Anthropology chapter 5: Relating Language and Culture

Call system

Patterned sounds or utterances that express meaning.

_______ are words or objects that stand for something else.

a symbol

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

morphology

Proto-language

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

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.

Linguistic relativity

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

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.

Talking about sports as a battlefield is an example of

a metaphor

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

a pidgin language

Which of the following features are characteristic of language?

consists of sound organized into words according to grammar, used to communicate, and systemic

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

elaborating symbol

Languages change very slowly, taking generations or even centuries.

false

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

globalization, migration, colonialism, commerce

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

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

minimal pairs

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 experiences

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

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.

Pidgin language

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

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

a creole

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

call systems

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

cognate words

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

philology

Which of the following is a feature of language?

predictable phonological, morphological, and synthetic structures

Language ideology

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

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

false

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

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?

he would be looking for a proto-language to find a common ancestor

Anthropologist Sherry Ortner distinguished three kinds of culturally powerful symbols

key scenarios, summarizing symbols, and elaborating symbols

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

language death

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

linguistic relativity

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

we can speak using our larynx

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), we understand the material would through the language we speak, language is a guide to social reality the real world is to a large extent unconsciously built up from the language habits of a particular social group

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

position/ social position/social status/status

Philology

The comparative study of ancient texts and documents.

How words fit together to make meaningful units is called

morphology

According to Edward Sapir, language is the symbolic guide to culture.

true

Countries find it relatively easy to decide what language its citizens will speak.

false

The key scenario differs from other kinds of symbols because it

implies how people should act

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

langue

_____________ refers to the structure of speech sounds

phonology

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

sociolinguistics

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

summarizing symbol

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

true

America's pattern of gender inequality is built into our linguistic practices.

true

Elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols work in opposite ways.

true

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

true

Ethnoscience

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

Sociolinguistics

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

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.

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?

language ideology

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

langue, parole

Animal call systems are

patterned sounds or utterances that express meaning

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

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 several communities

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

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

sign

Language

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

Syntax

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

Koko and Washo were two primates who had learned

American Sign Language

Morphology

The structure of words and word formation in a language.

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

ethnoscience