Quiz 2

Understand how English speakers typically move their bodies when thinking about the future and the past. How do Aymara speakers move their bodies, and why do they do it differently than English speakers?

Depending on the language the past and the future represent forward and behind gestures for example English speakers move forward when talking about the future and move backwards when talking about the past, Aymara move in opposite direction

12 characteristics identified as aspects of cultures in general (they are identified in blue in the article) are identified as aspects of deaf culture.

1.) Distinct cuisine 2.) Distinct mode of dress 3.) Distinct religion/ethical framework 4.) Distinct scriptural tradition/history 5.) Distinct houses of worship*** 6. Distinct social customs*** 7.) Transmission from parents to children** 8.) Distinct folklore/literary tradition***** 9.) Distinct language*** 10.) Distinct social, sports, recreational institutions** 11.) Distinct schools*** 12.) Distinct geographical communities** Note that Deaf American culture fulfills only some, not all, of the criteria for a full-fledged culture—and the criteria that it does fulfill, primarily a distinct language and schools—are based on communication, not a distinctive religion, world view, or ethnic identity. Essentially, then, Deaf American culture fulfills four essential criteria: a distinct language, a distinct folkloric tradition (encompassing ASL storytelling, performing arts, and Deaf history), distinct social institutions, and distinct schools (all of which are ASL-based).

Approximately how many languages are spoken around the world?

7000

What differences were mentioned with regard to agentive and nonagentive language among English, Japanese, and Spanish speakers? Understand the results of the experiment where English, Spanish, and Japanese speakers watched videos of people popping balloons, breaking eggs, and spilling drinks.

All there were able to describe exactly who did what when it was international, but when it was not on English speakers describe who did what when it was and accident

Why do children who grow up speaking Hebrew as their native language "figure out their own gender about a year earlier" than kids who grow up speaking English or Finnish?

Because their gender marked is more prolifically in their language

Boroditsky notes that "in Kuuk Thaayorre cardinal directions are used at all scales." Understand what cardinal directions are, and how they are used in Pormpuraaw. Are cardinal directions ever used in English? What advantage does using a language that relies on cardinal directions give people?

English speakers use cardinal directions terms but only for large spatial scales. They have a better sense of direction at all times even in unfamiliar places

Deutscher discusses the following sentence: "I spent yesterday evening with a neighbor." What information do people speaking French and German have to include when they speak this sentence that speakers of English don't have to include? What information do people speaking English have to include if they are talking about dinner with a neighbor that people speaking Chinese do not have to include? Know that "languages like Spanish, French, German and Russian ... assign a male or female gender to a whole range of inanimate objects quite at whim," and that objects labeled as feminine in one language are often labeled as masculine in another. Understand how "in recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers towards objects around them." What were the results when Spanish and French speakers "were asked to assign human voices to various objects in a cartoon"?

French and German have to include the sex of the neighbor. English have to include timing of the event where Chinese does not. They assigned different sexes to the same object based on their language. ( fork in French is female)

Deutscher mentions that "if you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself." Why would you be mistaken? (What is he really doing?)

He is really pointing at a cardinal direction that is behind his back.

The author notes that "people who think differently about space are also likely to think differently about time." Understand the results of the tests where people were asked to arrange cards in correct temporal order.

Kuuk Thaayorre arrange cards from east to west

Deutscher mentions a story about a young boy in Bali who showed tremendous talent for dancing. What's his point in mentioning this story?

Language is tied into are surroundings and the direction of how we see and comprehend things, speak of space in different ways

What can the five-year-old girl in Pormpuraaw, Australia, do that almost all of the scientists in the lecture hall at Stanford University can't? How does Leva Boroditsky, the author of the article, explain the child's accomplishment?

She can identify which direction is North precisely and without hesitation. languages may impart different is cognitive skills

What happens when people are taught new color words?

Teaching people new color words, for instance, changes their ability to discriminate colors.

Understand the difference between egocentric coordinates and geographic directions.

The first uses egocentric coordinates, which depend on our own bodies: a left-right axis and a front-back axis orthogonal to it. The second system uses fixed geographic directions, which do not rotate with us wherever we turn.

The author of the article, Guy Deutscher, mentions Benjamin Lee Whorf's theory (usually referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), and notes that "Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes." What does the author of this article mention as "the most serious" mistake Whorf made?

The most serious one was to assume that our mother tongue constrains our minds and prevents us from being able to think certain thoughts.

How are colors viewed differently in different languages?

There are radical variations in the way languages carve up the spectrum of visible light; for example, green and blue are distinct colors in English but are considered shades of the same color in many languages. And it turns out that the colors that our language routinely obliges us to treat as distinct can refine our purely visual sensitivity to certain color differences in reality, so that our brains are trained to exaggerate the distance between shades of color if these have different names in our language.

Deutscher mentions that, using the Matses language of Peru, you "cannot simply say, as in English, 'An animal passed here'." What do you have to specify in a statement like that if you are using the Matses language? How would this requirement of specificity affect the answer to a question like "How many wives do you have?"

You have to specify, using a different verbal form, whether this was directly experienced (you saw the animal passing), inferred (you saw footprints), conjectured (animals generally pass there that time of day), hearsay or such.. So if, for instance, you ask a Matses man how many wives he has, unless he can actually see his wives at that very moment, he would have to answer in the past tense and would say something like "There were two last time I checked."

Deutscher notes that "speakers of geographic languages seem to have an almost-inhuman sense of orientation. Regardless of visibility conditions, regardless of whether they are in thick forest or on an open plain, whether outside or indoors or even in caves, whether stationary or moving, they have a spot-on sense of direction." How does this happen?

ability is comes from the language and not having it would mean not being able to communicate with the world around you So everyday communication in a geographic language provides the most intense imaginable drilling in geographic orientation This habit of constant awareness to the geographic direction is inculcated almost from infancy