Deck 4: Language

Question 1

Many animals, such as dolphins and great apes, communicate with each other through gestures and sounds. Human language utilizes sounds, gestures, and ________.

A) smell
B) symbols
C) warning calls
D) chemical information

Answer 1

symbols

Question 2

What term do anthropologists use to refer to small units of sounds that make a critical difference in meaning within a language?

A) paralanguage
B) morphemes
C) phonemes
D) grammar

Answer 2

phonemes

Question 3

Deborah Tannen's research into the ways that boys and girls speak suggests that:

A) they are using a form of cross-cultural communication.
B) language differences are primarily based on biology, not processes of socialization.
C) they have nearly identical communication strategies.
D) the best way to understand gender and language is through the "dominance" model.

Answer 3

they are using a form of cross-cultural communication.

Question 4

What might an anthropologist interested in kinesics study?

A) the origins of human language
B) dialects of the same language
C) how body language varies across cultures
D) how paralanguage varies across cultures

Question 5

To investigate the focal vocabulary of a language in a particular community, a linguistic anthropologist would likely:

A) search for genetic evidence for the origin of syntax and grammar.
B) try to discover words that offer sophisticated ways to describe local cultural realities.
C) set up experiments that show how that community uses language differently than others.
D) focus on the dialects that are present within the group.

Question 6

Don Kulick's study of gendered meanings of the word no demonstrates that language in the U.S. cultural context objectifies women. How can the power of culture to shape the meaning of language have implications for men as well?

A) Men are not allowed to take up space in most conversations.
B) Men prove the validity of their opinions more often than women.
C) Men in U.S. culture are expected to say "yes" to women's sexual initiatives, never "no."
D) There are fewer words in the English language to describe male emotions.

Question 7

When anthropologists emphasize how culture, society, and a person's social position shape language, what kind of anthropology are they describing?

A) cultural preservation
B) sociolinguistics
C) psychological anthropology
D) historical linguistics

Question 8

We communicate with verbal language, but sometimes words cannot convey everything. Sometimes we may unknowingly resort to a system of body movements as well as a collection of noises and tone of voice in order to fully convey ________.

A) interest
B) sadness
C) emotions
D) enthusiasm

Question 9

The Hopi language has verb tenses that differ from those of English. Benjamin Whorf's linguistic research among the Hopi people suggested that they have:

A) a worldview where past and present represent lived reality and the future is hypothetical.
B) been able to retain their cultural traditions by only having one dialect.
C) a worldview that keeps past, present, and future as entirely separate concepts.
D) the same conceptual idea of time as everyone else.

Question 10

Gender differences in communication often give rise to stereotypes. A common stereotype in the United States suggests that women never seem to stop talking. How does this contradict research about men?

A) Women are better able to use language to their advantage.
B) Men adopt linguistic strategies that help them maintain conversational dominance.
C) Women are often reluctant to speak up in mixed-gender settings.
D) Men adopt linguistic strategies that focus on letting women participate in conversation.

Question 11

What does Benjamin Whorf 's research with the Hopi, a Native American group in the southwestern United States, suggest about language?

A) The human brain is hardwired for organizing language in a universal manner.
B) Language creates different ways of thinking.
C) Language occurs independently of thought.
D) Thought occurs independently of language.

Question 12

What did anthropologist Laura Bohannan discover in her attempt to translate a classic text from English literature into Tiv?

A) There is an underlying universal grammar that all humans share.
B) It is straightforward to translate stories across different languages once you are fluent.
C) An accurate translation of Shakespeare is best accomplished through sign language.
D) The meaning of the story became lost, as the original meanings of the English words could not be easily translated.

Question 13

Don Kulick's study of the use of the word no in sexual relations examines:

A) how the meaning of the word "no" has shifted over time.
B) legal determinations of consent in U.S. rape cases.
C) similarities in how consent is constructed across cultures.
D) how meaning may depend on the gender of the speaker and the listener.

Question 14

Why do linguistic anthropologists study the patterns and important sounds spoken by a group of people?

A) to decipher meaning
B) to identify how emotions are conveyed through nonverbal communication
C) to determine how long a specific language has existed
D) to understand the elements and rules of a particular language

Question 15

Translating certain words into another language is very difficult. The word leader, for example, seems obvious to us, but can take on a different significance when translated into another language. This demonstrates that language:

A) is organized into recognizable categories.
B) can be connected to local stories and cultural values.
C) is often embedded into texts and stories that are universal in nature.
D) is separate from the local folklore.

Question 16

Which component of any language refers to names, ideas, and events that offer a kind of catalogue of what is spoken and can be compiled into something accessible to others?

A) dialect
B) grammar
C) lexicon
D) syntax

Question 17

What would linguistic anthropologists label new words that have emerged during the digital age such as mouse, modem, download, and tweet?

A) cultural
B) focal
C) emotional
D) tonal

Question 18

Which of these provides archaeological evidence for the origins of human language?

A) fossilized brain casts of Neandertals that show the anatomical features for speech
B) existence of the FOXP2 gene, which is also found in chimpanzees
C) careful study of nonhuman primate sounds and gestures
D) discovery of fossilized human remains that are almost 2.5 million years old

Question 19

What do we call the system of human communication based on a set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings?

A) grammar
B) paralanguage
C) phonology
D) language

Question 20

We sometimes "signal" interest in someone without the use of words, which is part of how we establish a relationship with another person. How would an anthropologist describe our behavior?

A) displacement
B) morphology
C) kinesics
D) paralanguage

Question 21

A historical linguist would be most likely to study:

A) a nonstandard variation of a language that is particular to a specific region.
B) the development of language over time, including its changes and variations.
C) the way that linguistic variants alternate back and forth, depending on the context.
D) the way that variation in language appears gradually over distance between places.

Question 22

According to the textbook, what is happening to human languages worldwide?

A) Outside the United States, languages are being lost.
B) Languages are being lost at the rate of three per day.
C) New languages are being created at a rate faster than they are being lost.
D) Languages are being lost at the rate of one every ten days.

Question 23

Both efforts to enforce and efforts to deviate from standard English in a school setting frequently evoke controversy. What did the introduction of Ebonics in Oakland, California, schools seek to accomplish?

A) to help African American children succeed in school
B) to introduce a new federal policy that allowed the teaching of nonstandard English
C) to replace standard English with black English in the school district
D) to certify teachers as proficient in black English

Question 24

Linguistic anthropologists have discovered that the languages spoken in Europe-such as Latin, English, German, and Greek-are derived from an earlier language, which is called ________.

A) Proto-Indo-European
B) Pre-Modern European
C) Pan Archaic European
D) Proto-Germanic

Question 25

Anthropologists have shown that chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates are able to communicate about things not immediately present and events in the past or future. What aspect of human language does this describe?

A) displacement
B) productivity
C) complexity
D) innovation

Question 26

The work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics presents a challenge to anthropology because it:

A) includes translating bible texts at a low cost.
B) captures data that might otherwise be lost, but also seeks to convert people.
C) is a means of embedding a specific religious belief into a digital format.
D) is actually a means of maintaining secrecy about the institute's motives.

Question 27

American women are far more likely than men to distinguish between colors like teal and turquoise, or magenta and purple. What is this an example of?

A) a biological difference between men and women
B) the gendered focal vocabulary that exists within American culture
C) the use of paralanguage that differentiates female culture from the dominant male culture
D) the use of linguistic productivity and displacement

Question 28

Why would a study of the "N-word" most likely be done using a sociolinguistic approach?

A) Sociolinguistics studies the intersection between language and systems of power, such as race, class, and age.
B) Sociolinguistics is preferred in the study of the development of language over time, including its changes and variations.
C) This particular field of anthropology studies how social behavior is created by language.
D) Sociolinguistics studies the variation in languages between places.

Question 29

In 2009, newly elected president Barack Obama visited a famous eatery in Washington, D.C., and, after paying his tab, was asked by the cashier if he wanted his change. The president's reply was, "Nah, we straight." Which of the following was the president doing?

A) speaking a dialect of English
B) using language as cultural capital
C) code switching
D) speaking standard English

Question 30

What has the effort to preserve the Native American Lakota language, spoken by about 25,000 people in the United States, led to?

A) There is now an new, modern dialect of Lakota.
B) It has resulted in the widespread adoption of Lakota terms in many parts of the country.
C) There is a widespread integration of social media into the preservation effort.
D) It has resulted in the loss of Lakota cultural capital due to online piracy.

Question 31

What does the term language continuum refer to?

A) It is a nonstandard variation of a language that is particular to a specific region.
B) This is the study of the development of language over time, including its changes and variations.
C) It is the alternating back-and-forth between more than one linguistic variant, depending on the context.
D) This is the idea that variation in languages appears gradually over distance between places.

Question 32

The term dialect is a nonstandard variation of a language that:

A) is particular to a specific region.
B) varies over time.
C) depends on context.
D) depends on the distance between places.

Question 33

The United States is home to people speaking nearly 400 languages, including ________ distinct Native American languages.

A) 32
B) 70
C) 112
D) 169

Question 34

Humpback whales have been shown to communicate with remarkable complexity, and have distinctly different types of tunes and accents that differ across different pods suggesting that whales may include what in their communications?

A) symbols
B) paralanguage
C) body movements
D) grammar

Question 35

What did Rickford and Rickford conclude in their study of "Spoken Soul"?

A) The English language has more than twenty known dialects.
B) All African Americans are very adept at code switching.
C) This linguistic variant of English is gradually fading from use.
D) This variant of English is in wide use by African Americans in a range of settings.

Question 36

At present, only 32 percent of the population in developing countries uses the Internet. This reflects what aspect of information technology development?

A) It demonstrates the increasing successes by computer hackers to shut down global media.
B) This is the result of efforts by foreign powers to prevent access to online materials in the developing world.
C) This is a reflection of the minimal investment in technological infrastructure made by the Chinese government.
D) This shows the tendency of globalization to increase the effects of uneven development.

Question 37

What does Noam Chomsky's research propose about language?

A) All humans share a similar ability to learn language based on the way that our brains are hardwired.
B) Stories cannot be translated successfully into other languages.
C) Different languages create different ways of thinking.
D) A language's grammar is derived from the culture in which it develops.

Question 38

Chinese, spoken by about 1.3 million people, is the most common native language in the world. At the same time, many Chinese students are sent abroad to English-speaking countries to learn English. Why do these students learn English at all?

A) The Chinese government seeks to develop more Chinese-language universities and centers abroad.
B) English is spoken by nearly 95 percent of the world's population.
C) English is the dominant spoken language worldwide and is central in education and technology.
D) The production of global media like radio and television is extremely difficult to accomplish using written Chinese.

Question 39

Consider a used car salesperson who must be highly skilled at using words to persuade people to spend money. This illustrates that linguistic skills as a form of cultural capital:

A) are not needed to make a good living.
B) are often used to cheat others out of their money.
C) can be converted into monetary gain.
D) are a useful tool for car sales, but not for financial careers.

Question 40

What do anthropologists call a nonstandard variation of a language?

A) prestige language
B) type of displacement
C) dialect
D) morpheme

Question 41

Because few children grow up learning to speak the Lakota language, efforts have been made to preserve language samples and artifacts in tribal areas. One of the major efforts in use today is:

A) a participatory social media platform built by LiveAndTell.
B) replacing standard English with the Lakota language in local schools.
C) the translation of the Christian Bible into the Lakota language by the Summer Institute of Linguistics.
D) legislation making the Lakota language the official language in all tribal areas.

Question 42

How might a sociolinguist explain "mock Spanish" terms such as el cheapo?

A) Mock Spanish makes fun of Spanish speakers while enhancing the status of English speakers.
B) The use of these terms is completely acceptable among the ethnic groups from which the terms are drawn.
C) It reflects the celebration of a specific cultural heritage.
D) Linguistic boundaries should remain sharp and language use should be neatly ordered.

Question 43

While anthropologists have gone to lengths to show that languages are linguistically equal, languages often exist in a hierarchical manner within a given place. Compare how language and power intersect by discussing how nonprestige languages may be marginalized, such as in the case of Spanish speakers in the United States. How are boundaries between language policed, and what happens when speakers "code switch" in different cultural contexts?

Question 44

Which term is used to describe the extinction of languages that have very few speakers?

A) linguistic shift
B) gentrification of language
C) language loss
D) linguistic death

Question 45

What do John Palfrey and Urs Gasser call members of the generation who use the technology of the digital age, but have had to learn it as if encountering a new culture or learning a second language?

A) cyber parents
B) digital immigrants
C) Generation X
D) digital natives

Question 46

Don Kulick's 2003 study explored the gendered understandings of the word no. What did Kulick find? How might his study have implications for both linguistic anthropology and gender relations more generally? What might be one way to foster better understandings of consent across gender divides?

Question 47

What do linguistic anthropologists think about how women and men use language in different ways? What are the two models that explain why language is used in gendered ways, and what are examples that illustrate their hypotheses? Which one of these two models is more compelling to you, and why?

Question 48

In 1996, the Oakland School District proposed the use of Ebonics in the school system. What did the subsequent revision of that proposal suggest about African American English?

A) African American English was considered a significant language development.
B) African American English was seen as a low-status language.
C) Ebonics was seen as not "African" enough.
D) Political decisions actually created and shaped the cultural use of language.

Question 49

While analyzing what is spoken and written is very important for linguistic anthropologists, the way that people convey messages through gestures, facial expressions, and postures is equally crucial in understanding human communication. Discuss how anthropologists can decipher the meaning of communication through examining paralanguage and what is indicated through body language. Illustrate how body language is not universal but rather depends on cultural context, and provide two examples to show how emotional information is communicated.

Question 50

How is the "border" between languages established?

A) It is established through mutual intelligibility.
B) Language borders are officially set by the United Nations.
C) Language borders are established through political means.
D) Local governments make decisions about where a language "starts" and "stops."

Question 51

What can linguistic anthropologists learn from studying the focal vocabulary of a social group? Why would words that show a particular sophistication and that describe unique cultural realities of a group of people be useful to investigate? Discuss one example of how the focal vocabulary of a language has changed or may change in the future, and discuss how men and women may have different vocabularies on particular topics.

Question 52

The Summer Institute of Linguistics, or SIL:

A) is a secular institution with the mission of preserving indigenous religious practices.
B) sends missionaries into the field to create written versions of indigenous languages with the goal of disseminating the Christian Bible in those languages.
C) has attempted to eliminate indigenous languages and replace them with English.
D) is a religious institution with the mission of putting an English Bible into the hands of native speakers.

Question 53

Many places in Madurai, India, have access to the Internet, but Internet cafes often have slow connections and must deal with regular power outages. What does this say about the digital divide?

A) Access to technology is stratified across gender.
B) Younger people are more likely to access digital communication technologies.
C) Quality of connectivity limits quality of access.
D) More even distribution of computers and phones will bridge the divide.

Question 54

Worldwide, which language is most commonly spoken by native speakers today?

A) Hindi
B) Chinese
C) Arabic
D) English

Question 55

According to your textbook, a particular language variation is associated with wealth, success, education, and power. These language variations with elevated status are known as prestige languages. Using the concepts of cultural capital and prestige language, discuss two examples of how nonstandard variations of languages can be linked to particular positions with a culture. How are linguistic standards established or reinforced? Explain why it has been said that a dialect is a language without a navy or an army.

Question 56

What types of evidence have anthropologists drawn on to approximate when humans first began to use language? Using examples, analyze how genetic and archaeological information has been used to determine when the human capacity for speech evolved. How did language enhance the ability of humans to survive and adapt to inhospitable environments?

Question 57

Why can we say the events that comprised the Arab Spring are in part a matter of language?

A) The events were facilitated through the use of information technology and are seen as a kind of "digital activism."
B) The Arab Spring served to unify language use in the entire region.
C) In order to rebel, the rebels had to develop a new language that could not be understood by the authorities.
D) Use of cell phones led cell phone manufacturers to create native language apps.

Question 58

Linguistic anthropologists have shown that languages are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Many argue that efforts should be made to preserve these endangered languages by documenting their lexicon and grammar. Why are anthropologists interested in preserving languages? Do you agree with these efforts? Why or why not? Which types of knowledge are embedded in language that might make them worthwhile to preserve? What are some of the techniques or strategies that have been used to either preserve or revitalize less-prominent languages? Discuss two examples where anthropologists have been involved in preserving endangered languages, and reflect on how information technology may be used in language revitalization.

Question 59

In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, signs posted in public view (such as for streets or restaurants) are required to show the words in French first, usually above English, and in larger type sizes. This reflects:

A) the language continuum.
B) that there are more French speakers in Canada than English speakers.
C) the use of political power to control language use.
D) an interest in welcoming both French and English speakers.

Question 60

Since almost 95 percent of the world's population has access to a cell phone, how can we say that there is a digital divide?

A) Access to computers and other technology is not as widespread.
B) Scholars have concluded that the digital divide does not exist.
C) Most cell phones do not allow access to the Internet.
D) Even people who use a cell phone do not know how to surf the Internet.

Question 61

The book mentions how recent uprisings like the Arab Spring relied on the proliferation of digital communication technologies. Based on what you read in the text, name and describe one opportunity and one challenge that innovations in communication technology might present for future social movements.

Question 62

According to your textbook, preserving endangered languages is an important goal of linguistic anthropologists. Discuss the potentially ambiguous role that information technology and the digital divide may play in language preservation. Using examples from the text, assess the potential benefits that may accrue as members of less-prominent languages gain access to community technology and cross over the "digital divide." Consider how the tendency of prominent languages to crowd out speakers of lesser-spoken languages may be accelerated with increased cultural contact and exposure to global languages. How is the digital divide related to issues of language extinction?