Quiz 4

Which of the following are true about English? - standardized spelling has remained constant - it used to have a rich case system - it used to have a 'free(r)' word order - the 'standard' variety spoken today preserves the best features

- it used to have a rich case system - it used to have a 'free(r)' word order

Which of the following does Ahearn maintain are present in the song "A Twisted Rope Binds My Waist" sung at the 1990 Tij festival in Nepal? - multifunctionality - definitive interpretation - polyphony - illocution

- multifunctionality - polyphony

Which of the following is/are not true of the concept of performance? - performances can have multifunctional qualities - 'emergence' occurs in and through performances - performances always have a single interpretation that needs to be identified - performances are interwoven with social aspects of power

- performances always have a single interpretation that needs to be identified

Which of the following changes have been observed in the history of the English language? - which forms are deemed 'proper' - word order - spelling - word meaning - word pronunciation - verb and noun inflection

- which forms are deemed 'proper' - word order - spelling - word meaning - word pronunciation - verb and noun inflection

Consider the following excerpt from a speech that President Barack Obama gave: Obama: Y'all know about okey-doke, right? [Pause] Crowd: Yeahhh! Yes! [Laughter] Obama: It's the same old stuff! Crowd: Yeahhh! This illustrates: - use of parallelism for rhetorical effect - a speech style that constructs a strong difference between speaker and audience - use of conscious, prescriptive rules - a 'call and response' style that enables interaction and audience participation

a 'call and response' style that enables interaction and audience participation

Which of the following statements is most accurate from a descriptive standpoint? - some dialects are more rule-governed than others - everyone speaks a dialect and everyone has an accent - everyone speaks a dialect, but only some people have an accent - people who are uneducated speak with an accent while people who are educated do not

everyone speaks a dialect and everyone has an accent

Descriptive approaches to language define grammaticality based on value judgements and social conventions regarding 'correct' usage - true - false

false

In language, two negatives equal a positive, which means that double negatives are ungrammatical: - true - false

false

In linguistic anthropology, the concept of performance gets at: - imperfect ways the abstract language system is put to use - the capacity of the abstract language system - how language use has an aesthetic dimension - ways in which utterances are referential

how language use has an aesthetic dimension

Judith Butler's conceptualization of performativity emphasizes: - how linguistic practices are a part of identity formation - how linguistic practices express traditional meaning - how linguistic practices index pre-existing, stable identities - how linguistic practices have universal meaning

how linguistic practices are a part of identity formation