Deck 12: Linguistic Anthropology: Relating Language and Culture

Question 1

Animal call systems

A) express information about things that are not currently in their present environment
B) can only communicate in response to real-world stimuli
C) can combine calls to make new call meanings
D) social diversity

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Koko and Washo were two primates who had learned

A) call sounds
B) American Sign Language
C) Morse code
D) English

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Words that came from the same ancestral language and originated from the same word are called

A) loan words
B) synonyms
C) cognate words
D) phonology

Answer 3

C

Question 4

What term refers to the structure of speech sounds?

A) cognates
B) philology
C) phonology
D) syntax

Question 5

What anthropological approach to language distinguishes the ways people actually speak from the ideal ways that people are supposed to speak?

A) descriptive linguistics
B) ethnography of speaking
C) phonology
D) ideological anthropology

Question 6

What is the study of grammatical categories, such as tense and word order, called?

A) phonology
B) morphology
C) ethnography
D) sociolinguistics

Question 7

When anthropologists study the way people use language in real settings rather than as a set of grammatical rules, what are they are focusing on?

A) parole
B) langue
C) phonetics
D) morphology

Question 8

A stoplight is a visual example of which of the following?

A) symbol
B) langue
C) sign
D) parole

Question 9

Anthropologist Sherry Ortner distinguished three kinds of culturally powerful symbols that include all of the following except

A) narrative symbols
B) key scenarios
C) summarizing symbols
D) elaborating symbols

Question 10

According to anthropologist Sherry Ortner's analysis, the American flag is an example of

A) a key scenario
B) a sign
C) an elaborating symbol
D) a summarizing symbol

Question 11

What is the study of how people classify things in the world called?

A) ethnography
B) sociolinguistics
C) ethnoscience
D) biological determinism

Question 12

A language of mixed origin that developed from a complex blending of two parent languages is called

A) a pidgin language
B) a creole language
C) slang
D) a language ideology

Question 13

The set of sounds and movements that animals make to communicate is called a __________.

Question 14

The approach that compares ancient texts and documents to analyze long-term linguistic change is called __________.

Question 15

__________ are words or objects that stand for something else.

Question 16

Brent Berlin and Paul Kay found that if a language had only three color terms, they would always be black (dark), white (light), and __________.

Question 17

Words that differ by only one single sound contrast, like in the case of "ban," "man," and "pan," are called __________ pairs.

Question 18

__________ is the study of how sociocultural norms and contexts shape language use in society.

Question 19

Most mammals use some form of call system to communicate with others of their species. Dogs and chimpanzees share an additional linguistic characteristic because they can communicate simple combinations of ideas about things they are not currently seeing.

Question 20

Most people are unaware of the structure of a language until someone speaking it makes a mistake.

Question 21

Languages change very slowly, taking generations or even centuries to shift.

Question 22

According to Edward Sapir, language is the symbolic guide to culture.

Question 23

America's pattern of gender inequality is built into our linguistic practices.

Question 24

Which of the following is a feature of language?

A) it is used to communicate
B) it is systematic
C) it consists of sounds organized into words according to some sort of grammar
D) all of the above

Question 25

In evolutionary terms, humans are distinct from other primates with respect to their ability to use language because

A) we have much larger brains
B) we can learn American Sign Language
C) we can speak using a larynx
D) military protection of surplus food stores

Question 26

Which of the following features are characteristic of language?

A) it is stable
B) it is flexible
C) it is dynamic
D) all of the above

Question 27

When language speakers use slang or metaphor, they are engaging in which concept suggested by French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure?

A) langue
B) parole
C) cognate
D) phonology

Question 28

For pastoral groups such as the Dinka and the Nuer, the cow acts as which kind of symbol?

A) social symbol
B) summarizing symbol
C) narrative symbol
D) elaborating symbol

Question 29

Edward Sapir urged cultural anthropologists to pay close attention to language during field research because

A) the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built from the language habits of a particular social group
B) language is a guide to "social reality"
C) we understand the material world through the language we speak
D) all of the above

Question 30

Talking about sports as a battlefield is an example of

A) a summarizing symbol
B) a simile
C) a metaphor
D) an elaborating symbol

Question 31

The key scenario differs from other kinds of symbols because it

A) helps us talk about difficult emotions
B) synthesizes everything important to society in a single symbol
C) implies how people should act
D) explains complex relationships in a single symbol

Question 32

Linguists refer to mixed languages with a simplified grammar that people rarely learn as a mother tongue as

A) a pidgin language
B) a creole language
C) a national language
D) slang

Question 33

Which of the following is a contributing factor to the development of creoles, pidgins, and other hybrid forms of language?

A) colonialism
B) globalization
C) commerce
D) all of the above

Question 34

What would an ethnography of speaking entail?

A) documenting what people say
B) documenting what register they speak in
C) documenting what people hope they communicate when they speak
D) all of the above

Question 35

Linguistic anthropologist Dennis Tedlock developed a new approach to the ethnography of speaking called ethnopoetics. What viewpoint does ethnopoetics assume?

A) all language is poetry
B) all speech acts are performances
C) speech is most powerful when it is beautiful
D) ethnography should be poetry

Question 36

Although all primates use some form of call system, some, such as __________ and __________, are known to be capable of more complex communication than a simple call system.

Question 37

Ferdinand de Saussure made a distinction between the formal rules of language (__________) and the ways people speak it (__________).

Question 38

__________ is the idea that people speaking different languages perceive the world differently.

Question 39

On the island of Java in Indonesia, nearly every sentence marks a person's __________ between speaker and listener.

Question 40

Although language is one of the most rule-bound aspects of human culture, it is also one of the least conscious.

Question 41

Because of the widespread use of mass media today, sociolinguists have found increasing homogeneity in the use of language in the United States.

Question 42

Elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols work in opposite ways.

Question 43

Countries find it relatively easy to decide what language its citizens will speak.

Question 44

If Jakob Grimm, who developed what has come to be known as Grimm's law, were analyzing the historical relationships among the so-called dialects of Chinese (such as Cantonese and Mandarin), what data would he be looking for in his linguistic fieldwork?

A) the characters used by people who spoke these different dialects
B) the average height, weight, and cephalic index of speakers of these several dialects
C) whether the speakers they surveyed knew any other non-Chinese languages
D) how the speakers of each dialect pronounce different words with similar meanings in the several dialects

Question 45

If you were a linguistic anthropologist interested in language change in smaller American cities, building on William Labov's studies from the 1980s, what method would you use?

A) compare text messages, instant messages, and Twitter entries from people of different ages
B) compare the professional slang of people in different occupations
C) analyze similarities and differences in the use of modern technology among people in different age groups
D) record how younger people, middle-aged people, and senior citizens pronounce ordinary American words

Question 46

If you were conducting a symbolic analysis of TV programs and wanted to identify a key scenario such as the Horatio Alger myth, which of the following would you focus on?

A) the presence or absence of wealth as a sign of social status in particular programs
B) plots that are repeated in many of the programs that American viewers interpret as commonplace social experiences
C) the different dialects spoken by different cast members
D) the symbolic use of power in modern American culture

Question 47

If Benjamin Whorf were trying to find further proof that grammar shapes the way people perceive the world, which of the following would not be a focus of his research?

A) the structure of tenses in English and other languages spoken in the United States
B) the number of basic color terms compared with English
C) the structure of person pronouns in the several languages
D) the in-depth analysis of the grammars of European languages

Question 48

The Canadian government helps preserve the use of French by requiring all official documents to be written in both English and French. The provincial government of the Canadian province of Quebec has implemented further regulations that require that signs have French letters larger than English letters. Why is the size of letters important?

A) symbolically, the size of the letters suggests the importance of the language
B) the regulations themselves give French Canadians a feeling that they are as important as English speakers, even though they are in the minority
C) it is impossible to control what language ordinary Canadians use, but they can evaluate and distinguish the size of letters on signs
D) all of the above.

Question 49

If you studied speech patterns such as those analyzed in Robin Lakoff's study of gendered speech, you might find that "talking like a lady"

A) contributes to gender equality in the workplace
B) marginalizes women's voices in work contexts
C) demonstrates that women and men are equal
D) builds certainty and trust

Question 50

If you wanted to study how athletes and nonathletes used language differently on your campus, how would you go about finding this out?

Question 51

According to linguistic anthropologists, what are the differences between an animal call system and human language?

Question 52

How can language mark our social position and status? In your answer apply the theory of language ideology.

Question 53

How is communication between animals (call system communication) different from human language?

Question 54

Imagine you were studying language and performance in the American judicial system. How would you design an ethnography of speaking in that setting?

Question 55

How do language ideologies marginalize groups of people? Give an example to illustrate your answer.

Question 56

With the rise of social media during the past decade, new terms have entered American English. How can there be language changes if we are not consciously aware that we are changing the way we speak?

Question 57

How can language be used to marginalize people who are not currently in high-status positions?

Question 58

In England, the dialect one speaks marks you as a person of a very specialized social class. What is it about our own regional or social dialect that allows people to classify us and view us through unflattering stereotypes?

Question 59

How does understanding that men and women speak differently, even though they both speak American English, help us understand patterns of social behavior?