Posted on February 6, 2001 at 11:58 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading experts on language and the mind, will receive the 2001 Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Prize. The prize is awarded annually by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Pinker will present a public lecture, “Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, February 28, at the Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center, Sirote Theatre, 1200 10th Avenue South. He will discuss the puzzles language presents, such as how children learn speech so rapidly, the brain mechanism responsible for language, and how humans are able to convey such a wide range of ideas and emotions through words.

Pinker studies cognition and language. He has directed MIT’s McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and is the Peter de Florez Professor at MIT. He has won major awards for his teaching and research, including awards from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Psychological Association. Pinker was named among Newsweek magazine’s One Hundred Americans for the Next Century in 1995.

Pinker’s How the Mind Works (1997) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction in 1998. The book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology in 1998 and the American Psychological Association’s William James Book Prize in 1999. It was hailed by The New York Review of Books as “a model of scientific writing; erudite, witty, and clear … an excellent book.” Pinker’s other books, including The Language Instinct (1994) and Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999), have also received numerous awards. The New York Times Book Review called The Language Instinct “a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book. Mr. Pinker has that facility so rare among scientists, of making the most difficult material accessible to the average reader.”

As the Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Pinker will visit the UAB campus February 27 through March 1. The Ireland Prize brings internationally renowned scholars in the arts and sciences to UAB to present a public lecture, attend a dinner in their honor and participate in campus activities. The prize carries a cash award of $10,000 provided by an endowment established by Caroline and Charles Ireland.