Anthropology Chapters 3 and 4
how many sounds do animal call systems have?
60 sounds
how is anthropology unique among other disciplines?
Anthropologist go into other cultures. Field work. There is good and bad.
what is the most stigmatized variant of American English?
Ebonics
as what are handshakes, kisses, and hugs classified?
Haptics. Ways we communicate by touch.
what individuals does the term "key informant" refer?
a primary person who gives the Anthropologist data about their culture
definition of post-modernism
a theoretical position in anthropology that focuses on issues of power and voice. Postmodernist suggest that anthropological accounts are partial truths reflecting the backgrounds, training, and social positions of their authors.
why did anthropology pay little attention to women before the 1970s?
because a lot of the societies were segregated. Most anthropologists were men. Anthropologists believe that men's activities were political and therefore important, whereas women's activities were domestic and less important. Men's activities were far more public than women's.
in which linguistic specialty are Scholars most interested in glottochronology?
comparative linguistics
what is the Hallmark of American anthropological fieldwork?
cultural relativism
what kind of language is an agglutinating language?
has a great number of morphemes per word.
how did anthropologist Greg Simon describe his fieldwork in Bukittinggi, Indonesia
he had conflicting feelings, was starting to be generalized and his reactions, but was quickly balanced again when he realized the good far outweighed the bad.
what is the human relations area files HR AF?
it is an attempt to facilitate cross-cultural analysis. It is an index to ethno- graphic reports and other sources on 710 numbered subject categories.
of what is the study of facial expressions apart?
kinesics
what parts of speech are found in all languages?
nouns
what does informed consent entail?
obtaining the informed consent entails ongoing and dynamic discussion with their Consultants about the nature of their study as well as the risks and benefits of participation of it. They also feel free to stop.
what concerns do anthropologists working for the military raise?
people began to see them as spies whose presence pre saged an American invasion.
what are the main subsystems of all languages?
phonology, a system of sounds, morphology a system for creating words from sounds, semantics A system that relates words to meanings, and syntax a system of rules for combining words into meaningful sentences
definition of displacement
the capacity of all human languages to describe things not happening in the present.
what is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
the hypothesis that perceptions and understandings of time, space, and matter are conditioned by the structure of a language. They argued that we perceive the world in different ways because we talked about the world in certain ways.
definition of conventionality?
the notion that, in human language, words are only arbitrarily or conventionally connected to the things for which they stand.
definition of morpheme
the smallest unit of language that has meaning...example: teach ER
definition of phoneme?
the smallest unit of sound that serves to distinguish between meanings of words within a language...example: then den
definition of lexicon?
the total stock of words in a language.
what problems do anthropologists studying their own culture face?
they must attempt to see their culture as an outsider might. Challenging because it is easy to take cultural knowledge for granted. It is difficult to take a neutral stance (child neglect, corporate greed, armed conflict for example).
definition of a Pidgin?
when societies where different languages are spoken meet, they often develop a new language that combines features of each of the original ones.