Deck 3: Culture and Language

Question 1

Why is it chimpanzees cannot speak human words very well?

A) They cannot learn symbols.
B) Their vocal tract is different from ours.
C) They cannot combine signs into meaningful sentences.
D) All of these are reasons chimpanzees cannot speak human language well.

Answer 1

Their vocal tract is different from ours.

Question 2

In what way is language critical to humanity?

A) Language played a role in shaping biological evolution.
B) Language makes it possible to communicate abstract ideas.
C) Social learning would be impossible without language.
D) All of these are reasons language is critical to humanity.

Answer 2

All of these are reasons language is critical to humanity.

Question 3

Which of these is NOT a key property of language that distinguishes it from the communication systems of other animals?

A) Proper grammar
B) Arbitrariness
C) Discreteness
D) Displacement

Answer 3

Proper grammar

Question 4

Every language has a limited number of sounds and rules for combining them to create units of meaning. This characteristic of language is called

A) productivity.
B) arbitrariness.
C) discreteness.
D) displacement.

Question 5

Humans have the ability to talk about things, times, and places that are not within their immediate experience. The term for this is

A) arbitrariness.
B) displacement.
C) grammar.
D) discrete and recombinable elements.

Question 6

Productivity refers to the

A) fact that language involves combining unique units of sound according to a set of shared rules.
B) fact that there is no inherent or natural relationship between words and their meanings.
C) fact that a limited number of words may be combined into an infinite number of meaningful sentences.
D) ability to refer to people, places, and events that are remote in time and space.

Question 7

Gestures, written words, and speech are all forms of

A) displacement.
B) oral communication.
C) documentation.
D) media.

Question 8

Speakers of any language share knowledge of the sounds, rules for combining them, words, and the rules for combining them into meaningful sentences. This combined and shared knowledge is referred to as

A) phonetics.
B) productivity.
C) grammar.
D) lexicon.

Question 9

Variations in pronunciation and vocabulary that exist among the speakers of a language are termed

A) phonetics.
B) dialects.
C) pidgins.
D) lexicon.

Question 10

What is the superior dialect of English, in a linguistic sense?

A) Standard American English
B) The English spoken in England
C) The English spoken by people with more education
D) There is no such thing as a superior dialect, in a linguistic sense.

Question 11

What are two aspects of grammar?

A) Patterns of sound combinations and their meanings
B) Phonology and displacement
C) The smallest units of sound and discreteness
D) Sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics

Question 12

The unique individual sounds that make a difference in the meanings of words are called

A) morphemes.
B) free morphemes.
C) phonemes.
D) tones.

Question 13

Linguists use slash marks (//) to show that a particular sound is a

A) morpheme.
B) free morpheme.
C) phoneme.
D) tone.

Question 14

Languages can differ in

A) their pitch.
B) their voice.
C) their tone.
D) All of these are correct.

Question 15

Many languages spoken in Africa and Southeast Asia have words that change in meaning depending on the pitches with which they are spoken. These languages are called

A) phonetic languages.
B) tone languages.
C) dialects.
D) creoles.

Question 16

Which of these is the term for any sequence of phonemes that carries meaning?

A) Dialect
B) Lexicon
C) Phoneme
D) Morpheme

Question 17

The food names squash, maize, hominy, avocado, and tapioca all have Native American origins. This is because

A) the early settlers preferred these names to the names these crops had in England.
B) English colonists named them for locations in the New World that had Native American names.
C) Native Americans were the first peoples to domesticate these foods.
D) Native Americans created these crops by interbreeding American crops with English crops.

Question 18

Pleasure, sadness, and anger are shown by similar facial expressions everywhere in the world. This is evidence that

A) all nonverbal language stems from the same proto-language group.
B) these expressions may have a biological basis.
C) interaction around the world has created a uniform culture of communication.
D) these are the only genuine human emotions.

Question 19

What did Edward Hall's pioneering work in the area of proxemics find?

A) People communicate messages by how far apart they stand.
B) Canada is an Iroquoian word.
C) The Hopi language does not have tenses.
D) Arctic peoples have dozens of words for snow.

Question 20

The text suggests that ____ presents the greatest potential for misunderstanding for people within the same culture and from different cultures.

A) touching and other nonverbal communication
B) speech and verbal communication
C) written symbolic communication
D) facial expression of anger

Question 21

The culturally defined situation within which interaction occurs, and the individuals who are parties to the interaction, make up what sociolinguists refer to as the

A) kinetics of the interaction.
B) nonverbal communication.
C) semantic domain.
D) social context.

Question 22

Which of the following are sociolinguistics concerned with?

A) Variations in speech according to status and rank
B) The effect of gender on linguistic usage
C) Taboos and other customs that shape language patterns
D) All of these are correct.

Question 23

Which of these statements related to the study of sociolinguistics is FALSE?

A) When terms of address used between people are not reciprocal, this is an indication of social inequality between those interacting.
B) How a person speaks may be used by others to make judgments about that person's sexual orientation or social class location.
C) Gender is the only social characteristic that is not consistently reflected in speech patterns and norms for communication within any given culture.
D) Speech patterns, mannerisms, and other nonverbal communication are used by people to manage the impressions that others have of them.

Question 24

A set of words (such as violet, red, and blue) that belong to an inclusive class (color) is a

A) semantic domain.
B) morphology.
C) linguistic context.
D) worldview.

Question 25

The semantic domain of color is

A) similar across cultures because color differences are self-evident.
B) similar across cultures because the biology and physiology of vision determines what colors humans can see.
C) different in different cultures.
D) uniform across cultures.

Question 26

The nature and meaning of the relationships among people who consider themselves kin or family is

A) completely biologically determined.
B) culturally constructed.
C) the same for groups everywhere in the world.
D) a natural domain.

Question 27

What does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis state?

A) Color classification is shaped by grammatical categories.
B) Language has a powerful influence on the thought patterns in any particular culture.
C) Translation is impossible without an objective system of transcription.
D) Language is a reflection of the culture of a people.

Question 28

Taken to its extreme, an implication of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that

A) human rational thought and reason are partially illusory.
B) there is no reality to the natural world.
C) humans are not able to understand the passage of time.
D) humans perceive many things about which they are not able to communicate with others.

Question 29

Which of these is an argument AGAINST the validity of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

A) Worldviews change much more quickly than language.
B) Perceptions of time and space are culturally universal.
C) Each person develops his or her own individual understanding of reality.
D) All of these are arguments against the validity of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Question 30

Which of these languages is used the most widely in international commerce, global media, and popular culture?

A) Mandarin
B) French
C) English
D) Spanish

Question 31

What is a lingua franca?

A) A local dialect with fewer than 500 speakers
B) A second language learned to permit communication between speakers of different languages
C) The native language of the second and third generation of speakers
D) A form of language that develops when speakers of different languages first come into contact

Question 32

Which of these statements about languages is FALSE?

A) Globalization is endangering the existence of many languages.
B) English has more speakers than any other language in the world.
C) Between 4,000 and 9,000 languages have disappeared since the 15^th century.
D) There are about 6,800 languages in the world today.

Question 33

The workings of the human mind depend on the knowledge of some language.

Question 34

With training, any human can utter any of the sounds found in any language.

Question 35

Every language has an infinite number of words; this is what makes languages so productive.

Question 36

All forms of human communication have multimedia potential.

Question 37

For the speakers of any language, grammatical knowledge is unconscious.

Question 38

From a linguistic perspective, some dialects are superior to others due to their greater vocabulary and ease of use.

Question 39

Not all languages recognize the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants.

Question 40

Speaking linguistically, morphemes are another name for words.

Question 41

Free morphemes are the linguistic elements that are most easily transmissible across different languages.

Question 42

Native languages are the products of historical contacts and interactions among peoples.

Question 43

No human facial expressions or body movements are universally understood.

Question 44

The semantic domain of "fish" is unlikely to be as elaborate among peoples who live in the desert as among coastal peoples.

Question 45

Language provides a model for describing and analyzing a culture's classification of reality.

Question 46

The fact that, globally, people's world views change much more rapidly than language is dramatic proof of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Question 47

Whorf believed the Hopi people had a different perception of the passage of time than English speakers.

Question 48

A language is only likely to survive if it has a community of speakers who act as linguistic role models for children.

Question 49

English today has more native speakers than any other language.

Question 50

Discuss the importance of language within culture and for human development.

Question 51

Describe each of the five key properties of language presented in the text and explain the importance of each.

Question 52

Describe the field of sociolinguistics. Give three examples of how speech patterns are affected by cultural factors.

Question 53

Define the concept of semantic domain and develop two examples.

Question 54

Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Discuss the evidence for and against it.

Question 55

Discuss the factors that have contributed to the spread and disappearance of languages throughout the world. Define lingua franca; which language is the most popular lingua franca globally; which has the most speakers?