Chapter 3. Language and Meaning

Ahmed and Sienna are chatting using an online messenger system to collaborate on a paper for class. After spending an hour discussing outlines and strategy, Sienna types " Maybe we've gone over this outline a few too many times at this point." Ahmed replies "Meaning you are tired and want to stop for thr night." Sienna replies "It's not that I am tired, I just think we need fresh eyes on it tomorrow." " I understand," he replies. " Let's call it a joint decision."

"Meaning you are tired and want to stop

Which of the following answers would you typically expect if you ran into an acquaintance on the train and asked him how he was?

"Well, my daughter's sick and I had to take her to the doctor before work and now this train is delayed and my boss is going to kill me..." "why do you ask?" "I am fine. How are you? "Awful. I have cancer."

Saying "I should have gone to the party" instead of "I should have went to the party" would be an example of avoiding

A GRAMMATICAL MISTAKE an outdated euphemism jargon slang

When paraphrasing , it is more important to... the meaning of the other person's message than to be brief.

CAPTURE dispute correct agree with

The personalized meaning of a word is formally called its

CONNOTATIVE

Which of the following are ways to be descriptive?

DEFINING TERMS CHECKING ON YOUR PERCEPTIONS offering personal judgments PARAPHRASING

A person cannot alter a word's .... meaninh with use, but may alter a word's .... meaning through personal circumstance,emotion, or intention in the moment

DENOTATIVE / CONNOTATIVE

Which of the following are among the advice the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages provides?

DEVELOP LANGUAGE PROCESSES INDEPENDENTLY BE AWARE OF LANGUAGE NUANCES USE YOR OWN LANGUAGE TO HELP focus on vocabulary first REALIZE THAT LANGUAGE LEARNING IS LONG-TERM KEEP LANGUAGE FUNCTIONAL reading should follow, after you've learned to listen and speak

Instead of telling your boss, "No worries, I'm gonna finish that project on time," you should probably tell your boss, "..., I'm ... finish that project....."

DON'T WORRY; I AM GOING TO; ON TIME don't worry; thinking to ; promptly no worries; going to; on time no worries; gonna ; promptly

Descriptiveness is the practice of offering personal reactions or judgments

False

Indexing can help

IN AVOIDING GENERALIZATIONS make stereotyping useful reveal the common features of two or more things

Which of the following are important characteristics of language?

IT HAS RULES IT IS ABSTRACT it is independent of culture IT IS ARBITRARY

A specific use of language that will be a help in effective communication is to understand and practice the difference between observation and ....

Inference

Rank the following from concrete (listed first) to abstract

Kind of Blue Miles Davis Bebop Modern Jazz Jazz

People need to hold the same symbol for a concept or object in order to share the.... of that concept or object

MEANING experience messages recollection

Which of the following is most likely to occur if you use the word "ain't" in a formal setting?

None of your listeners will notice that you spoke the word SOME LISTENERS WILL FORM A NEGATIVE IMPRESSION OF YOU most listeners wilk form a positive impression of you

If you say "To which museum would you likr to go this weekend?" in an informal setting, you may sound

OVERLY FORMAL informal and loose negative and cynical overly enthuasiastic

If you ask two persons to describe their respecrive families, and one person uses positive words and the other uses negative words, which of the following factors are most likely contributing to this difference in language?

PERSONAL HISTORIES level of education PAST RELATIONSHIPS outlook on humanity

Which of the following are types of language that communicate prejudice and excludes certain groups while favoring other groups?

RACIST profane HETEROSEXIST AGEIST SEXIST

To communicate effectively with another person, you need to ... that person

SHARE A COMMON UNDERSTANDING WITH have a dependent relationship with know the likes and dislikes of talk humorously with

Which of the following statements is an example of checking your perceptions?

The diswasher is too full Why is the dishwasher so full Why did you overfill the dischwasher IS THE DISHWASHER TOO FULL?

how do the sentences "Will I see you tomorrow?" and " I willl see you tomorrow" differ because of their word order

The subject of the sentences changed THE MEANING OF THE SENTENCES CHANGED The object of the sentences changed

Which of the following statements is an example of checking your perceptions?

This restaurant is so noisy Why is this restaurant so noisy? ISN'T THIS RESTAURANT NOISY? Why did you bring us to such a noisy restaurant?

Which of the following is an example of a syntactic rule?

Use three periods for an ellipsis PUT THE ADJECTIVR BEFORE THR NOUN start a sentencr with a capital letter use "i" before "e" except aftrr "c"

The statement, "The spear points were used to junt mammonths," made by an archaelogist would be an example of

a paraphrase indexing an observation AN INFERENCE

Which of the following is an example of a regionalism?

all together Y'ALL everybody everyone Hola!

Which of the following is the most likely meaning of the word "plate" if someone says it at a restaurant?

an item used in construction A BROAD, FLAT DISH a receptacle for collecting an offering a printing plate

A newspaper report that describes a crime suspect as a 40-year-old man with blond hair is an example of

avoiding sexist or racist language USING LANGUAGE FOR CLASSIFICATION a ladder of abstraction creating figures of speech

Inferences are... drawn from observations, while observations describe what is .....

conclusions; sensed

An operational definition is used to make an abstract concept

concrete

Language that is precise and specific rather than abstract or vague is called....language

concrete

Which of the following is a euphemism for someone who has died?

dead not alive DEPARTED deceased

The term "dating," in a communication context, means to.... when you made an observation.

decry deny SPECIFY confuse

To avoid confusion for your listeners, when you use new or unusual terms you should .... them

define

Thr two major communication codes are specific and arbitrary

false

If you are speaking to people outside your professional or academic group, you should... so that your listeners will undertand your meaning

first list all the jargon terms you thunk you might use AVOID USING JARGON speak any jargon slowly be especially careful to use jargon correctly

Rank the following from abstract (listed first) to concrete

food ethnic food Italian food pasta linguine

In .... evaluation, you do not allow your assessment of an idea, person, or a phenomenon to change over time

frozen

Culture encompasses the.... behavior patterns, beliefs, attitudes, and values of a particular period, class, community, or population

generally scorned leader-sanctioned best-studied SOCIALLY TRANSMITTED

Pragmatics focused on the .... of language

history sounds CONTEXT rules

A euphemism is a less-offensive... for a word or phrase

homonym acronym SYNONYM antonym

To avoid heterosexist laguange, you could correct the phrase "spouses are welcome" to " .... are welcome"

husbands PARTNERS boyfriends girlfriends

Semantics focuses on the .... of individual words

inflection spelling pronunciation MEANING

The use of the word "buffer" by a computer scientist when referring to temporary data storage is an example of a type of word called...

jargon

Highlight the instances of jargon Quan, an intern, prepares to participate in her first surgery under the watchful eye of the chief surgeon. "I was hoping my first procedure would be a laparotomy," says Quan. "I'm gonna ace this." The chief surgeon nods, saying "I have the utmost confidence in you. Let's get this ball rolling." Aftrr the successful surgery is completed, the chief surgeon says "Fantastic work, Quan. A modek midline incision. Keep this up, and you could be chairman of the medical board one day.

laparotomy/ midline incision

In the development of the study of the relationship between communication and gender, the idea of gender has been

largely ignored by researchers since the 1970s restricted to refer to only the biological sex of a person and nothing more EXPANDED TO REFER TO A COMPLEX SOCIAL CONSTRUCT replaced by the idea of individual autonomy

Critics of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis say that out..... shape our language, rather than our thoughts

opinions EXPERIENCES locations religions

Some forms of ..., or swear words, have a religious origin

profanity

A cliché is a term that has lost its originality and impact through

reuse OVERUSE abuse misuse

Which of the following is a cliché?

speechless TONGUE-TIED dumbfounded mute

Instead of telling your new father-in-law that the restaurant he chose for dinner was "wicked good," you should probably say the restaurant was"....."

sweet not so good VERY GOOD awesomely good

By using sexist or racist language, you make generalizations or stereotypes about people or groups

true

Language is composed of meanings that are

unclear perfect universal ARBITRARY (correct answer)

A "regionalism" is a word or phrase that is... a particular are of the country

unknown in unused in approved for use in SPECIFIC TO

Which of the following is a way to improve your language skills to make you a more effective communicator?

use jargon instead of defininf terms reduce confusion by avoiding dating and indexing BE DESCRIPTIVE IN YOUR USE OF LANGUAGE BY CHECKING YOUR PERCEPTIONS increase the use of vague and nonspecific language

An operational definition can be used to identify an object by describing

what it represents figuratively WHAT IT IS COMPOSED OF HOW IT IS MADE HOW IT WORKS

You would most likely use slang

with your boss at work when making a presentation to a potential client when speaking before an audience WITH YOUR FRIENDS