Anthropology: Chapter 5 Review

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 suggest the importance of the language -The regulations themselves give French Canadians a feeling that they are as important as English speakers, even though they are in the minority -It is impossible to control what language ordinary Canadians use, but they can evaluate and distinguish the size if letters on signs

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

-The "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built from the language habits of a particular social group -Language is a guide to "social reality" -We understand the material world through the language we speak

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.

- Chimpanzees (Washo) -Gorilla (Koko)

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

-Colonialism -Globalization -Commerce -Migration

Anthropologist Sherry Ortner distinguished three kinds of culturally powerful symbols:

-Elaborating symbols -Key scenarios -Summarizing symbols

What are the features of language?

-It is used to communicate -It is systematic -It consists of sounds organized into words according to some sort of grammar

What features are characteristic of language?

-It is used to communicate -It is systematic -It consists of sounds organized into words according to some sort of grammar -Language is a system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar.

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

-Langue -Parole

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

A creole

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.

Pidgin language

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

A stoplight is a visual example of what?

A sign

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

A summarizing symbol

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

A summarizing symbol

Language

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

Koko and Washo were two primates who had learned:

American Sign Language

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

Call systems

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

Cognate words

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

Ethnoscience

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

False

True or False: Countries find it relatively easy to decide what language its citizens will speak.

False

True or False: Languages change very slowly, taking generations or even centuries.

False

True or 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 at the regular, patterned differences from one language to another (philology) and how they all came from a common ancestor (photo-language).

The key scenario differs from other kinds of symbols because it

Implies how people should act

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"

Involved the expectation that a woman's speech patterns should include such things as tag questions, intensifiers, hedge, or hesitation and the repetition go expressions.

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 (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

Talking about sports as a battlefield is an example of

Metaphor

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

Minimal pairs

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

Animal call systems are:

Only able to communicate in response to real-world stimuli

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

Parole

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

Parole

Syntax

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

Call system

Patterned sounds or utterances that express meaning.

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

Philology

_______________ refers to the structure of speech sounds.

Phonology

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

Pidgin languages

If you were conduction a symbolic analysis of TV programs and wanted to identify a key scenario such as the Horatio Alger myth, what would you focus on?

Plots that are repeated in many of the programs that American viewers interpret as commonplace social experiences.

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

Racist distinction between the superior Anglo-speaker and the inferior Mexican American (Racism)

If you were a linguistic anthropologist interested in language change in smaller American cities, building on William Labov's studies from the 1980's, what method would you use?

Record how younger people, middle-aged people, and senior citizens pronounce ordinary American words.

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

Red

_______________ are words or objects that stand for something else.

Signs (symbols are elaborations on signs)

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

Social status

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

Sociolinguistics

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.

Philology

The comparative study of ancient texts and documents.

Linguistic relativity

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

If Benjamin Whorf were trying to find further proof that grammar shapes the way people perceive the world, what would not be a focus of his research?

The in-depth analysis of the grammars of European languages.

Morphology

The structure of words and word formation in a language.

Ethnoscience

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

Sociolingustics

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.

True or False: According to Edward Sapir, language is the symbolic guide to culture.

True

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

True

True or False: America's pattern of gender inequality is built into our linguistic practices.

True

True or False: Elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols work in opposite ways.

True

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

True

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

When teaching primates ASL, it was determined that the cognitive ability to associate signs with concepts and then combine them in original ways.

Language ideology

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