Anthropology Test 2

Which of the following is a feature of language?

1. uniquely human behavior 2. primary vehicle for transmitting culture 3. shaped by culture 4. helps to shape culture

Anthropoid

A Primate superfamily that includes monkeys, apes, and humans.

Gracile

A body of slender build.

Matrifocal unit

A cluster of individuals generally made up of related females.

Canine/premolar-3 shearing complex

A condition in which the lower first premolar tooth is somewhat sharpened or flattened from rubbing against the upper canine as the mouth closes.

Sexual dimorphism

A difference between the sexes of a species in body size or shape.

Hominidae

A family of primates that includes the Hominids, namely, humans and their ancestors.

Language

A system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar.

Australopithecines

A word that refers to the genus Australopithecus.

Nocturnal

Active during the nighttime.

People participate in globalization by

All of the above (consuming coca cola, watching tv, migrating to distant cities for work)

Postorbital constriction

An indentation of the sides of the cranium behind the eyes.

Diffusionists

Early twentieth-century Boasian anthropologists who held that cultural characteristics result from either internal historical dynamism or a spread (diffusion) of cultural attributes from other societies.

T/F: Languages change very slowly, taking generations or even centuries.

False

T/F: 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.

False

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

Linguistic relativity

Paleolithic

Literally "old stone," refers to a long epoch in human prehistory from about 2.5 mya to 10,000 years ago and roughly corresponds with the Pleistocene geological epoch.

Arboreal

Living in the trees.

How words fit together to make meaningful units is called:

Morphology

The study of grammatical categories, such as tense and word order, is called:

Morphology

World culture

Norms and values that extend across national boundaries.

Syntax

Pattern of word order used to form sentences and longer utterances in a language.

Animal call systems are:

Patterned forms of communication that express meaning. Can only communicate in response to real-world stimuli.

_____________ refers to the structure of speech sounds.

Phonology

Paleoanthropologists

Physical anthropologists and archaeologists who study the fossilized remains of ancient hominids to shed light on their biological and behavioral evolution.

Transnational

Relationships that extend beyond nation-state boundaries without assuming they cover the whole world.

Olduwan tools

Rocks that were modified to produce sharp flakes and edged choppers.

Altruism

Seemingly "selfless" acts that have a net loss of energy to the actor but a net gain in energy to the receiver.

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

Sign

Homologous

Similar due to shared ancestry.

Analogous

Similar in appearance or function, not the same due to shared ancestry.

Stops

Sounds that are formed by closing off and reopening the oral cavity so that it stops the flow of air through the mouth, such as the consonants p, b, t, d, k, and g.

Homininae

The African subfamily of the Family Hominidae, which includes humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas.

Ponginae

The Asian derived subfamily of Hominidae to which the Orangutan belongs.

Hominoid

The Primate superfamily Hominoidea that includes all of the apes and the humans.

Prehensile

The ability to grasp things, usually referring to hands or tails.

Philology

The comparative study of ancient texts and documents.

Genome

The complete set of an organism's DNA.

Anthropology of development

The field of study within anthropology concerned with understanding the cultural conditions for proper development or, alternatively, the negative impacts of development projects.

Strepsirrhini

The infraorder of primates including lemurs, galagos, and lorises.

Haplorrhini

The infraorder of primates including monkeys, apes, and humans.

Morphology

The structure of words and word formation in a language.

Sociolinguistics

The study of how sociocultural context and norms shape language use and the effects of language use on society.

Ethnoprimatology

The study of the interface between human and ape communities.

Descriptive linguistics

The systematic analysis and description of a language's sound system and grammar.

Phonology

The systematic pattern of sounds in a language, also known as the language's sound system.

Hominini

The tribe to which humans and our direct human ancestors belong, who are referred to as hominins.

Grooming

Touching another individual to remove dirt, insects, and debris, usually as a way for individuals to bond.

T/F: According to Edward Sapir, language is the symbolic guide to culture.

True

T/F: America's pattern of gender inequality is built into our linguistic practices.

True

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

True

Language ideology

Widespread assumptions that people make about the relative sophistication and status of particular dialects and languages.

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

a summarizing symbol

The major goal of "development" is

all of the above

World systems theory helped anthropologists

all of the above

A synonym for hybridization is

all of the above: syncretism friction creolization

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

call system

The theory that explains why cultural differences have not disappeared because cultural consciousness is increasingly bringing people together around cultural similarities is

clash of civilizations theory

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

cognate words

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

colonialism globalization migration (commerce)

The study of how people classify things in the world is called:

ethnoscience

________ are people who are expelled by the authorities of their home countries.

exiles

Globalization is exciting to anthropologists right now because they have never studied interconnectivity before.

false

T/F: Anthropologists are generally ignored by "development" experts at institutions like the World Bank.

false

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

false

T/F: Countries find it relatively easy to decide what language its citizens will speak.

false

T/F: People in the periphery responded passively to capitalist expansion.

false

T/F: When people consume the same clothes, food, and goods they eventually think and behave the same.

false

One of the main reasons localization interests anthropologists is that

global integration creates opportunity for local cultures to express themselves

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?

how the speakers of each dialect pronounce different words with similar meanings in the several dialects

Cultural _____________ occurs when influential nations of the West impose their products and beliefs on less powerful nations.

imperialism

The key scenario differs from other kinds of symbols because it

implies how people should act

Which of the following is not true about hybridization theories?

it explains why conflict is growing in the world

The research that anthropologist Karen Tranberg Hansen has done on secondhand clothing in Zambia is interesting because

it highlights how people impose local meanings on objects

A world systems theory is important for all of the following reasons except

it lends itself readily to ethnographic methodology

Ferdinand de Saussure made a distinction between the formal rules of language ______ and the ways people speak it _______.

langue/parole

The recent rise of autonomy movements among Hawaiian separatists and Zapatistas in Mexico are examples of

localization

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"

marginalize women voice in work context

Rapid increases in the scale and amount of communication

mean that people in remote places can be in contact with people all over the world

Talking about sports as a battlefield is an example of

metaphor

People who leave their homes to work for a time in other regions or countries are called

migrants

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

minimal

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

philology

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

pidgin language

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?

plots that are repeated in many of the programs that American viewers interpret as commonplace social experiment

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

position/social position/social status/status

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?

record how younger people, middle aged, and senior citizens pronounces ordinary american words

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

red

_______ are words or objects that stand for something else.

symbol

Koko and Washo were two primates who had learned:

the ability to produce a couple of thousand signs and even combine them into simple sentences. (American sign language)

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?

the density of the population in the several communities

A key feature of financial globalization is

the reduction or elimination of tariffs to promote trade

A central feature of cultural convergence theories is that

they explain the apparent decline of cultural diversity

James Ferguson, who is an anthropologist of development, argues that development exists

to expand state power

Often, anthropologists use the term ___________ rather than "globalization" to refer to the "global" circulation of goods and people.

transnational

A key marker of development anthropology's success is when local perspectives and voices are paid attention to in development projects.

true

T/F: Elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols work in opposite ways.

true

T/F: Localization is the flip side of globalization

true

T/F: The processes of capital accumulation and the expansion of European colonialism disrupted many societies.

true

The U.S. government's prohibition of Native American children speaking their indigenous languages in Indian schools has contributed most profoundly to

language death

The use of mock Spanish reinforces a common impression that Hispanic people are socially inferior. This is an example of the power of which of the following?

morphology

Anthropologists use _______________ to juxtapose phenomena that were once thought worlds apart.

multi-sited ethnography

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

parole

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?

symbolically, the size of the letters suggests the importance of the language

A key difference between anthropologists of development and development anthropologists is

the first are analysts of development; the second seek ways to influence it from within

Cultural differences are often caused by

the isolation of communities

Promoters of globalization highlight which of the following?

the more open a country is to foreign trade, the better the economy will be by standard measures

Globalization and localization are complementary dynamics.

true

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

true

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

we can speak using our larynx

Many arguments over global integration are about _____________, but anthropologists are just as interested in cultural nuances such as inequality, confrontation, domination, and resistance.

winners and losers

Proto-language

A hypothetical common ancestral language of two or more living languages.

Creole language

A language of mixed origin that has developed from a complex blending of two parent languages and that exists as a mother tongue for some part of the population.

Mya

A million years ago.

Pidgin language

A mixed language with a simplified grammar, typically borrowing its vocabulary from one language but its grammar from another.

Dispersal

A pattern of one sex leaving the group they were born into about the time of reproductive maturity.

Sagittal keel

A raised area in the mid-cranium.

Affiliation

A relationship between individuals who are frequently in close association based on tolerance, even friendliness.

Sagittal crest

A ridge running along the top of the cranium, usually representing increased bone area for the attachment of chewing muscles.

Strategy

A set of behaviors that has become prominent in a population as a result of natural selection.

Costs and Benefits

An analytical approach that considers the caloric cost of obtaining food and the calories obtained.

Multi-sited ethnography

An ethnographic research strategy of following connections, associations, and putative relationships from place to place.

Terrestrial

Living on the ground.

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

Parole

Call system

Patterned sounds or utterances that express meaning

Exiles

People who are expelled by the authorities of their home countries.

Immigrants

People who leave their countries with no expectation of ever returning.

Migrants

People who leave their homes to work for a time in other regions or countries.

Refugees

People who migrate because of political oppression or war, usually with legal permission to stay in a different country.

Hybridization

Persistent cultural mixing that has no predetermined direction or end point.

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

Sociolinguistics

Development anthropology

The application of anthropological knowledge and research methods to the practical aspects of shaping and implementing development projects.

Kin selection

The behavioral favoring of your close genetic relatives.

Megadontia

The characteristic of having large molar teeth relative to body size.

Localization

The creation and assertion of highly particular, often place-based identities and communities.

Hominine

The division (called a tribe) in the superfamily Hominoidea that includes humans and our recent ancestors.

Post-colonialism

The field that studies the cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism.

Pan

The genus of chimpanzees.

Macaca

The genus of macaque monkeys.

Linguistic relativity

The idea that people speaking different languages perceive or interpret the world differently because of differences in their languages

Biocultural evolution

The interaction of cultural capacity and biology to meet selective demands.

Foramen magnum

The opening at the base of the skull (cranium) where the spinal column enters and connects to the brain.

Cultural imperialism

The promotion of one culture over others, through formal policy or less formal means, like the spread of technology and material culture.

Dominance hierarchy

The ranking of access to desired resources by different individuals relative to one another.

Behavioral ecology

The study of behavior from ecological and evolutionary perspectives.

Ethnoscience

The study of how a people classify things in the world, usually by considering some range or set of meanings.

World Systems Theory

The theory that capitalism has expanded on the basis of unequal exchange throughout the world, creating a global market and a global division of labor, dividing the world between a dominant "core" and a dependent "periphery."

Bipedal locomotion

The use of two legs rather than four for movement.

Globalization

The widening scale of cross-cultural interactions caused by the rapid movement of money, people, goods, images, and ideas within nations and across national boundaries.

Cognate Words

Words in two languages that show the same systematic sound shifts as other words in the two languages, usually interpreted by linguists as evidence for a common linguistic ancestry.

The most important goal of the Congolese sapeur is to

accumulate prestige

Development anthropologists often think of themselves as

advocates of poor and marginalized people

Edward Sapir, who had been a student of Franz Boas's, saw himself as both a cultural anthropologist and a professionally trained linguist. He urged cultural anthropologists to pay close attention to language during field research because

all of the above

Which of the following are areas of social activity that globalization affects?

all of the above

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.

chimps and gorillas

Which of the following best describes the methodology of multi-sited ethnography?

comparative

Which of the following features are characteristic of language?

conventionality, productivity, and displacement

Financial globalization has allowed for

corporations to move factories from one country to another

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

creole

Franz Boas and his students were __________, emphasizing that cultural characteristics result from a spread of cultural attributes from one society to another.

diffusionists

Cultural ________________ often exist not in spite of but because of global interconnections.

diversity

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

elaborating symbol

The authors think that cultural diversity persists in the world because cultures have been isolated from each other for so long but that diversity is bound to disappear as cultures intermingle more.

false

Eric Wolf encouraged anthropologists to consider what in their field studies?

history