Anthropology Study Guide Test 2
Which of the following is a feature of language?
- Language consists of sounds organized into words according to grammar - language is used to communicate - language is systematic
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 - we understand the material world 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 - all of the above
- all of the above
Animal call systems are
- limited in what and how much they can communicate - Can only communicate in response to real-world stimuli - Animals can't talk but they communicate. They have a limited range of "calls" and so a limited range of topics to communicate about.
Anthropologist Sherry Ortner distinguished three kinds of culturally powerful symbols
- summarizing symbols - elaborating symbols - key scenarios
Which locations would you likely find an anthropologist doing fieldwork?
-A factory -A New York City neighborhood -A mental institution -The Amazon rain forest
One of the methods that archaeologists can use to determine potentially useful areas to excavate involves the use of
-Aerial surveys -Surface surveys -Regional surveys -GIS systems
Among cultural anthropologists, fieldwork involves
-Learning the local language -Becoming involved in people's lives -Spending a significant amount of time in the field
What kind of data do anthropologists gather from doing interviews?
-terms for biological species -details about court cases -life histories -opinions on upcoming elections
World systems theory would be most suited to which of the following research projects?
A historical study of indigenous resistance to colonialism
A believer in cultural imperialism would explain that people who watch American television in remote places like Walpiri camp in the Australian outback are
Being subjected to alien culture influences
People participate in globalization by
Consuming coca cola, watching tv, migrating to distant cities for work
When archaeologists recover and analyze ancient non-fossilized remains, such as the teeth found in Hoyo Negro, they are most likely to use
DNA analysis
This dating method depends on being able to count the tree rings, each of which represents a year
Dendrochronology
Which method would be best when doing a study on the genetic propensity for cancer in a given population?
Genealogical method
Which of the following is NOT true about hybridization theories?
It explains why conflict is growing in the world
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 and parole
Using life history interviews, researchers are able to
Reconstruct an informants life, including such topics as residence, occupation, marriage, family, and difficulties, usually collected to reveal patterns that cannot be observed today.
Cultural differences are often caused by
The isolation of communities
A commodity chain analysis applied to motorcars would be interested in all of the following except
The layout of the factory in which they are built
Promoters of globalization highlight which of the following?
The more open a country is to foreign trade the better the economy will be.
In a study on the Olympics a hybridization theorist would likely focus on
The unexpected social patterns that emerge from intermingling between athletes fans and officials from different countries
The linked elements that contribute to the manufacture of an object like a T-shirt is called _______
a commodity chain
The use of MtDNA sequencing and the establishment of haplogroups allowed researchers working on the Hoyo Negro project to establish
a high degree of overlap with current indigenous peoples
Talking about sports as a battlefield is an example of
a metaphor
Chronometric dating techniques used by archaeologists help establish
a more specific age for a fossil or something organic
Linguistics refer to mixed languages with a simplified grammar that people rarely learn as a mother tongue as
a pidgin language
Which project would likely require the assistance of a geomorphologist?
a study of landscape change
According to anthropologist Sherry Ortner's analysis, the American flag is an example of
a summarizing symbol
Research committed to making social change and improving the lives of marginalized people is called
action research
One of the methods that archaeologists can use to determine potentially useful areas to excavate involves the use of regional surveys GIS systems surface surveys aerial surveys all of the above
all of the above
Which of the following is a contributing factor to the development of creoles, pidgins, and other hybrid forms of language?
all of the above; globalization, migration, colonialism, commerce
signs
are words or objects that stand for something else
The set of sounds and movements that animals make to communicate is called a
call system
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 gorilla's
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
Early anthropologists used the ______________ method to establish models of social evolution.
comparative
Which of the following best describes the methodology of multi-suited ethnography?
comparative
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
Bronislaw Malinowski developed the ______________ method, which requires the researcher to live with people for years in order to develop the "native's point of view."
ethnographic
The study of how people classify things in the world is called
ethnoscience
Anthropologists are generally ignored by "development" experts at institutions like the World Bank
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
Countries find it relatively easy to decide what language its citizens will speak.
false
Globalization is exciting to anthropologists right now because they have never studied inter connectivity before
false
Languages change very slowly, taking generations or even centuries.
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
People in the periphery responded passively to capitalist expansion.
false
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
The only useful way that we can understand non-living human ancestors comes from the study of fossils.
false
True or False: Anthropologists believe that the "native point of view" is better than their own.
false
True or False: Cultural anthropologists use just three methods-interviews, field notes, and participant observation.
false
True or False: Cultural anthropology is one of the most quantitative of the social sciences.
false
True or False: In order to study culture one must travel to distant, far-off places.
false
When people consume the same clothes, food, and goods they eventually think and behave the same.
false
Which of the following is the defining methodology for the discipline of anthropology?
fieldwork
_______________ happens under special environmental conditions and can turn hard tissues into stone.
fossilization
One of the main reasons localization interests anthropologists is that
global integration for creates opportunity local cultures to express themselves
_______________ are important for an anthropologist to write down because they reflect his or her private observations, which can also be useful data.
headnotes
Eric Wolf encouraged anthropologists to consider what in their field studies?
history
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
Linguistic relativity is the
idea that people speaking different languages perceive the world differently.
Cultural ___ occurs when cultural and systemic power differences are ignored.
imperialism
Anthropologists often disguise the identity of their _______________.
informants
Which term refers to the knowledge about other people that emerges from relationships?
intersubjectivity
The research that Karen Tranberg Hansen has done on secondhand clothes in Zambia is interesting because
it highlights how people impose local meanings on objects
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 notions people have about the superiority of one dialect or language and the inferiority of others are
language ideology
_________ is the idea that people speaking different languages perceive the world differently.
linguistic relativity
The rise of autonomy movements in Hawai'ian separatists and the Zapatisitas in Mexico are both 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"
marginalizes women's voices in work contexts
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
Words that differ by only one single sound contrast, like in the case of "ban," "man," and "pan," are called _______ pairs.
minimal
How words fit together to make meaningful units is called
morphology
People around the world often think of development as undermining self-determination but will often accept it when it is _________
on their own terms
_______________ questions encourage informants to talk about what they find particularly meaningful.
open ended
The study of ancient plants as a means of reconstructing prehistoric environments is known as _______________.
paleoethnobotany
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
________________ is a key element of anthropological fieldwork because it is a systematic research strategy of "just hanging out."
participation observation
comparative study of ancient texts and documents
philology
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
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
The Law of Superposition says that
sedimentary layers are deposited in a time sequence with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on the top
The ability to document changes in pottery styles in non-living societies happens through
seriation
A stoplight is a visual example of which of the following?
sign
On the island of Java in Indonesia, nearly every sentence marks a person's ____________between speaker and listener.
social position
The study of how sociocultural norms and contexts shape language use in society is called
sociolinguistics
This relative dating method examines the layers of sedimentary or volcanic rock to establish correlation with geological events or processes
stratigraphy
Environmental changes make it essential that an archaeologist understands the proximal relationship of _______________ and habitation sites.
streambeds
If you wanted to have consistent responses, what kind of interview would you use?
survey interview
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 synonym for hybridization is
syncretism friction creolization
In order to be certain that a particular area holds promise for paleoanthropological research, what is first used to evaluate the site?
test pits
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 difference between anthropologists of development and development anthropologists is
the first are analysis of development , the second seek ways to influence it from within
If a development anthropologist were to get involved in a project in your city that is revitalizing a poor neighborhood, they would probably emphasize
the over reaching importance of listening to the priorities of the neighbors
A central feature of convergence theories is that
they explain the apparent decline of cultural diversity
A central feature of cultural convergence theories is that
they explain the apparent decline of cultural diversity
The Laetoli footprints are one of the most famous examples of
trace fossils
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
According to Edward Sapir, language is the symbolic guide to culture.
true
America's pattern of gender inequality is built into our linguistic practices.
true
Elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols work in opposite ways.
true
Globalization and localization are complementary dynamics
true
If the exact location of a fossil or archaeological artifact is not known it is usually impossible to determine an accurate date for it.
true
Localization is the flip side of globalization
true
Most people are unaware of the structure of a language until someone speaking it makes a mistake.
true
On the island of Java in Indonesia, nearly every sentence marks a person's social position between speaker and listener.
true
Studying pottery is an important part of understanding ancient cultures because potsherds break but never completely decompose under normal environmental conditions.
true
The process of capital accumulation and the expansion of European colonialism disrupted many societies
true
True or False: A critical reason for taking field notes is that there may be a long lag time between fieldwork and writing and publishing about it.
true
Carbon-14 dating is
useful for dating artifacts up to 60,000 years old
Which of the following is a feature of language?
verbal
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
