We all take language for granted, yet we rely upon it throughout our lives in order to perform a range of functions essential to our daily lives.

In his second novel, Binet has set himself an even harder task. “The Seventh Function of Language” is a pulpy thriller, with all that designation entails. Suspicious deaths? The novel opens in ...

But a new study from MIT neuroscientists suggests the underlying function of these models resembles the function of language-processing centers in the human brain.

Parts of brain can switch functions: In people born blind, brain regions that usually process vision can tackle language Date: March 1, 2011 Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Summary ...

This revolutionary hypothesis helped re-determine the functions of language which was no longer considered a passive tool of communication but a highly social and political phenomenon.

"The Seventh Function of Language," a novel by French author Laurent Binet, is getting the feature film treatment.

Yet researchers who study the evolution of language and the psychology of swearing say that they have no idea what mystic model of linguistic gentility the critics might have in mind. Cursing ...

What ensues is a shaggy dog detective story involving a document Binet imagines Barthes writing when he died: the key to the seventh function of language, a never fully developed supplement to the ...