Deck 4: Communication

Question 1

Most human languages have approximately how many sounds?

A)50 to 60
B)90 to 100
C)70 to 80
D)10 to 20
E)30 to 40

Answer 1

30 to 40

Question 2

The sounds that are used in any individual language are called the:

A)allophones.
B)phonemes.
C)morphemes.
D)syntax.
E)lexicon.

Answer 2

phonemes.

Question 3

What is an "agglutinating language?"

A)a language that uses many different phonemes per word
B)a language that uses many morphemes per word
C)a language that does not use punctuation
D)a language that has no syntactic structure
E)a Creole language

Answer 3

a language that uses many morphemes per word

Question 4

AAEV stands for:

A)African American English Vernacular.
B)African American English Variation.
C)American Association of English Variation.
D)African Association of English Vernacular.
E)Association of African Americans for English Variation.

Question 5

What other name is used to refer to AAEV today?

A)African dialect
B)standard English
C)Ebonics
D)rural English
E)Labovian dialect

Question 6

Animal call systems have as many as _______ sounds.

A)45
B)60
C)20
D)100
E)80

Question 7

What is a language "instinct?"

A)It is a form of instinctive communication found across species.
B)It is the necessity to make and use language in order to survive physically.
C)It is the instinct to acquire the language of the group into which you are first socialized as a child.
D)It is the instinct to speak the language of your mother,acquired during the developmental stage of the fetus.
E)It is the ability to speak only one language fluently and as primary vehicle of communication.

Question 8

The human ability to speak about different times and places is called:

A)productivity.
B)displacement.
C)chronology.
D)ethnohistory.
E)reflexivity.

Question 9

The study of the relationship between language and culture is called:

A)cultural linguistics.
B)historical linguistics.
C)descriptive linguistics.
D)structural linguistics.
E)sociolinguistics.

Question 10

Words are symbols that stand for things,actions,and ideas because speakers of a language agree that they do.This is a feature of human language called:

A)phonality.
B)displacement.
C)productivity.
D)symbolism.
E)conventionality.

Question 11

Which of the following statements is correct?

A)Scholars believe that all humans throughout the evolutionary line were capable of human language.
B)Scholars do not believe that humans 2,000 years ago could use language as well as we can.
C)Scholars believe that language emerged during the Age of Exploration.
D)Scholars do not believe that human language developed prior to the emergence of our genus.
E)Scholars do not believe that human language existed prior to our species.

Question 12

The subsystem of a language that relates words to meanings is called:

A)phonology.
B)allophones.
C)morphology.
D)semantics.
E)lexicon.

Question 13

Which of the following is not commonly considered a subsystem of all languages?

A)semantics
B)morphology
C)chronology
D)phonology
E)syntax

Question 14

What part of speech is found in all human languages?

A)adverbs
B)adjectives
C)nouns
D)verbs
E)pronouns

Question 15

Who was an early scholar who studied AAEV as a linguistic system?

A)Margaret Mead
B)Benjamin Whorf
C)Claude Levi-Strauss
D)William Labov
E)Edward Sapir

Question 16

Which specialty of Linguistic Anthropology focuses on the analysis of different parts within a single language?

A)ethnolinguistics
B)historical linguistics
C)sociolinguistics
D)descriptive linguistics
E)scientific linguistics

Question 17

"Dog" is composed of how many morphemes?

A)one
B)two
C)three
D)four
E)zero

Question 18

Human language is a symbol system.This is important for all of the following reasons except:

A)it means there is a direct connection between sound and meaning.
B)it allows humans language to be inherently creative.
C)it means that a small number of sounds can have an infinite number of meanings.
D)there is no maximum number of words and meanings in any human language.
E)it allows humans to transmit and store information.

Question 19

All of the following characterize AAEV except:

A)full forms of auxiliaries.
B)optional copula deletion.
C)negative concord.
D)negative inversion.
E)variable "be."

Question 20

The idea of a "universal grammar" was proposed by:

A)Edward Sapir.
B)Noam Chomsky.
C)William Labov.
D)Benjamin Whorf.
E)Margaret Mead.

Question 21

Which of the following statements is true?

A)Language is particular to each individual and no one truly understands the meaning behind another person's words.
B)All languages are actually the same - they have the same parts of speech and do not vary at all except in terms of sound (phonemes).
C)Languages associated with small-scale societies are much more sophisticated than those associated with stratified societies because of a long tradition of oral history.
D)All languages are equally sophisticated and all humans speak with grammatical sophistication.
E)Languages associated with stratified societies tend to be more complex than those associated with small-scale societies.

Question 22

The division of cultures into M-time and P-time cultures is an aspect of:

A)artifacts.
B)haptics.
C)chronemics.
D)sociolinguistics.
E)proxemics.

Question 23

All of the following forces cause linguistic diversity to diminish over time except:

A)nation-states insisting that all official business be conducted in an official language.
B)media exposure becoming global.
C)languages and language communities tending to change constantly.
D)global trade favoring very specific languages.
E)immigrants abandoning their languages in order to adapt socially.

Question 24

People constantly create new words and sentences in any human language.This is known as displacement.

Question 25

Critics of English-only argue against it because:

A)language is significant in the process of unifying a nation.
B)immigrants are overwhelmed with cultural differences and should not required to learn a new language as well.
C)a culture's strength lies in its linguistic diversity.
D)it creates greater inequities in an already-unequal system of education and opportunities.
E)it is morally wrong.

Question 26

Human infants have the biological ability to make all the sounds of all human languages.

Question 27

The study of facial expressions is part of:

A)proxemics.
B)kinesics.
C)chronemics.
D)displacement.
E)haptics.

Question 28

What is a pidgin language?

A)It is an animal language and was probably the basis for origin of human language.
B)It is an artificial language that is not spoken,only written.
C)It is the primary language of people who live in a hierarchical society and are oppressed by a more dominant language.
D)It is a language that combines features of two or more original languages that came into contact historically.
E)It is a dialect of another language.

Question 29

The total set of sounds found in human language is called the phones of language.

Question 30

Handshakes,kisses,and hugs are classified as:

A)chronemics.
B)kinesics.
C)proxemics.
D)artifacts.
E)haptics.

Question 31

Nonverbal communication includes all of the following except:

A)fossils.
B)kinesics.
C)chronemics.
D)artifacts.
E)haptics.

Question 32

Among all living species,human language is unique.

Question 33

A lexicon is:

A)the total stock of words in a language.
B)the basic set of principles and rules that govern a language.
C)the capacity of all languages to describe things that are happening in the present.
D)the smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning in words.
E)the smallest unit of sound that conveys meaning.

Question 34

Which of the following is the most stigmatized variant of American English?

A)Appalachian English
B)AAEV
C)Gullah
D)Hawaiian Creole
E)Hispanic English

Question 35

It is estimated today that some __________ languages still exist,although fully one-third of these languages is spoken by less than 1,000 speakers.

A)15,700
B)6,500
C)5,600
D)1,500
E)95

Question 36

In Haiti,the vast majority of people speak a language that is a:

A)dialect.
B)pidgin.
C)creole.
D)hybrid.
E)mestizo.

Question 37

In which specialty of linguistics would you find scholars most interested in glottochronology?

A)comparative linguistics
B)sociolinguistics
C)descriptive linguistics
D)structural linguistics
E)ethnolinguistics

Question 38

Humans often identify other people by means of their speech patterns.

Question 39

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis argues that:

A)all human language is similar because our brains are structured similarly.
B)language conditions our perception of reality.
C)language is a structural prison through which we much accommodate our individual selves.
D)culture determines the type of language that we speak.
E)language occurs beyond the human species.

Question 40

Which of the following aspects of a language changes over time?

A)grammatical structures
B)pronunciation
C)morphology
D)syntax
E)All aspects of a language change over time.

Question 41

Western technical languages are more sophisticated than indigenous languages because they serve a larger population of people.

Question 42

What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?

Question 43

What is a "universal grammar"?

Question 44

What are the four basic structures that all languages have?

Question 45

What is the relationship between language and class or social status?

Question 46

Smiles are universal,although smiling does not mean the same thing in every culture.

Question 47

What are the various ways that culture is manifested in language?

Question 48

Discuss the origins of human language.What different scholarly arguments exist regarding the time period of emergence? Why do you think there is no agreement on exactly when language first appeared?

Question 49

In what kinds of societies do we find the presence of dialects?

Question 50

Most scholars believe that it is likely there was a single original human language.

Question 51

Proxemics is the study of cultural understandings of time.

Question 52

William Labov's pivotal study of American English and AAEV revealed much about race and class in the United States.Discuss the results of his study considering these two variables (race and class).

Question 53

A lexicon is a language's collection of words.

Question 54

Animal vocalizations are referred to as _______________.

Question 55

Discuss how language is alike and different cross-culturally.