental worlds in which we see, hear, feel, and act. Through whimsical examples and ingenious experiments, Bergen leads us on a virtual tour of the new science of embodied cognition. A brilliant account of our human capacity to understand language, Louder than Words will profoundly change how you read, speak, and listen.
